Cumberland Station TTrak and Other Adventures

[wm3798]

It ain't done yet!

Meanwhile I went hunting for some battery boxes for my lighting.....  having come up empty at the craft shop and the hardware, I went to the toy aisle at Dollar General...


A few swipes of the Dremel and I'll have handy battery boxes to juice the accessories!

[Philip H]

It ain't done yet!

Meanwhile I went hunting for some battery boxes for my lighting.....  having come up empty at the craft shop and the hardware, I went to the toy aisle at Dollar General...


A few swipes of the Dremel and I'll have handy battery boxes to juice the accessories!

Now that's some creative cheapskate modeling right there.

[wm3798]

Plus I got two for the price of one!  I can put a separate switch on each module!

Lee

[DKS]

But... what about those poor radios??

(Shoulda said something--I could have given you a bag full of battery holders...)

[wm3798]

Poor is the operative word.  For $6 I got two battery harnesses, two on/off switches, and two momentary contact switches.  The rest is surplus.  The plastic can be recycled, and the circuit boards and speaker/mics can go into the junk bin for some as-yet-to-be-determined fate.
Perhaps I could wire them to a 9v wall wart (of which I have dozens) and make a clever intercom between some future layout control point and a dispatcher's office...

[davefoxx]

Maybe I missed it, but is there a reason why you didn't just hack into the DCC bus and power the lights without the complexity and cost of these battery packs?

DFF

[wm3798]

Maybe I missed it, but is there a reason why you didn't just hack into the DCC bus and power the lights without the complexity and cost of these battery packs?

DFF

Well, TTrak is wired for DC control in its basic design, but can be easily adapted to DCC depending on the controls available at the particular set up arrangement.  As such, there's no guarantee that the track power will be constant or variable.  While some TTrak clubs have an accessory bus, many do not, and there isn't a particular standard since not everyone would use it.  As such, I was encouraged to install a simple battery pack to power my lights, and that seemed like the simplest solution.

When I have the modules clicked in to my Retro layout, track power will be DC, so it makes sense for me to use a separate power supply for the lighting.  My plan is to install a DPDT switch that lets me alternate between the batteries when I travel with the display, and a 9v wall wart when it's installed at home.

Lee

[Point353]

Meanwhile I went hunting for some battery boxes for my lighting.....  having come up empty at the craft shop and the hardware, I went to the toy aisle at Dollar General...

Can you make it operate like the pilot controlled runway lighting at some small airports, which is activated by pulsing the microphone switch several times when set to a certain radio frequency?

[wm3798]

Sure... let me get out my slide rule and work on that...

[wm3798]

Working on some background buildings...


Lee

[wm3798]

A little more progress on Mechanic Street.

[randgust]

Really looking forward to seeing this at Altoona in August right?   Still the plan?

[wm3798]

Yes, that's the plan.  Question, does that rig run DCC or cab? Wondering which lokies to put in my kit bag...

[ChristianJDavis1]

Yes, that's the plan.  Question, does that rig run DCC or cab? Wondering which lokies to put in my kit bag...

I think there was both last year. I distinctly remember testing DC purchases on T-Trak.

[randgust]

The outer long main line on Dave's setup is usually set for DCC.   The inner main is subdivided into a bunch of isolated loops with independent trains on them.  Depending on which loop you're on, it may be either.  Last year the inner loop on my modules was running DC, year before that DCC.