BJ has been doing "his stuff" again while Chris is away and I'm doing control panel wiring.
Upper Level Control Panel
Well fun and games when testing out operation of tracks passing over Power District boundaries. Everything seemed to be sweet when first tested using DC until DCC was applied - but I'm not sure what happened maybe the first track used as a reference was not set up quite right and then all the others followed suit?
Well after reversing some track block wires and removing the initial specific problem I then was getting shorts at other Power District boundaries and some frogs (obviously some "A" rails were connected as "B" rails) it was back to basics to check every track feeder, each track interface between power districts and frog polarity wiring.
Three hours later things now work like they should.
A bi-product of the point indication LED's based on frog polarity is the "Block Watchers" are sensing the current and activating their occupancy function. My first impression was "Oh S...t" I have a flaw in my electrical design.
Out with the new digital Multimeter, which I just got for fathers day, to check the current flow and voltage in the block 24mA with 24.5v AC.
I started thinking about additional wires to power turnouts which could be independently powered outside the power through the "Block Watchers" - Oh no more wires...
However, "If all else fails - read the instructions" (heard that somewhere before...) The "Block Watcher" documentation told me that I could set them into "Learning Mode" and then the current drawn by the turnout frog LED's will be considered base load and detection will start when the block current was greater than "base load" plus 3mA.
Problem Solvered! - I was worrying over nothing.....
No comments:
Post a Comment