(continued from page GRR DCC Page)
That being said, I can tell you that this is the way, I plan to wire my DCC System. The only hold up is getting another "Power Shield" from Tony's Train Exchange. This expense was unexpected. Anyway as you have noticed, I am not the best artist in the world. Also note that my layout is a two bus-wire layout. I do not have common rail wiring. (Though sometimes I wish I would have never gone into DCC, but that is just frustration talking,) Anyway, I have tried to keep things simple in the diagram. Red and Black are your +;- polarity. It is important not to change them around. The Red and Black dots on the diagram are where the connections are made. Just because, (due to my poor drawing) that lines cross over each other, it means a connection. If you assume this then you are wrong. The connections are at the dots. Also notice that I may have put in two extra dots ( red and black) coming out of the "Power House Pro" going to the power shields. The first set of red and black dots directly beneath the "Power Shield" do not represent connections to another wire. The only place you won't see dots are at the Yellow and Orange lines from the power supply to the Power House Pro. The only thing I find unnerving is that NCE did not give you big connectors for the power supply wires or the wires going to the power shields and tracks. I don't know what NCE's thinking was, but it looks like you will be lucky to get any guage bigger than 22 into the Power House Pro. I am not schooled in Electronics and Electrical Theory, but it seems curious that NCE recommends 12 gauge wire for the bus wire if have runs of more than 50 feet so that you can connect the drop wires from the track to it. But when you get to the power shields then to the Power House, you have to use smaller and smaller wire. It looks like I will be dropping from 12 gauge bus to an 18 gauge wire to run to the "Power Shields" to about a 22 gauge stranded wire or smaller to fit into the Power House Pro.
5. Turnout Wiring.
I highly recommend Allan Gartner's Wiring for DCC Page. You can get there by going to my home page and clicking on the DCC webring hub. There you should be able to find his page.
The GRR used DCC friendly Atlas turnouts for all turnouts except for a Shinorha double crossover.
Allan Gartner got into a huge discussion about these double crossovers and power routing them.
Since I did not power route mine, I decided to go with Caboose Industries hand throws instead. Of course this does not eliminate the short circuit a double crossover poses. What I have done instead is:
- Cut a gap in the middle of both outside rails in the turnout (see photo in construction photo page, before I filled the gap). I then filled the gap with styrene.
- I wire a drop wire to each rail before the switch points. This means eight wires, one for each rail.
- This essentially makes your crossover into four separate switches.
I have done this and I have not encountered any problems yet. But I should also remind you I haven't looked arount to see if my power shield is doing its job. So with this set-up, a train going through the crossovers has not brought the layout down
Well this about somes up my original 5 items on DCC. Now I plan to discuss some other DCC topics.
I have posted a picture of how I did the Shinorah double crossover in the Construction Photo Album as of 6/15/2002.
Yahoo Groups
I know this is a MSN Community, but we are supposed to use the web to our full advantage. Well I have recently found that there are some great DCC discussion groups over at Yahoo. I belong to the NCE DCC Group myself and found some really useful answers to my questions about certain quirks of my system. I suggest that if you are thinking of purchasing a DCC system or already purchased one go see if you can find your group at Yahoo. These groups are free and you may have to come up with a Yahoo ID, but overall the experience is worth it.
Trainboard.com
I am ajy6b in this discussion group as well. There are several posts about all types of railroad topics. There is a DCC discussion board area. I have posted there myself as well. If you go to my recommendations page you can find a hyperlink to the Trainboard.
Decoders
I have recently purchased several decoders and will be installing them soon, or as time allows. Hopefully I will be able to take some pictures of the installs and post them on this board. If all goes well this may be by late spring, if not sooner. My hold-up right now is finding a good cheap source for white LED's. If anyone knows of a source let me know. Just email me at ajy6b@hotmail.com
Speaking of LED's if you have used the so called "white" LED you will notice that the light has a distinct blue cast to it. A way to correct this is to go to your nearest hobby shop, (you might be better off if the hobby shop also sells a lot of model cars and planes) and pick up a jar of Tamyia Clear Orange paint. This paint is clear, you paint the LED this color and you get a more subdued yellow light that is very close to prototype headlight color.
Also you can make LED's smaller. If you have a tight fit you can file down the plastic of the LED. I recently took a 5mm LED and used a bench grinder (a hand file will work to but is not as fast) to make the LED fit in the space I needed. As long as you don't file away any of the metal or expose the metal that is inside the plastic of the LED, you should not have any problems.
3/31/2002 Revised 6/15/2002 This is just a short note about LED's. Most of us when we did our first install may have got lucky and got it right. You have a 50/50 chance. Anyway here is a more sure-fire way. Look at your LED, it has two metal tabs going into the plastic of the LED. THE SHORTER ONE IS THE POSITIVE LEAD. The positive lead is the one you want to solder to the function outlet of your decoder. The other lead goes to the common. The resistor can go to either. The tail then (with the resistor) then goes to the decoder position marked for either front or rear headlight. The other side )metal tab gets soldered to the common. Yes, you can clip the metal leads to the LED to fit your application, but remember the original short lead is the positive.
If you have any further questions feel free to email me.
A.J.
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