Hi guys just a quick intro Ant from New Zealand

[cteno4]

The main reason we use the chaseways for the wires and cables is so that they keep any tension being put on the cables, they just lay there in the chaseway. Also just keeps them out of the way from getting snagged, especially if they droop much. Also just easy to pull wires out and add ones later, once you bundle the cables with loop clips or zips its a pain to add things or just move a cable a bit to get more on the other end. Once cables break out of the chaseways then we use small loop clips and zips to dress the individual cables as needed. 

 

You should be able two wire the layout so that you only have to connect from one side of your bridge module. You could get sophisticated and have springy pins or pads on the module that presses on pads on the other module to make all your connection, but thats a bit of a fiddly ting to engineer well. You can easily use an automobile/motorcycle connector. They are pretty robust and you can find all sort of ones from simple to very fancy and they can take up to a couple of dozen pins. Pins can take way more voltage and amperage than you will ever use on the layout. Only problem is some can be a bit tight to pull apart. Usually the first mm or two of pin connection are easy and the last couple of mm with the clip being locked is where it gets tight. But since this is not getting any stress just a pressure fit of the pins for a mm or two would do you fine. They are pretty cheap and you can always try some to see how they work for you. There are also the universal power pole connectors that have taken over most all modular train formats. But they are not cheap and i find them a bit cranky to pull more than 4 connectors ganged up. It is a modular system so you can just keep adding more connectors onto a line of them as needed.

 

any scenery along your edge is going to get some good wear and tear dropping in the module. Folks tend to put their ends of the removable module at a slight inward angle like 10 degrees off vertical so the module sort of slips in like a wedge adn when you first drop it in the bottom of the drop in module is smaller so easier to hit the hole in the layout. This helps not hit your scenery ends. 

 

To help thing line up really well is to have your lip attached to the layout modules that the pullout module rests on have a couple of pins to make it really lock in place [one on each side]. You can easily do this by clamping the module in place and drilling holes up thru the lip under the edge of the drop in module up into the edge framing of the drop in module [or add an extra backing piece if edge frame is not thick enough for this]. Drill the holes at the exact size of some wood dowel [ie tight fit in a drilled hole]. Once holes are drilled pull the module out and you can then drive some dowel pins into the holes in the supporting lip piece with glue and a nail pin thru it. Then you can sand down the dowel some in diameter so the module just slides over them and locks thing right in place. The trick to doing this though is drilling those holes as vertical as possible so the pins slip in well. They only have to stick up like 10-20 mm to hold the module in place. Just to lock the module with perfect alignment for the tracks. Once module is all locked down like this then lay track across and it should keep pretty good alignment. Pull out modules like this are a bit of work to get them to fit well like we discussed way back.

 

One thing you can do for module scenery edges like this is to create a little strip of scenery on a plastic strip you can just drop in after the module is in place to cover the seam. You can make it like a T shape to have a finger that holds it in a slot cut right at the junction or to one of the edges. This will help keep the strip in the right location as well has help it to keep stiff. Dropping in a light weight strip will bash up any of the matching scenery less. You can also make the edges be more of a random wander that you could hide easier than a straight line with our eyes always zap to no matter how hidden. You can try to make visual sense of this by putting something like a roadway or fence along this transition line so if your eye does catch any of the module joint its covered up by the fact there is something our visual memory says it should be a straight line there.

 

Great if you can start dropping track in to play with the layout and make sure it’s all how you want it before securing it. Might fine a few tweaks you want to do in the plan or for any train issues.

 

Keep on going it’s looking great! 

 

One thing on the whole layout, did you make it so that the modules could come apart easily if you move? If so then you may want to think about leaving a couple of inches of wire for each module junction on any buss wires going around the layout so you could clip the buss and reattach them once moved. You need some extra wire to do this easily. Having a bit of spare wire looped up at the end on buss wires is just a good idea just in case you need to reroute a buss and need a bit more wire, use easier than having to splice in more later.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

BTW a way to help drill holes vertically like the pins for the drop in module is to use a drill jig with your hand drill. The chucked jigs that slides like a drill press work well to sink vertical holes on things you cant put into a drill press and make holes more vertical than you can with your eye and trying to use a square. They also help prevent you from wiggling the drill at all and enlarging the hole larger than the bit. These cheap ones work fine for this level of work for a few holes here and there. Nice ones cost a couple of hundred bucks.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[MrLinderman]

I like the idea you suggested Jeff of the scenery "strip" that is placed in after the bridge is attached, that would certainly reduce the wear and tear, and having parts of the strip overlap the edges would be a very effective way to "hide" the gap.

[cteno4]

Problem is you will need a few of them between track pieces. Maybe a road with the joint right at the edge would help on one side to hide w.o much scenery stuff.

 

jeff

[Antnz]

Thank you for your advice on this MrLinderman i think its something i should have put more thought into, but hey its fixable and i will take your advice on board cheers

[Antnz]

Cheers Jeff i do actually have the bridge made and some electrics for wiring it up but as i said to MrLinderman i think i should have given it more thought, i think i can wire it up better with some well placed and soldered copper sheet. A few more photo's showing my track placement,  ive already found a few problems one has been sorted by simply putting some shorter peaces of track in so i can fit a double track engine shed in. Ive also decided i don't like the bridges over my river i quite like metcalfes card kits for viaducts i will look at those instead

The first photo is where my engine shed is going it didn't fit, but simply putting some short sections of track in seems to have solved that.

[Antnz]

And yes i like the idea of having a strip of scenery grass maybe to simply insert into where my gap is sounds good and nice and easy, i will look at how hard it will be to cut the plywood as its in place and perhaps re scribe a section to glue in, its a weak point though so will have to be good and strong 

[Antnz]

Sorry Jeff i missed one of your questions ( One thing on the whole layout, did you make it so that the modules could come apart easily if you move? ) the answer is no i havent, i don't intend moving Ive been here in this house for 40 years know and im stuck like glue hahaha , i know its a question that come up a lot and i did intend to try and make modules of 4 feet sections which Ive done but the track never seemed to hit the right section, Ive also now overlapped the joints when gluing the polystyrene down. if i do move at any time it will be to a retirement home i think and im shore they wouldn't want this size of layout there. its a good question and one most people im shore should keep in mind when building the base and modules just encase there situation changes for any reason.

[Antnz]

These are what i got to wire up the bridge section and track, the plates were to go either side attached to the main frame with the plugs connecting to the wires under the bridge and simply plugging them in when the bridge was in place. Im know having second thoughts and wondering if simple copper plates either side would be better, im sure it would only take a second to plug these in once the bridge was in place though.

[cteno4]

Sure those should work fine, just be 4 to pull/plug. Those banana plugs are easy to plug/unplug and heartily made. 

 

Copper strips should work, Main thing is making sure all of the contacts keeps in good contact at the same time once in place so some sort of spring to them to keep all in contact at once. A thin layer of foam rubber behind one set could do this. Three are some spring contacts out there, but probably more effort than it’s worth. Trying to align something up like your banana plugs would take some work of drilling mounting holes in two blocks clamped to getter for perfect alignment, but may just be too much stickiness when you go to pull the bridge. Our club experimented with creating magnetic contact pins between modules for one of our sectional layouts so we could have just a bit of play so did not have to have absolutely perfect alignment and they self locked/plugged together. It worked well in experiments, the main issue was getting our wire leads in good contact with the magnets [neodynium magnets that are nickel silver plated]. Magnet to magnet was no resistance at all just hard getting contact out to the magnets thru the plug system [we were using bolts] as these were not perfect conductors and we has a tiny big of voltage drop across them.

 

Bridge modules are a challenge. I would experiments some with what you have. Pin down some tracks on either side of the module and layout to meet up and ten see how well it drops in and comes out [ie do the bridge module ends hang up on the track much and how good the alignment is and how well the track alignment is and how much more you will need to do to get it well aligned and easy to remove and put in.

 

If the current ends are not working right id suggest constructing new ends for the module and layout ends separately. Much easier to make a clean and tapered end joint along with drilling holes thru pieces to make some alignment pins. Then just graft these new ends pieces onto the ends of the layout and bridge module. You can just chop one end of the bridge module off to shorten it if needed. Slightly tapered ends will make it much easier to drop in and pull out the bridge module without snagging track ends or scenery and you can make it a very tight gap if you engineer the ends well. Making them separate you can do much better tolerances and then just adjust their mounting onto the ends with some very thin shims to fit up as best as possible. This will also help your alignment. Also engineering a vertical alignment pin into each side can really help keep perfect alignment once dropped in place. Tapering the alignment pins helps it slide on easily but then pop to exact fit once all the way down.

 

LOL good to hear you intend to stay put! I couldn't remember you probably mentioned that sometime a while back. I just always raise my hand on this after helping friends tear apart large installed layouts when they moved houses, a huge sadness to go thru. No worries then in wiring wire away in place! Murphy’s law of layouts if you build one built in you wil have to move about the time you are seeing a real layout coming together! Corollary is if you build it to be able to come apart you wont have to move…

 

Very fun seeing track in there. Great to start to really visualize the layout!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Antnz]

Thank you Jeff, yes im looking really hard at this bridge section know its a challenge, it does line up really well and is locking into place firmly and very level so im sort of not wanting to mess with it to much. Having said that the gaps do bother me but i will look at your previous advice and try an insert of sorts to hid the join. I will look at how to cut and insert a overhanging lip on either side of the bridge.The D handles in the above picture are for either side of the bridge to make life easy when lifting it in and out. Im glad you like the banana plugs i think i will stick with them im sure it would only take a second or two to connect them each time they are in use. Yes getting some track down does make it so much clearer in fact im know wondering if to do away with the single track and bridge, i will live with it for a day or two and then decide. Thank you again for your advice and encouragement cheers'

 

Tony

[cteno4]

Tony,

 

good keep playing with it as long as you can here to see what might help on any issues before you set things too much in stone.

 

going to be fun watching this come together! I can see you having a lot of fun sitting on a swiveling chair going round and round with your trains!

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[Antnz]

I had a quick trial run with the track all connected, the train ran well until it got to the double turnout ( Tomix ) it stopped at each double turnout which is about half way round the track each way, i intend to have more dropper wires connected this was just using the one connector which may have not been enough to power my train round, but what im wondering is does the double turnout need to be wired up to carry power round the track just out of interest.

[Antnz]

Wow its bean two years tomorrow that i started this does it normally take this long, Ive enjoyed every minute well nearly every minute. I must say I'm glad i didn't hurry though as so much has changed from my first design and know I'm laying track temporally im finding that im still tweaking things as i go.

[Antnz]

I think Ive fixed my problems with the gaps on my bridge section. Firstly i sanded all sharp edges and well waxed the ends of both the bridge and the baseboard until the bridge slide in smoothly, then i added the handles to both sides central, this has made handling the bridge a lot easier and it now slides in a lot more level. I had some vinyl left over from another job which i cut to fit the section i want to hide and when ballasted and grass added should be fine, i hope the photo's will be self explanatory.  The vinyl is of course only glued onto the bridge section edge and overlaps onto the baseboard sections. I will of course be adding a fascia board at a later date to protect the polystyrene and tidy things up, which will of course hide the joints on the bridge section as well

Edited Thursday at 03:11 AM by Antnz
Adding more information