Seaboard Central 2.0

[MichaelWinicki]

Good choice Dave!

I highly recommend Hex Frog Juicers.  Very easy to use.

I've got several installed throughout the benchwork but only wire them up when I have a switch that is flunky.

At this point only about 6 of my switches are actually attached to Juicers... All the others work just fine without the need to power the frogs.

Very good point about the other big advantage of using the Juicers (other than the simplified wiring) and that's the elimination of a short due the points being thrown in the wrong direction. 

[davefoxx]

You're right Michael.  I installed my first Hex Frog Juicer tonight and wired up the first frog in a turnout that had started causing locomotive stalling.  It was very easy to install.  It's even easier to use, because it's automatic at adjusting polarity.  All it took was the connection of one wire to the turnout, which you can see soldered to the contact on the side of the turnout.  I'll touch up the paint before ballasting to help hide it, in case it's visible through the ballast:


Here's how I placed the Hex Frog Juicer under the layout.  I screwed it to the HCD between the 1" x 4"s that I used to secure the table legs.  This way, the Juicer is sitting in a recess and protected.  The most time-consuming part of the installation was self-inflicted, as I am running all wires inside the HCD to protect them from being snagged later.  It's a bit of a challenge to fish the wires through the cardboard reinforcement inside the door, but not impossible.  Now that I have the buss wires run to the Hex Frog Juicer, I can hook up five more frogs by merely connecting one wire between the Juicer and each frog.  Easy.


The powered frog on this turnout is working beautifully.  No more stalling.  I have to admit it's somewhat enjoyable watching the LEDs on the Juicer switch when it corrects the polarity.  That's the only way to tell that it's working, because the effect on the locomotive is imperceptible.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Testing the installed Hex Frog Juicer.  No hesitation or light flicker on the turnouts modified, even if a locomotive is rolling along slowly.  Sweet.  Three turnouts down; fourteen to go.

DFF

[seusscaboose]

so...

lurking in the background...

if i understand this right...

1 unit...  2 wires in (rail A/rail B) and then one wire from the frog to the unit
added value = up to 6 frogs can be powered of one unit.

am i correct?

 

[davefoxx]

That's exactly right.  I just ran a set of dedicated buss wires to the Juicer and then one wire goes to each frog.  Yes, each Hex Frog Juicer will handle up to six turnouts.  So, I bought three Juicers to power the seventeen turnouts on my layout.  They're not cheap, but they work well.  I like that the polarity issue is dealt with separately from the mechanism that throws the points (slide switches in my case), because if I have a slide switch go bad (paint, ballast, glue, etc.), I don't have to replace/fix the electrical connections.  If, for example, someone comes up with a better mouse trap to control the points of Atlas Code 55 turnouts, I won't have to rewire my turnouts.

Obviously, if you have motorized switch machines, you can wire the frog through them.  But, my turnouts are manually thrown.  Also, Hex Frog Juicers can also be used for crossings and other special trackage.  Once installed, they operate themselves.

DFF

[seusscaboose]

gotcha thanks

[davefoxx]

Besides wiring up the frogs on most of my Atlas Code 55 turnouts, I started experimenting with my third attempt at building the roads for the Seaboard Central.  Per Chris333's recommendation, I am using 0.060"black styrene.  Here, you can see the wood crossing I built and the first piece of road section roughed in. 



I stained the crossties that I used for the crossing before painting the track "grimy black."  To finish the wood crossing, I plan to sand some of the black to let the stained wood show through (but not much to leave a creosoted look) and drybrush some gray to give it that bleached look.  The next piece of road won't be so much fun, but I have to build another wood crossing before I can fit that piece.

While waiting for paint to dry, I pulled up and slightly moved a siding in Aberdeen.  I also removed the cork and allowed the track to drop to what will be the ground level of the town.  The real A&R has some tracks in town that are practically buried and only the rails stick up above the grass.  By moving this track away from the yard and burying it (or at least making it much less maintained looking), I am hoping that this will make Aberdeen look slightly less spaghetti bowlish.



Happy Labor Day!
DFF

[davefoxx]

A question about cassettes (portable staging):

What suggestions do you all have for building and connecting cassettes to an existing HCD layout that would allow for better operations on the layout from added capacity/interchanges/staging?  Right now, I have 1/4" Masonite fascia, and I am uncertain how to get a good connection without permanently damaging the fascia.  I also would be interested in suggestions for how to support the other end of a three or four foot long cassette.  My thoughts are to add extensions to the A&R line near the trestle and another (possibly double tracked) to the SBD mainline in the yard in Aberdeen.

I'm interested in this as a short term solution to a planned expansion that must wait for multiple reasons, not least of which is the availability of Atlas Code 55 track.

Thanks,
DFF

[DKS]

I think I might try this: assemble a "T"-shaped girder from dimensional lumber (1 x 4s ought to do the trick). Then, install two blind bolts at the edge of the layout, were it's reinforced. The blind bolts are threaded like a bolt on one end, and like a screw on the other; drive the screw part into the wood, and now you have bolts sticking out. (The idea here is to avoid doing anything to the visible side of the door.)

Drill a pair of matching holes in the T girder, and attach this to the layout with wing nuts and washers. At the inner end of the T, install a plain wood screw just to keep the T properly oriented (not for support, which would not be practical given there is nothing behind the thin veneer out in the middle of the door). Now you have a removable cantilevered support for the cassette that ought to be good and sturdy.

Install carriage bolts in the cassette, and attach it to the T girder with wing nuts. This should create a solid connection to the layout that will not require modification of the fascia. Note that the cassette will require spacers of some sort to bring its surface up even with the roadbed on the layout.

Sort of like this (illustration not to scale, cassette spacers omitted for clarity)--

[Chris333]

If you are worried about the fascia's paint I would try bookshelf paint. I have never used it, but they make special paint that I guess has more hardener in it. So like if you paint a bookshelf and a week later the paint is still soft, you put a book on it and it sticks, this paint stops that and would keep the paint from peeling away.

Remember Leo who did all of those videos... he used this paint on the end of his modules so they wouldn't stick together at the joints.

[davefoxx]

DKS,

Thanks for the illustration.  Now I see what you mean about the cantilever.  My fascia hangs down about 1 1/2" below the bottom of the HCD, but I don't see any problem with building that up with two 1"x 4" pieces to get under the fascia.  Your solution appears to resolve my problem almost perfectly.  I might even try to build the cassettes so that they are all the same to allow me to swap cars between the layout or even the interchanges.  I can easily add three cassettes: one each for the SBD, Southern, and the A&R.

Now, I just have to find some track, although I could just suck it up and use Code 80 on the cassettes.

Thanks again,
DFF

[davefoxx]

Chris,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I never heard of bookshelf paint, but I can certainly appreciate its need.  On my layout, I'm not too concerned about the paint on the fascia.  In fact, I have purposefully left it one top coat short until I finish the heavy construction and scenery.  Fascia paint is easy to fix.  I don't even really mind a small hole here or there, if necessary.  I just didn't want to have to go cutting into it.  My plan when I build the planned expansion is to leave the fascia completely around this first HCD, so it can remain a stand-alone layout, if I do ever try to take it to a show or space constraints require me to cut back to the original layout.

Thanks,
DFF

[davefoxx]

In anticipation of building a cassette, per DKS' specs, to add some length to the SBD mainline (even if just for a few locomotives to run around a cut of cars), I rebuilt the trackage around the end of the yard in Aberdeen.  This arrangement eliminated one turnout (yay!) and looks a little less model railroady with the elimination of those parallel crossovers.  This basically turns the third yard track from the left into a longer passing siding/runaround track.

Here's before:


Here's after:


I also have been piddling with the road.  I have two railroad crossings built and two pieces of road installed.  The large piece is just roughed in while I figure out where structures, sidewalks, and parking spaces will go.



DFF

[davefoxx]

After looking at the scraps of material that I had lying around, this is what I came up with for the cassette that extends the SBD mainline and allows a run around from both the SBD mainline and the A&R mainline through a crossover.



I used a piece of 1" x 3" pine as the subroadbed and added 1/4" Masonite as the fascia that also acts as a web to provide support to the 1" x 3".  Although I really liked DKS' design, I figured I would still have to put a couple of screws through the existing fascia for support.  So, I decided to just simplify the design and merely anchored the cassette into the HCD on the layout with four screws through the fascia.  Yes, I put holes in the existing fascia, but they'll be cake to fill and touch up the paint if I ever decide to remove the cassette.  I had intially planned to have the cassette be easily removable, but I settled on a more permanent design for strength.  The cassette seems relatively solid with minimal sag, but, obviously, I wouldn't want to hang off of it.  I'll just have to remember to walk wide around that end of the layout, so I don't walk into the cassette and do some damage to the layout with a scale 9.0 earthquake.  I plan to patch the screw holes in the cassette with wood filler and paint the cassette the same color as the existing fascia.



DFF

[mcjaco]

I worked at a local paint store chain through college....I've never heard of bookshelf paint. 

Love the added cassette.  That'll add a lot of operational potential.