Thursday, February 02, 2006
First Train
A useful tip on Steve Jones‘ site is to install the DCC components on a drop board. This is a plank of wood attached between (in my case) the baseboard legs. The DCC modules are attached to the board which can be disconnected and removed as a whole when any work on it is necessary.
So I’ve wired up the first board to control the left hand (western) end of the layout - or at least the trackwork laid so far. I attached the dropper wires for a section of track, switched on the controller, popped a loco on the track and started my first loco moving.
Or not. Nothing happened. Ten minutes with a test meter left me looking at the wiring of the dropper board. Had I missed out a connection to the K wire from the command centre? A swift look at the manuals on the PC showed I had. (Why are the manuals supplied with the Lenz modules all in German? At least they have English versions on the website, an essential download).
So the missing wires where added and everything switched on again. Short circuit. Switching off and poking around with the test meter again showed that all the wiring was correct. It had to be something shorting on the track itself. There weren’t any tools or bits of bare wire left across the track. The dropper wires where all connected the right way around.
Then I switched one of the points. No short circuit. A quick drawing on a piece of paper showed why.
Now I knew that when you where wiring points you had to put an insulating joiner for each of the frog rails for a cross over, but I didn’t realise this also applied to passing loops. When the points at each end are set the same way (i.e. both for the same route) there’s no problem, but when the points are set for differing routes - BAM! Short circuit. If I’d have bothered to read the instructions with the points I’d have known this but I’m a man so, of course, I don’t do things like that.
Actually if I’d read the instructions I’d have also made lots of unnecessary breaks. They tell you that the outer rails of a passing loop also need to be broken, though for the life of me I can’t see why - at least for DCC. For DC they may indeed need that if you are using more than one controller, say one at each end of the loop, and you need to stop the controllers shorting each other out. But for a single controller setup it definitely feels like overkill.
But that’s enough digression. I’ve added the extra insulating joiners, connected a few more block sections and I can now run trains, at least on that end of the layout.
And now on to the other end of the layout. Or I will when I get more wire. In my mind ten metres of wire was a huge amount for such tiny trains. But it’s not hard to realise that that doesn’t go far when you’re running wires to and fro along an eight foot long board. So I’ll try again, this time with a hundred metre reel.