Feather River Canyon in N-scale

[wm3798]

That's quite an undertaking...

[Cajonpassfan]

 Here you can see the booster buss that go to one of the 10 amp boosters I'm using. The run from the booster to the Keddie junction buss is about 50 feet, so I have them twisted.

Rodney you lost me; I thought you're not supposed to twist them much...? 
Otto

[rodsup9000]

Rodney you lost me; I thought you're not supposed to twist them much...? 
Otto

 In Allan Gartner's "wiring for dcc" , on the second page of track wiring, he says more twists is better for cross talk interference .

[davefoxx]

Rodney you lost me; I thought you're not supposed to twist them much...? 
Otto

We discussed this issue just over one year ago here on TRW.  There's some really good information in this thread:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=34452.0

Hope this helps,
DFF

[Cajonpassfan]

Ah, thanks for the refresher guys, appreciate that. I vaguely recall reading the thread before, but since my runs are under 40' in any direction, I just tuned it out after making decision to run buss lines in parallel (see pic). No issues I know of here with interference.
Otto

[rodsup9000]

That's quite an undertaking...

 Yes it is Lee,
 Once I have the mainline wired, I'll get to do one of the thing I really like to do, scenery. Oh yea, lots and lots and lots of trees.

We discussed this issue just over one year ago here on TRW.  There's some really good information in this thread:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=34452.0

Hope this helps,
DFF

 Dave, thanks for the link. I guess I missed it.

[rodsup9000]

 I was hoping to get the golden spike done this week when I was home, but still need to wire two blocks, wire the new Tortoise's and make the control panels for them. Did get enough done to have a complete loop on the whole layout.


 I've switch to using 3156 bulbs (Thank you Allan Gartner) so I don't have to solder leads on like I was doing on the 1156's.




 




 Arriving onto Keddie









 Headed for Williams Loop








 Williams Loop













 Where Clio Trestle will be








 Almost to Portola







 Portola









 
 Should have my mini camera by next week and I'll try to do a cab ride video. Shane (thebrakeman 17), Janson (Railfan Jason) and Erich (fighting 17 chicago), all have videos on youtube of the layout and they will be adding more every couple of weeks.


 I ordered 2 Octopus III from Tam Valley Depot and 20 servo's from the auction site. I'll be printing the mounts servos, so I can add limit switches to them to power the frogs.

[davefoxx]

It lives!!!  Wonderful!  I look forward to the video.

DFF

[Cajonpassfan]

Sweet! I'm in awe of your 60 car trains!
Great progress (I'm in awe of that as well).
Otto K.

[jagged ben]

Somehow this last post gave me a much better idea of what it's like to run the layout.   Very impressive.  I know some guys at the club who would absolutely drool over this.  Well, me too actually.

[superchief]

Looking great Rodney!!! I visited the area a couple of years ago, very neat area to model, looks like you captured all the good spots. I understand you are near Kansas City, hope to visit your layout during the convention. thanks, Gordon

[rodsup9000]

Sweet! I'm in awe of your 60 car trains!
Great progress (I'm in awe of that as well).
Otto K.

  Thanks
Progress has been slow the last couple of weeks


 

Somehow this last post gave me a much better idea of what it's like to run the layout.   Very impressive.  I know some guys at the club who would absolutely drool over this.  Well, me too actually.

  Thanks

Looking great Rodney!!! I visited the area a couple of years ago, very neat area to model, looks like you captured all the good spots. I understand you are near Kansas City, hope to visit your layout during the convention. thanks, Gordon

  Yes, I'm in Leavenworth Ks, and I'm about 35 minutes from downtown KC. Hope to see you then and make sure you tell me who you so I can put a face with the name.

[rodsup9000]

 NO golden spike yet... Trying to get all the control panels made and switch machine wired before we do the video.

 Here what the panels look like. I put these at all the sidings. When I get the fascia mounted, these will go in it. They made out of .050" aluminum and painted.












 I've also been working on lighting. I'm using 12 volt, 30 amp power supplies and I need to know how many amps each strip draws, so I got one of my old amp meters our and did some testing.


 One strip.







 Two strips






  Three strips







 So after this test, I'm figuring I can power about 15 to 18 strips and not over load the power supply.

[chuck geiger]

Keddie looks great.

[rodsup9000]

 Progress has really been slow lately. Still working on the control panels and hope to get them done this week. Hopefully get the golden spike video in a couple of weeks.

 When I started building the layout, I bought 4, 12 packs and a 6 pack of Tortoise switch machines and I'm just about out of them. Back when I bought them, a 12 pack cost me less than $100.  Now they are about $175 and I wanted to see what I could find something that would be just as good as them, only cheaper. I wanted to find a stall motor that I could use and build my own, but I have no idea what to look for and during searches, I found a few references using servos. I started looking into servos and found Tam Valley Depot's Octopus III servo driver that will drive 8 servos for $40. I'll be working on my own driver later that will cost me about $2 to build for each servo. Found a buy on 9g servos that cost me about $2 each when bought in 50 count quantity's.
 
 Here is what I have so far. I've made them so the throw is adjustable and for different angles.















  They'll have up to 2 contacts for a frog and what ever. I still have to draw up and print something to throw the limit switches and that is what I'm working on now. The cost of the limit switches is $.53 each.









 
 I'm also working on soldering 22 detector boards along with a bunch of signal driver boards.

Detector boards               http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/DccBODvt5.html

Signal Drivers                  http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/3LightSignals2012.html