Program Track

[AllenB]

Is there a way to wire a programming track that is connected to your layout? I was thinking of having one spur in the yard dedicated as a programming track, but also be able to fire it up under DCC power to drive the locos off. If so how would it be wired? You'd have to power it with two wires under DCC AND power it under the Programming.

Allen

 

[grumpybob]

Allen,

You have to wire it through a DPDT Center off Toggle Switch. Label the switch on your panel with the side that provides the programming wires as Program so that you don't try to run an engine in and out of it while it is in that mode.

Bob

 

[Selector]

1. Gap that programming segment at both ends.

2. Drop a dedicated set of feeders to it so that they dangle under the layout and the upper ends are soldered to the rails.

3. Get an SPDT toggle switch.

4. Wrap the loose ends of the feeders to the center posts of the SPDT.

5. Your bus wires off the power unit/control module of your DCC system should initially be long enough only to reach where you are going to have your SPDT located...probably right under where the programming lead is.

6. Wrap those initial short bus wires around the same posts as the feeders.

7. Wrap the contoller ends of the rest of your bus feeding the rest of the layout around the end posts of the SPDT. Flipped one way, your whole layout is powered when the power is on. Flipped the other way, only the programming segments gets power and the programming DCC signals you need to get to the decoder being fiddled with.

-Crandell

 

[CSX Robert]

How you wire the program track depends on what command station you have. Crandell's solution will work with systems that do not have a separate program track output, such as Digitrax's Empire Builder and NCE's Power Cab, but not with systems that do have a separate program track output. If you do have separate program track outputs, then a DPDT switch will work(center terminals to the program track, one set of outside terminals to the program track output, the other set of outside terminals to the track bus), but it is risky. If you accidentally run an engine onto the program track while it is set to program, it will short the command station's program track outputs to it's main track outputs and can damage the command station. To guard against this you can use a 4PDT switch and a buffer track between the program track and the layout. Both rails of the buffer track are insulated from the program track and from the rest of the layout. You wire two poles of the switch just like you would with the DPDT switch. The other two poles are wired to the buffer track so that when the program track is switched to program, the buffer track is completely disconnected, and when the program track is switched to run, the buffer track is connected to the track bus. Here is an example.