I took the day off work today, but it's OK: I turned in a vacation day request last Friday like I'm supposed to. Things are a bit slow out there anyway.
Let's start with a game of "What Is It?"
Hint: It has to do with Tortoise switch machines. OK, enough suspense. I'll show you the other side:
Yup. It's my drilling template for Tortoise switch machines. I'm going to be using 5/16" holes for the throwbar rod, so after gluing the paper template from the instruction sheet included with each Tortoise onto a piece of 5mm lite plywood, I drilled a 5/16" hole through the large hole in the template, and 3/32" holes through the screw hole marks. I cut a piece of 5/16" dowel to the length I wanted, and drew a line on each end. I took care to make sure that the line on one end was exactly parallel with the line on the other end. I then glued the dowel into the template making sure that the line was parallel to the arrow on the template. To use it, I push it through the hole I drill for the throwbar rod. I line up the line on the dowel parallel with the track center line, thus ensuring that the template is properly aligned down below. I use a small steel awl to mark the screw holes, remove the template and drill the holes with a 3/32" drill. I use #4 x 3/4" Phillips pan head sheet metal screws to mount the Tortoise. In the above pic you can see two of them in their holes to the right of the template. I saw this idea on a YouTube video, and it works great! If you use a different size hole for your throwbar rod, just drill the hole in the template for the size hole you're using. The friction of the table-top and roadbed will hold the template in place, but allow it to be easily adjusted and removed.
The plywood piece that the template is up against is the patch I made the other day. I do not solder wires directly to the Tortoise. I much prefer to use edge connectors. (
https://www.ebay.com/itm/6-PK-Card-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 IMPORTANT NOTE: Circuitron has changed suppliers of their circuit boards, and edge connector that will fit the "old" Tortoises with the tan circuit boards, which is what these are, will not fit the newer ones with the new circuit boards. Make sure of what you have and what you need before ordering edge connectors! )
There are two reasons why I prefer edge connectors. (1) Repeated soldering and unsoldering wires from the circuit boards can eventually result in the metallic strips coming loose from the circuit board. Not good. (2) I prefer to be able to do my soldering at the workbench, not under the layout. Yes, you can remove the Tortoise and take it to the workbench, but I'd rather leave it in place unless absolutely necessary to remove it. You may see it otherwise, but that's my story and I'm stuck with it.
Try as I might to get the double crossover to work properly with two Tortoises and bell-crank linkage, one of the 4 turnouts just would not play nicely! The other three did exactly what they were supposed to do, but one just would not!
It wasn't the turnout itself, but I think one arm of one of the bell-cranks was a bit weaker than the others, and it just would not move the throwbar rod like the other 3 were. The system worked flawlessly when I bench tested it, but when I got it installed under the layout, I think the leverage required was just too much for that one bell-crank. I have 4 each of the Tortoise remote mounts and the linkage kits to enable one Tortoise to throw two turnouts, but those are rather fiddly to install and adjust. Besides, I have some other places on the layout where they will be needed worse. So I decided to use 1 Tortoise for each turnout on the double crossover, for a total of 4. I got two of them mounted, but the ones I drilled the holes for in the previous pics need to wait until I can get the edge connector made for the Tortoise closest to the side of the layout (the one the two screws are for) because I will have to mount that Tortoise with the edge connector installed. Not enough clearance under the Tortoise to install it after the fact. It doesn't take too long to make up an edge connector, though.
I did get the two Tortoises mounted under the other end of the double crossover, though. One of them got mounted just a bit off kilter, but it still seems to work just fine. It's the one with the edge connector on it. The Tortoise to the far right is not part of the double crossover. That controls a Peco Electrofrog turnout which goes to an industrial area.
The terminal block will be connected to the main power bus. It is a 10 position bus, and I have wound a piece of bare 18 gauge wire around the top row of terminals, connecting 5 positions on each side together. I do not yet have it connected to the main power bus, however. The red and white 18 gauge solid wires attached to the top terminals go to the Peco turnout. The 18 gauge stranded wires on the bottom go to the internal switches on the Tortoises to power the frogs. The 18 gauge green stranded wire goes to the frog. The one for the Peco turnout is connected. I am using bullet connectors for the frogs so I can disconnect them if needed. I am really trying to avoid the situation where an electrical component must be literally cut out the system to fix or replace it. The black and yellow wires run to terminal blocks on the other side of the benchwork.
It looks more complicated than it actually is. Just as I did on the terminal block for the main bus, I have jumpered the top row of terminals, 1/2 for positive, 1/2 for negative, except for the terminal block in the upper right. Starting with the terminal block on the bottom, on the top row in position 1 is a 12 gauge stranded wire which is +12 volts DC. Position 4 is a 12 gauge stranded wire for ground. This terminal block supplies power for the DPDT switches which control the turnouts. The power wires go through the hole to the control panel and are wired to the switches. The wires out from the switches come back out the hole, and those for the double crossover go to the block on the left, while those for the other two Tortoises that will be in this area go to the block on the right. When I was trying to get the double crossover to work with just two Tortoises, I had the wires for those going to the block on the right as well. I didn't install the block on the left until I decided to go with 4 Tortoises. I can run all the positives to one side and all the negatives to the other, and switch wires around until I get everything working right. If I do have to move a wire, I'll wrap colored electrical tape around the spade connector to indicate where it has to go, as I did with the two bottom wires on the right block. That block will be replaced with 4 position block, it doesn't need 6 positions anymore.
Like I said, it looks a lot more complicated that it actually is. I need to get some more nylon wire loops to secure the wires up out of the way.
This is the control panel for this area. There are 3 DPDT switches to control things. The top center switch is for the double crossover, the bottom right is the Peco turnout for the industrial area, and the one on the bottom left is for the turnout coming from the passenger station. Each turnout has two LED's, one green and one red. The green indicates that the turnout is thrown for the through route, and red indicates it is thrown for the diverging route. The switch handle in the down position will be for the through route. This will be a rule on my entire layout, that way there will be no confusion (yeah,
riiiiiiiight!).
I have since gotten some 5 mm bi-color LED's, so future panels will only have 1 LED per turnout. 2 per turnout is a pain to wire! The panel was made with Microsoft Paint and printed on regular printer paper. I bought some Fellowes self adhesive sheets and "laminated" the panel. I made a frame for it and mounted it with some hinges I bought at Menards. I don't think it came out too bad for a first attempt.
Gotta wrap this up now. Take care, all!