Nice progress. Good training for the boy - I learned most of my problem solving skills from working with my dad on his model railway. Incidentally, you've reminded me that the points on that were run off a (probably post WW2 govt surplus or similar) 18V 10amp transformer that could throw at least ten points without the need for any CDUs, and that was using mainly H&M solenoids, which were about 4 times as chunky as Peco solenoids. With such high current, there was an inline safety button that had to be pressed at the same time as operating the lever frame switch with passing contact. Good to see that diode matrixes (matrices?) have not been entirely forgotten about with the advent of DCC.
Looking really impressive James, very envious of those long sidings! Good work on the electrics/control panel as well. Troubleshooting electrics is probably the most tedious part of the hobby and something I dread - hope you've managed to find the gremlins and all is working as it should!
I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting to get sidings as good as what I got, previous attempts at building a fiddle yard in that space ended with only about 9ft maximum. Still got to try a few bits to sort the issue but I’m getting there.
Great video and thanks for showing the successes and failures! Good to see your son helping, I'm trying to involve the grandchildren so will make the control panel appealing enough. Good luck and thanks for sharing this.
No problem, thanks for watching. I can’t get my boy out of the garage now so hopefully your control panel will have the same effect good luck with your build.
It does not hurt to put a little light oil on the seep motor shaft . I have found that resistance in the wire , has meant that every wire to the motors from their appointed switch , needs to be the same length. Whether the points are near or far . To overcome this without re wiring , I powered the CDU with 12 volt DC instead of 16 volt AC , as DC seems to have more "kick" . Regards . Paddy Owen .
I had same problem with peco points throwing one way but not the other, cause was points very slightly out of line probably 0 .5 to 1 mm diff. nice fiddle yard, thanks for sharing your skills and advice.. john
I have wondered if the alignment is off, the trouble with the seep motors is they are not very forgiving if that’s the case as trying to drill a new hole to attach is impossible as the the position of new is too close to the old 😬
I did look at that but it meant either the high side of the yard would only have the spur and 3 roads when running tail chase mode and the low have 7. The alternative would have been to rearrange the points, so I decided to stick with what I have. It’s not the end of the world but is a bit of an optical illusion and makes the boards look like they have a massive dip.
Points not throwing properly with Seep motors? I had the same problem with a few of my N gauge points not switching properly with Seeps and discovered it was the spring tension on the point blades that was causing the issue. I successfully resolved the problem by adjusting the spring tension (removing the spring, squeezing it slightly and refitting to the point). Glad to say the points are all working correctly now. PS. It's a bit of a fiddly job to do (trial and error), but cheaper than buying more stuff!
I did that to my OO9 points and it did help them so that’s not a bad shout. I’ll try giving them more wellie first and if that fails will look at adapting the spring.
