Mounting Circuit Boards under the layout


MilwRoader_Steve

Well-Known Member
Greetings helpful collective wisdom minds!

Hopefully Friday, I will begin some more electrical work for my Uff Da Line HO layout. To that end I plan to:

-- Install and wire a PSX Electronic Circuit Breaker Board.
-- Wire up a 16 VDC 5A power supply for the electromagnet uncouplers.
-- Install and wire up a circuit board timer to give a monitored "on" time for the 16 VDC to the electromagnet coils, as per Larry Puckett "The DCC Guy."
-- install and wire up a buck board to drop from the 16 VDC to 12 VDC for the power supply to the timer boards and other to-be-added-later 12 VDC items.

Should be fun - - and vexing - - but needed.

So my question to your collective experience/wisdom is this: How do you mount Circuit boards under your layout?

Please help me with suggestions AND pictures if available for:

horizontal or vertical orientation?
Separate 'cabinet/drawer'
double-sided foam or screws
How much 'slack' for maintenance?
other that I have not thought of

Thanks as always!

Steve J
 
Get a piece of 3/8" plywood, using standoffs, mount your boards on that placing them with enough room for wiring..
Mount the board on the wall, not upside down so you can easily see whats what for servicing. ;) And don't forget some local lighting, short LED strips or some portable lighting hung so it lights up the panel.
 
I mount my circuits on pieces of pine at least 1x4's or larger and either hang them vertically or horizontally.

DCC Center.JPG
This is my power area for my DCC, Booster, lighting, switch machine and LED power all mounted on a piece of older pine board. Some items are mounted on the reverse side of the board. This board has been used on all four of my recent layouts.-Greg

New Turnout Wiring (2).jpg
Wiring mounted on a 2x4 pine board.-Greg

Signal wiring.jpg
Signal controls on a 1x4 pine board.-Greg

Greg
 
I have something big enough for my booster, breakers/auto reverser laptop (I use JMRI for operations and hopefully one day for control panel). Also should be enough room for antenna if I go wireless (fingers crossed).

I used small pieces of 5/32 cork to raise the boards slightly for air flow. I certainly don’t want to hi jack a thread so if anyone thinks this is a bad idea please let me know over in my “A Beginner’s Layout” thread in layout design and construction.

You might not want everything in one place but it works for me.

49F7CD91-2498-4D59-811C-467AFED359FC.jpeg
 
Hmmm ... .... a lower horizontal shelf for the boards and powersupplies. Hmmmm
I’m a beginner and open to constructive criticism but I said unequivocally in my post that any such replies should be posted elsewhere. I even specified where.

Please read posts completely and carefully before replying.

Your post was clearly in response to my reply and not to the original poster which would have been better.
 
I’m a beginner and open to constructive criticism but I said unequivocally in my post that any such replies should be posted elsewhere. I even specified where.

Please read posts completely and carefully before replying.

Your post was clearly in response to my reply and not to the original poster which would have been better.
This is a friendly forum. Try to behave.
 
No offense meant, and none taken. I ask your forgiveness, PMW

I want to apologize to you all but specifically to MilwRoader Steve. You certainly have no need to apologize to me. I misunderstood your post as implying my setup was not a good idea. If I had taken my own advise and read the whole post (including who wrote it) I probably wouldn't have made that mistake.

Sorry again for disrupting your thread. I will be more careful going forward.
 
I am at this same stage at the moment, so I am interested in these mounting ideas as well. I wrote on another forum,..

I had thought I would have a main control board like Dave's that would have both PSX and PSX-AR mounted on it and connected to their various buss wire respectively?



I have broken my layout into 7 power districts.
Idea is that if anything in another part of the layout shorts something, it doesn't stop the whole layout, only that segment. Each segment has a toggle switch to cut off power to that section. That way I can isolate each section for maintenance and trouble shooting.
Power.jpg

Dave Husman







And that main board would be centrally located on this vertical post at the trunk of my peninsula,..then the various buss lines (both main ones and reverse ones) would disperse out from that central board with the PSX & PSX-AR boards on it,...
image%2818%29.png



image%2819%29.png
 
I am at this same stage at the moment, so I am interested in these mounting ideas as well. I wrote on another forum,..

I had thought I would have a main control board like Dave's that would have both PSX and PSX-AR mounted on it and connected to their various buss wire respectively?
I like it - nice and neat and compact. My layout is much smaller. I will have only two power districts from one (Digitrax Zephyr) command station. I will have an auto-reverser loop. So I separated my PSXs and will mount one under each power district. I have a 9 foot x 28 bit anchored to the wall, and a free standing 4x8 table bolted to it. Theoretically, I want to be able to separate and take down the table. In case we ever need to replace the carpet underneath or something. So the wall mounted benchwork will be one power district and the table the other plus the reverse loop.

But I will have Circuit board timers for each of the four electromagnet uncouplers. So those boards need mounting. Then I have some buck boards to drop voltage as needed. And who knows what else? I was going to use Tam Valley Depot Octopus III servo controllers, but they are no longer available and I worry that they might not be supported if trouble arises.

Right now I am thinking about the control panel which eventually will have switches for each of the eleven turnout motors, and the pushbuttons for the two EM uncouplers. I already mounted the on-off switches for the roundhouse tracks so I can shut off locos.

So much to think about and plan. Thanks again for sharing - - - - - Steve J
 
My electrical set up is pretty simple, for right now it's power to the track, and every thing else is manually operated.
I have one reverser, upper left, two terminal blocks, one for each power lead, and three circuit breakers. all mounted underneath the bench work, close to the power source, (just out of the picture at lower left.) This is powering an around the room with peninsula layout in a 12X20 room.
IMG_2349.JPG
 
Here's mine. This is the central bay on the bottom of my small N-scale layout. The whole layout is hinged so it can tilt up, and I can work on the wiring without crawling around under the layout. The wiring is carefully color-coded so despite not looking real neat, it's easy to work on.

Wiring_1_labels.jpg


Here's an old photo of the layout tilted upward on its hinges, before any of the circuit boards were installed.

hinged_top1_big.jpg


- Jeff
 



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