Appalachian Southern

I have good news to report this morning. The wiring in the yard is complete and all the tortoises and DS64 stationary decoders are functional. Even though it seemed the wiring would never end, it concluded this morning. It makes me very happy to be able to move on to something else now.  I was like a kid running the CSX GP38-2 this morning. I even got a little adventurous and pulled MTLX 1048 through the turnouts. I was thrilled to find no problems with the track work!  I haven’t soldered my rail joints yet, but that can happen any time now.

I have attached some photos of the completed wiring and the first locomotive and the MTLX unit.  Overall, I think my background painting is going to work out well. I didn’t have to edit the photo at all.

CSX 2733 GP38-2 & MTLX 1048

Finished Wiring Switches 9, 10, 11

Finished Wiring Switches 5,6,7,8

Last night I wired my first Digitrax DS64 / Tortoise combination. Nothing really spectacular about it, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

Digitrax DS64 / Tortoise Wiring

The first thing you need to do is test the operation once you have it all hooked up.  When testing, you need to see if you got lucky with the polarity on the frog and you need to see if the switch is moving the right way when compared with the command you are giving on the DCC system. Just make sure the thrown command gives a thrown condition and closed gives a closed condition. Use a volt meter to test the two conditions on the switch itself. Measure between the frog and the appropriate rail to make sure you see your DCC track voltage on the selected route. If you see zero on the meter, you have the wires on pins 2 and 3 of the tortoise reversed. Simple enough to reverse them. I had to do the same.

A DS64 should be powered with the AX power inputs and a 12V DC supply, but this is just a temporary setup with rail A and B power.  Nothing wrong with this setup, but with multiple DS64s running on rail power, you will reduce the operating capacity of your layout.

I was happy to get the first one working without too much difficulty. I was also able to get my UR91 module installed last night and operate the switch wirlessly from the DCC throttle. That was cool.

All this isn’t as fun as running trains, but all neccesary steps to a functional DCC layout. All the good fun will come soon.  Here are a couple more pictures of the night’s accomplishments.

One Turnout Controller Wired and Functional

UR91 Radio Receiver Installed

I don’t want to come across as a “how-to” writer. I am just sharing with you guys the discovery process I went through when figuring all of this stuff out. I am not proclaiming to be a DCC expert.  See you all tomorrow for the Friday post.

Yes, I am using Tortoise switch machines by Circuitron to control my turnouts. I was somewhat worried that I would have trouble getting them to work through 3.75″ of stuff on top of my benchwork (3/4″ plywood, and 3″ of foam sheathing). But, they work great. It just takes a little more time to adjust them properly and you might want to consider using .039 control wire. Besides, the .025 wire that comes with the Tortoise switch machine is way to short for my application anyway.

Here you can see a couple of the tortoise switch machines mounted below the benchwork. In this yard I have been working on, there are 11 turnouts and a matching number of switch machines. It took me a few days to get these all installed and working, but I should have years of trouble free operation. These things are rock solid.

Now, controlling these from DCC becomes a whole other issue. There are several choices to make and in a future post I will detail how I am going to do it.