10 Dec 2012
MicroSwitches
I have a small number of SEEP point motors. I prefer to use tortoise for the majority, but there are some locations where space is at a premium and the much smaller SEEP seemed to be the answer.
Alhough I bought SEEPs with built in polarity switching - I didn't find it reliable, so I bought some microswitches and placed the reed part of the microswitch so it would be moved by the bottom part of the actuating rod that moves the point.
Whilst this sorted the polarity swtiching problems - in practice I just couldn't make the SEEPs reliably reliable - too often they would not throw. On advice from Laurence at CML I upped the voltage of the SEEP feeds - but whilst an improvement still didn't give me the reliability of switching that I want. Therefore all bar one have been binned and fiddly work has been done to put tortoises in their place.
The picture below shows one of the microswitches I used...
9 Dec 2012
North End Of Fiddle Yard Electrics
I have now just about completed the under circuit wiring for the North End of the Fiddle Yard (actually it is only North by orientation of the room - on the modelled location it would be the South end) - Becuase I am so incapable of working upside down these days I made the board with track breaks at both ends so that it could be lifted up later - although the overpass track will need to be removed.
The electrics have taken a long time, as there are something like 35 different track feeds to the yard (in order to get occupancy information) as well as 14 points that each need polarity switching for electrofrog and point motors connecting up.
You don't actually have to do polarity switching as the points do it internally these days but the mechanism is not the most robust so I use prefer to do motor contolled polarity switching.
Because some occupancy sections cross the board break I have to do some cross wiring to the South side and vice versa which adds some complexity. As ever I am fighting to keep it neat.
Still at least it all seems to work.
8 Dec 2012
Fiddle Yard fairly Complete
I am just about done with it now - here are some pictures. The grey blocks are the supports for the reversing loop overpass that I can't complete until I have built the baseboards along the adjacent wall - as they contain some supports for it.
Making the supports exactly the right height and to a very odd cross section has been hard - eventually I glued three pieces of 24mm ply toegther and that is about right.
