Keyboard Shortcuts
Likes
- W4dccqa
- Messages
Search
|
Re: Seeking reversing section input
Nick,
? OK, I see now how you can go thru the same piece(s) of track in two directions - but always running forward.? Those pieces are from A to B.? If you are on 'the loop' (the track that is C,D,E,F and coming back to C (or F in the other direction) you can not have a reversing situation.? I had to mentally unfold the yard areas (A and B) in order to see it.? I assume the cross-over between A and B is on the same level - but it? makes very little difference. ? So thinking about this situation you can describe it as a "loop that goes to very complicated track from both side/direction of the loop - in other words all of your main yard (including the branch to Dubois) and the part that I'm going to call 'the engine facility' that is on the right side and has a black rectangle in it is a wye and not a reversing loop ... because in order to actually reverse a train running on the main loop you have to have a backing move.? But it -is- a reversing section. ? Many guys handle wyes by "feeding the power from which ever side of the wye the train is currently coming from" ... i.e. from the wye switch. ? I predict you are going to have a problem with the -length- of the track from points C and/or F ... they are fairly short and it is entirely possible that you might end up with a reversing section that is shorter than your longest train ... perhaps even highly likely since that section is shorter than your longest yard track.? ? You have 3 turnouts that are "tricky" (in terms of this reversing discussion). The one nearest C, the one nearest F, and B (the one nearest the cross-over). ? I don't have a solution/recommendation ... at this time.? I'm going to have to think about it and study your track diagram more.? I'll get back to you. ? BTW - you mentioned having two PSX-AR reversers.? Most layout owners have had problems with two AR reversers that have a common point.? This is usually able to be solved by setting up different trip times (think duration between retries). When you do this the trains -will- run thru ... but sometimes you can still have a hesitation/stutter.? It is best to avoid having two ARs in adjacent blocks. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? - Jim |
|
Re: question on a BD20
开云体育Bob, ? It sounds like you have a bunch of things going on.? There are a number of things I recommend that very few people want to do. ?
? I do these things on my own railroad.? I’m a big fan of double gapping and doing an incremental install.? When a problem crops up, I’m only a couple of minutes max from finding the problem. ? Allan ? From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Bob Macionis via groups.io
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2021 5:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [w4dccqa] question on a BD20 ? Thanks for the reply, Allan.? The reversing section and? A – G have separate busses going to different circuit breakers, a psx-ar and a psx. As far as I can tell, there is no electrical connection between them.? There is no block detector on the reversing section.? I did make my reversing section longer, by adding the purple track to the pink buss, instead of the green.? All green track goes to ?the ?psx; The purple and pink track go to the psx-ar. As I explained, everything worked- the BD20 detected perfectly, when all purple track was attached to the green buss, and there was no double gap at? B . (The reversing section was only the pink).?? When I disconnected the purple track feeders from the green buss and attached them to the pink buss (negating the double gap at C) I had to cut gaps at B, E, and F to isolate the reversing section. Then, and only then, the BD20 always showed occupancy.? I added no new wiring; I deleted wiring and isolated the psx-ar? with those new gaps.? If I jump the gaps at B, allowing the psx-ar to leak into the green, the false occupancy disappears and the BD20 works perfectly. This I do not understand. Bob ? Sent from for Windows ? From: wirefordcc ? Hi Bob, ? |
|
Re: question on a BD20
开云体育Thanks for the reply, Allan.? The reversing section and? A – G have separate busses going to different circuit breakers, a psx-ar and a psx. As far as I can tell, there is no electrical connection between them.? There is no block detector on the reversing section.? I did make my reversing section longer, by adding the purple track to the pink buss, instead of the green.? All green track goes to ?the ?psx; The purple and pink track go to the psx-ar. As I explained, everything worked- the BD20 detected perfectly, when all purple track was attached to the green buss, and there was no double gap at? B . (The reversing section was only the pink).?? When I disconnected the purple track feeders from the green buss and attached them to the pink buss (negating the double gap at C) I had to cut gaps at B, E, and F to isolate the reversing section. Then, and only then, the BD20 always showed occupancy.? I added no new wiring; I deleted wiring and isolated the psx-ar? with those new gaps.? If I jump the gaps at B, allowing the psx-ar to leak into the green, the false occupancy disappears and the BD20 works perfectly. This I do not understand. Bob ? Sent from for Windows ? From: wirefordcc
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2021 3:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [w4dccqa] question on a BD20 ? Hi Bob, ? |
|
Re: Seeking reversing section input
开云体育Thank you, Tim.? I’m trying to understand your recommendation.? I do have two existing PSX-ARs I can re-use.? Are you suggesting eliminating the two turnouts altogether, or simply ending the reversing section before it hits those two turnouts (the turnout are part of a prototype yard I’m trying to mimic)?? It might help if I outline my basic points of confusion, keeping in mind this will be in terms of red (left)/black (right) bus wires: ? 1.?????? The purple line that exits from the top right of the plan and goes through Wellsville and then hits Westfield – it would appear the line when it hits Westfield red/black wires will be reversed at the turnouts on the left side of Westfield.? Extend the reversing section to include Westfield or set up a separate reversing section just for Westfield? 2.?????? Balloon track in Galeton – Does the branch at the bottom of the loop running to the left of the yard need to be part of the reversing section (I’m thinking no)? 3.?????? Not sure I follow your comment re: the Dubois branch to the turnout on the lower left.? Dubois is a point-to-point branch and I don’t see how that is affected by a reversing section. ? If it would help I can post the plan in a PowerPoint or other format so specific notes could be added.? Thanks! ? Nick ? |
|
Re: Seeking reversing section input
Back from my travels.? The original file, New RR Design.pdf, has been labeled with arrows added to make it clear where I see a train departing the yard and arriving in the opposite direction.? Train starts at point A and follows the arrows from there to arrive back at point A.? As before, the tracks in red are planned reversing sections (PSX-ARs) as I see them, and I'm simply looking for confirmation that I haven't missed something.? Thanks!
|
|
Re: question on a BD20
Hi Bob,
Is your BD-20 before the PSX-AR?? If so, that is your problem.? The PSX-AR draws a little bit of power all the time and will cause the BD-20 to show the block as being occupied. If you are using the same block detector for the reversing section as you are from B to C, you will not be able to do that unless you make the section from B to C part of your reversing section or use a separate BD-20 for the section from C to D.? In any event, the BD-20 has to go after the PSX-AR. BTW,? Is your reversing section longer than the powered portion of your longest train?? It also needs to be longer than your longest train if all your cars have resistor wheels, your caboose is lit, or you have lighted passenger cars. Allan Gartner Wiring for DCC? |
|
Re: Do any track power boosters have a phase control input?
开云体育Don This goes back to my question midsummer, "does anyone know of a
solid state DPDT reverser that can be controlled externally?",
because I have a large section(but not large enough to be served
by a dedicated AR booster) that needs to reverse, or not, based on
the state of a double crossover at it's entrance.? The only
solution that I've arrived at so far, is the statement from a DCC
Specialties person (Larry), who indicated that a track command can
be used to tell a PSX-AR to reverse, via JMRI.? Not quite what I
wanted to hear, but it's nice to know.? As a result, I still am
planning on doing my section reversal using a DPDT relay wired in
parallel with one of the tortoises controlling the turnouts in
that crossover.? I'm watching your thread with interest to see if anyone has any
other viable alternatives, as I don't intend to purchase a
separate AR booster for each of my staging yards, and the idea of
a software solution commanding the PSX-AR via the track signal
leaves me less than impressed, as one missed DCC packet leaves my
section out of sync with the turnouts. For what it's worth, as I understand it, not all autoreversers are dependent on the performance of only one rail, but you may have to ask around alot to see who's products are single-short-based, and who's products monitor both rails. Blair On 2021-09-28 12:38, Don Weigt wrote:
|
|
Re: Do any track power boosters have a phase control input?
Jerry, I agree lighting isn't that important, although I'd like to have it. Two other concerns: *? My old Athearn passenger cars all came with wheelsets having one metal wheel and axle, and one plastic wheel. I'd rather not change them, even if the cars aren't lighted. *? If cars and cabooses need resistor wheelsets to be detected for proper signalling, then they need metal wheels. So, that part of operations (not pertaining to realistic train movements) requires the metal wheels. It annoys me that the new and improved DCC with autoreverse has faults that my manually operated layout does not. I suspect part of the problem is that the short detection that trips autoreversing is only sensing the short on one of the booster's two rail driver outputs. And, I'd rather use a logic level signal to tell the booster to change phanse than have to switch the drive signals or track power externally to minimize the frequency of arcing events. Don -- Don Weigt Connecticut |
|
question on a BD20
?I have an issue with a BD20 that is baffling me.? See file "macionis BD20 question".? I have a block running from point A to? point B that is being detected by a BD20 at B.? Originally all track from A thru B to C and thru E &F to G was on the same buss.? C to D (pink)? is a reversing section.? Everything worked ok.? The psx-ar reversed properly; the BD20 detected a loco entering the A - B block.? I decided the reversing section was too short, so I cut all the feeders? in B-E-F-C? (purple)? from the A - G buss (green) and added them to the reversing section.? Originally the only double gaps were at A , D and C? (G is a stub end).? So I needed to isolate the longer reversing section by cutting gaps at B, E and F.
? ? The psx-ar still works ok.? But the BD20 shows occupied all the time , whether a loco is there or not.? If I jumper the gaps at B (meaning the purple track is fed from both green and pink busses), the BD20 no longer shows false occupancy, and works normally .? I have seen many cases where a bd20 shows false occupancy because I added something to the block (such as powering an led from the buss), which I corrected by removing those wires.? But here all I did was remove the purple section from the green, and all of it is on the booster side of the bd20.? ?Cutting the gaps at B causes the bd20 to show false occupancy, and jumping the gaps closed allows the bd20 to work normally.? Can anyone explain this to me?? Thanks. |
|
Re: Spacing between NCE BD20 detectors
开云体育The thread dealing with “Spacing between NCE BD20 detectors” has now
exceeded 20 messages with very little in the line of a positive solution to the
initial post from Bill Wilken on Sunday morning 26 September 2021.
?
The best source of information dealing with the BD20, since this an NCE
product, can be found on the NCE list here at Groups IO at [email protected] where the experts in the
NCE system reside.
?
I suggest that those interested in this thread move it to the [email protected] list.
?
Al Silverstein
Moderator
|
|
File /macionis BD20 question.pdf uploaded
#file-notice
[email protected] Notification
The following files have been uploaded to the Files area of the [email protected] group. By: Bob Macionis <macionis@...> |
|
File /maconis BD20 question_000011.pdf uploaded
#file-notice
[email protected] Notification
The following files have been uploaded to the Files area of the [email protected] group. By: Bob Macionis <macionis@...> |
|
Cross over issue solved
Al this may or not be new, but you may want to include it in the wiring peco Unifrog turnout section. ?The peco Unifrog has a wire to power the frog. ?The wire is not insulated and it is located very close to the wire jumpers that power the rails past the frog. ? Due to the wires being so close together it is very easy to accidentally short the frog wire against either of the other two wires. ?Folks using the Unifrog should take care when installing them, or insulated the frog wire.
van henry |
|
Re: Spacing between NCE BD20 detectors
开云体育Thomas,I’m new to all of this. The terminology I’m familiar with for powering track ?is main bus and feeds. Will the BD20 work properly with a feed where there are multiple feeds off of a main bus? Further, My understanding is to have separate power districts that are isolated from each other and then blocks within a district that are also isolated. Does that have any bearing on this discussion? On Sep 27, 2021, at 3:20 PM, Bill Wilken <bill.wilken@...> wrote:
|
|
Re: Spacing between NCE BD20 detectors
开云体育Before starting my project, I set up a small test bed to make
certain that I understood how to wire BD20s together with Atlas
universal signal boards.? The first thing it taught me was the
importance of checking and double-checking wiring connections.
Unfortunately, the test bed was too small to address factors such
as distance, ballasting, drops, wiring twists, etc. On 9/27/21 1:25 PM, thomasmclae via
groups.io wrote:
Notice what Alan said, ALL power for the track in the block must go through the BD20. |
|
Re: Spacing between NCE BD20 detectors
Notice what Alan said, ALL power for the track in the block must go through the BD20.
I have three BD20 on the same module, about 3" apart on separate mainlines. Two work like a charm, one is always triggered. I checked the wiring, and the two working BD20 are on track with a single track drop (about 6'). The not working one is connected to track with multiple track drops. I will be investigating how to have the feed through a single drop. Thomas DeSoto, TX |
|
Re: Do any track power boosters have a phase control input?
Thanks, Blair. That seems like a solution. I'll have to reread the EasyDCC booster instructions. I think it says not to swap the two DCC signal pins to the booster. I don't know why that would be, if they are truly alike except 180 degrees out of phase! -- Don Weigt Connecticut |
|
Re: Do any track power boosters have a phase control input?
Lighted rolling stock, passenger cars and other cars that need track power are a scourge to smooth operations. I am a curmudgeon, but when I weigh the need for lighted equipment on a layout that operates 99.9% of the time in daylight, I choose operations over the small gain given by lighted equipment. I can also do without stockcars that moo. Jerry Michels
|
Jim Betz