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Operating Points Outdoors


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You are looking at the wrong page of the manual. Page 2 is for Slow motion turnout machines. The central locking drives are 2 wire solenoid turnout machines as shown on Page 3.

Jumper open as Mick said.

 

 

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  • 8 months later...
On 03/08/2010 at 09:59, IanR said:

I have had no problems with the Peco points themselves but before laying the you will need to attach bonding wires as shown on the photo. You cannot rely on the point blades to provide electrical contact outdoors, well not for very long anyway!
Also the points have an overcentre spring which is made from steel, this needs lubricating every so often to prevent it from rusting away, once again I use silicone grease, not the spray but the sort that is available in a tube. Vaseline may do the trick too.

ianr5.jpg

Bond wires on Peco Insulfrog point

I've never been shy about admitting it, for the first few years of Railway Modelling I just copied what Ian did. So I have done this to all my points. I've done it to points in my indoor layouts because...

The issues I now have is the the bonds to the point blade are failing. I'm not going to lift the points to re solder them, too much hassle. I've just lived with them being dead. But running old models with few pickups dead point blades became annoying.

Thinking about it I realised that I could clean up the stock-rail and blade sides to enable electrical conductivity again. I applied a little WD40 with a brush and gently scraped the sides with the point of a 1mm drill bit I had to hand. It worked a treat. Trains ran though noticeably smother, especially through ladder junctions where wheels can be on more than one point at a time.

Definitely worth doing if your points giving you trouble.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

For anyone needing a cheaper DCC Decoder to work with the CDL motors, in theory, a DCC Concepts AD1-HP should do the job. I’ve ordered up a CDL motor and will confirm once I get the chance to wire it up. I’ve got loads of AD1-HPs that I took off of Oak Road when I switched to Digikeijs so it would be daft not to use them. They have two outputs that are both + and - firing the opposite on Y / N, and above all, you can buy them for under a tenner! £6.50 if you look on eBay. 

Edited by scoobyra
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8 hours ago, scoobyra said:

For anyone needing a cheaper DCC Decoder to work with the CDL motors, in theory, a DCC Concepts AD1-HP should do the job. I’ve ordered up a CDL motor and will confirm once I get the chance to wire it up. I’ve got loads of AD1-HPs that I took off of Oak Road when I switched to Digikeijs so it would be daft not to use them. They have two outputs that are both + and - firing the opposite on Y / N, and above all, you can buy them for under a tenner! £6.50 if you look on eBay. 

The AD1-HP don't appear to have a discharge capacitor so I doubt they will work CDL off track power. May be OK with it's own 12v power supply.

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22 hours ago, chris said:

The AD1-HP don't appear to have a discharge capacitor so I doubt they will work CDL off track power. May be OK with it's own 12v power supply.

They are different to the normal AD1s. These are high powered ones - I’ve used them on other stuff requiring high power. I’ll let you know once it turns up 👍

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update as promised. 
The CDL unit arrived from eBay so last night I wired it up to the AD1-HP, and then realised it may work properly due to how the decoder operates. The AD1-HPs are effectively the circuit board from a Cobalt IP Digital, which is a stall motor, therefore it will continually drive a motor until it gets to the stop point. Anyway, I wired it up and it did work, to a point....where it threw the arm out but it then bounced back causing the command station to trip out. What I didn’t do was limit the travel and stop it bouncing back. I’ll give it another try and see what happens. It may also be that Chris was right in the fact that although the decoder can actually power the motor, it may be drawing too much current. I’ll soon find out. Back shortly. 

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  • 1 year later...

If you have a question, ask the men that know(?). As we are talking points would it be possible to use some sort of remote control system rather than rely on track feed or miles of wiring ? I am talking cheap and cheerful rather than degree level electronics here

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  • 9 months later...

In 2021 I got back into electronics. Micro-controllers have come a long way since I last used them 30 years ago. Now they are very cheap and fully programmable using some code and a USB lead. 

Basically put, you plug in inputs (switches, push buttons, sensors) and they then control outputs (LEDs, motors, relays). 

I added some infra red sensors to my Snicketway to enable some automatic running of the Trolley cars. I’ve replaced the Accessory Decoders and Seep point motors on my Tramway with Arduino’s and Servos. 

Aside from the fun of getting it to work, it’s cheap. DCC Accy Decoders workout at about £10 per point. Their replacement Arduino can get this down to £2. Servos are also cheap at a couple of quid. 

I’ve not motorised the points (turnouts) on the Paltyville Ridge and Peak Railroad. This year I will and I’ll be using Arduino’s and servos. The turnouts will be operated via iPhone or local push buttons.

The servos may need some waterproofing, but at the cost I won’t worry too much if I have to replace them from time to time.

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  • 1 month later...

I've been thinking about how to connect a servo to a point, outdoors. I still have a roll of PTFE tube from the car door lock motor installs and some stainless steel wire to go in it. What I've twigged on to is that the tube only has to be fixed in place firmly to work. The route it takes in between is irrelevant. This should enable me to place a servo under the baseboard and run the tube around the edge and on to the top.

I've designed a small tube terminator mount and my mate has 3D printed it for me. The test board works fine with the turnout moving gently from closed to thrown and back.

IMG_1774.thumb.jpg.78d98701300d4df555647719cf08e5c3.jpg

I've also developed a way of driving the servo from the DCC accessory commands. I won't go into details. I static tested it yesterday and it worked. I need to do some more field testing to check that it can still understand the DCC signals down the end of 10 meters of wire with trains generating electrical noise in the track bus.

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  • 1 year later...

Has anyone any experience of using angle cranks between point motor and point. I'm looking at using the MP1 point motor mounted in a box on the back side of the concrete block but this would give me a vertical movement that would need to convert to horizontal to move the tiebar.

There seem to be a couple of angle cranks "off the shelf."
GEM 1012 angle cranks (Mercontrol) seem to be out of stock, is GEM even in existence?
DCC concepts Cobalt angle cranks (for those with bottomless bank accounts)
Make my own.
 

Does anyone have any advice on how would I go about making my own please?

I was thinking I could use plastic servo arms with two of the arms cut off. I'd then just need a mount to go on the corner of the block. The MP1 motors are fairly strong so I don't think they'd need to be perfectly resistance free, just not seize up (I have plenty of oils and greases for cars and bikes.

Edited by Clay Mills Junction
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