My dream/nightmare layout... July Update 7/31/19 Big Boy month!

Thanks John and Roman!

John - This is the month when the first uncouplers will go live. I'm going to start with Red Wing. I think it's been almost two years since you came up with those capacitive touch sensors which defined the project. This is going to be fun.

If the admins have to delete one more post like the ones just deleted (Matt), then you will be put in moderation.  NO NEED to discuss the dirty laundry here!

Elliot- another great post. Ditto for me with what everyone has said up to now. Glad your NO/NC mix up was easily found and corrected.

Bob

From someone whose basement isn't done after 20 years of work (and is a lot smaller than your layout, by far) I am impressed by how much you have accomplished, you and your elves. At the very least, it is an inspiration to the rest of us that if you can get that behemoth of a layout done in less than the time it took to build a cathedral or a pyramid, we should be able to finish that project that just never gets done *lol*. Congrats, that layout is going to be a stunner, to say the least. 

Looking good! I am really impressed with your video cameras and screen to see the action in the hidden yard. So cool!!!

Congratulations.  You are a survivor. Cancer is unbelievable and only those who have experienced it understand fully what a cancer patient goes through. 

I had esophageal cancer and have been diagnosed cancer free, so I am also a survivor.

During my rehab I started working on a new layout,  joined this forum and  have become involved in the hobby again. It's great therapy.

Congrats again.

Alan - Thank you for fixing that. I was on the verge of saying something, but someone beat me to it. Fortunately, I have thick skin.

Bob - Thanks, I'm still not sure how I wired those backwards. I looked at a relay and a socket and thought I had it. Oh well, those things happen.

BigKid - I know this layout is unusual for its size and complexity. It gives me great pleasure to share it with everyone here. Sometimes I treat this project as a job, but we should never lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a hobby. Work at your own pace. I'm feeling a sense of urgency of late, to get this done in a timely fashion.

BigTruckPete - I'm really anxious to sit down and run those yards from the desk. That was never really in the plan, it just came along and I embraced it fully. Who knows, it could become a trend.

JusHavnFun - I think you have the right attitude, using trains as therapy. If I have one regret, it's that I wasted 5 years of layout construction time after my diagnosis and surgery. The whole thing just messed with my head, even though the cancer was on my arm. The future seemed so bleak, but here I am ten years later. Unfortunately, I have new health challenges on the horizon. In spite of that, I'm moving forward.

Good you have a positive attitude. Move forward, there is light at the end of the tunnel, good positive light. 

Elliot you continue to amaze me and others with your wonderful project.   You and help have made great progress.   You are nearing the end of construction so you and friends can enjoy running your empire!     We all hope you get to enjoy it in the coming years as you do the scenary work.

This is one EXCELLENT!!!!! layout.  I just wish you lived in NY so I could stop by and learn how you design your boards and wiring.  

All I can say is WOW!!

Elliot, every time I see these layout updates, I'm reminded what a stunning accomplishment you've achieved.  I still can't wrap my head around the staggering complexities of issues you've undertaken.  Yours is truly a "railroad empire".  Bravo!!! 

Thanks Guys! As I've said so many times over the years, you and all of your wonderful comments and encouragement, help to keep me motivated. Sorry I live so far off the "beaten path". People will just have to make the trip. Everyone's welcome, just let me know if you're planning a trip to the Twin Cities.

A little update: Gary, my operations guru stopped by this afternoon for a couple hours. I gave him an updated set of stick drawing pages, and showed him the progress I've made on his to do list. I also sat down and showed him the hidden yard dispatch area in operation, by moving a few trains. Gotta get in there and clean the track, but things worked fairly well. We may have come to the agreement that I would take that position during an operating session. It is a dull repetitive job, but it is critical to running the railroad, because almost all trains originate and terminate there.

Elliott:

You made my day!  Your quote:  "I for one, really appreciate your efforts to expose this group to operations and layout design. The 3 rail world can benefit from more use of these concepts to overcome some of the "toy" stigma. Not that there's anything wrong with the toy angle, it is really the root of all electric trains, but there is a whole different world left to be explored."

You hit the nail on the head!  A few folks have interpreted my postings as toy train bashing.  WRONG.  There is more than just one way to operate electric trains.  I'm just trying to enlighten others as to "the other side" operations, realistic design as an option to consider.

I love the toy train stuff too.  I have Halloween and Christmas layouts set up every year!  I had a lot of the older accessories at one time as well.

When I post about design I don't know why it doesn't make sense to a few of the toy train guys, because the stuff I'm writing about is directly applicable ALL trains regardless of scale and regardless if toy or replication of reality.

Some things don't change:  layout height, your reach, swing gates, duck unders, and track arrangements.  Lastly, I want newbies to understand that a track doesn't have to circle!  Lots of folks, at one time me, didn't have space for a layout.  I learned long ago that everyone does have space as you can build a layout on a shelf a foot wide along a wall in a room.  It's not the size of a layout, it's the design and quality of it!  It needs to have a purpose for the trains and participation/interaction for those who run it.  Much more fun and interesting!

Looking forward to seeing your railroad on professional video one day!  Mine is being taped again tonight and tomorrow.  

You're welcome John. Compliments from me are well earned. You and I are from the same "church", though we have different styles. Mine is a life devoted to trains, to the exception of a lot of other things.

I tend to take a more passive approach to promoting the hobby, luring people into my world with all the cool possibilities as well as doing it bigger than most people would ever consider. I've spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousand dollars over the last 40 years out of love for this hobby. And while this platform has nothing close to the exposure that enterTRAINment had at Mall of America, in a way, this project gives me greater satisfaction. In spite of some adversity, I am building my dream layout without the financial pressure.

I view this project as a bridge between two very different segments of the same hobby. I'm not really building a "train layout". It's more accurately a "railroad simulator", with all of its logistical complexities. I really enjoy showing my friends in the two rail world what is possible with three rail these days, as well as sharing with everyone here what the two rail world has been doing for a long time. Basically, I'm drawing from the best of both worlds in order to create something unique. While there are others that are doing realist operation with three rail trains, the kicker for this project is getting very close to happening. That is the use of computer control.

The clock is ticking, and I want to get this done.

August has been a bit of a rough month. I had to have a small surgery on the 10th, and have been feeling pretty wiped out since. In spite of that, I spent a lot of hours working on the layout, it just didn't seem like I was as productive as I used to be.

I started hooking up all of those uncoupler control modules, but I ran into a few problems in the process. First, I had to order some PTC fuses to place inline with the magnet coils to keep them from frying. Of course this was after I has already hooked up close to 20 of them without. I still can't install the carriage bolts, until the fascia gets its final coat of paint. I did get the Red Wing uncouplers fully installed, but when I went to test them, there was a major problem.

Speaking of problems, I could not get the number one turnout in the big hidden yard to work, after moving the controls last month. I did finally figure out what the problem was, but not before doing a total rewire between the panels. It turned out to be a bad wire in the cable that went over the door. There are plenty of spares, I just have to pick one.

This is the back side of the Red Wing uncoupler control panel. I soldered the colored leads to washers, and then tightened the nuts. These will trigger the capacitive touch sensors.

I drilled a hole and fed the wires through.

The front of the panel, each bolt head is a different uncoupler.

The wires from the panel are tied to the terminal strip.

With no outside input the sensors fire randomly. They should all be off.  I have no idea what went wrong here. It was working when I bench tested it. Got it installed, and it went crazy.

The mess at Hiawatha is a sign of progress.

I added this little contour piece to the fascia. There will be a road bridge at this location.

It's a little difficult to tell, but I have given the fascia a coat of semi gloss black paint. Very soon I'll be applying my graphics and drilling the holes for the uncoupler carriage bolts.

I have spent hours under Red Wing doing wiring.

The completed panel.

I hope I start feeling better, and I can figure out why the uncoupler unit doesn't work.

Elliot,

Thanks for the update and I hope you are feeling better soon!!!!

Elliot,

I hope you feel better soon!  Looks like you got a lot done considering your health.  The wiring is always so neat!  It has to be to aid troubleshooting.

Elliot it looks like three steps forward and two backwards (one already fixed). But you made progress despite feeling washed out... that is fantastic.

Hope that you start feeling better soon and locate the problem with the uncouplers. Thanks for keeping all of us informed.

Elliot, hope you feel better very soon. We always have little set backs after surgeries. Some take longer then others to get back to normal. So never feel bad if you think you didn't get much done. You still are moving forward. Building a layout as big as yours is bound to have small electrical pitfalls along the way. But they get solved. I enjoy your wiring posts with pics. They give me a more positive attitude to wire and do it neatly. So don't push too hard and let your body get stronger. Then you can move forward faster.....................Paul

Elliot, I have a suggestion for your coupler issues.  You need to keep the wiring between the capacitive sensing module and the bolts short.  Ideally, they should be within a few inches of each other.  I suspect the capacitive coupling of the wiring runs and adjacent wiring is why they're triggering.

Gunrunner John's suggestion mirrors my own thinking (though his explanation is likely better than mine, mine was a long wire run could act as an antenna for EMI/RFI, but capacitive coupling is prob a better explanation). I also would look for strong magnetic fields or some such that might be causing that, if it worked okay on the bench then it is the environment where it is placed rather than the panel itself. 

Elliot sorry to hear your not feeling well hope it passes soon and you are back to 100%.

am sure you will figure out the touch panels gremlin I have to ask why not just use a momentary pushbutton?

so are both the large relay panels completely wired up now?

I assume no extra hands to help on layout this month.

in another reply to me you told me about the truckee train cams well I had a treat yesterday  no train but traffic stopped for a maintenance truck to load itself onto the rails.

I always enjoy reading about the updates for this large layout. Also nice to see and use ideas on my layout plan.

Eliot,

Thanks for another update.  Hope each day makes you stronger.  

Yesterday we hosted an 18 year old mentally challenged young man and his mom for what we thought would be a 15 minute visit to our layout.  We had a great time showing off the layout and answering questions for almost 1 1/2 hours.  This hobby never ceases to amaze me and I have my dad to thank for it.

Another great update Elliot. Hope you feel better soon.

Gonna throw in my 2 cents on the capacitive wiring. If what GRG suspects in correct then shielded wire may solve the problem too.

Bob

Depends, shielded wire may actually exacerbate the problem.  The best solution is to have the sensor boards very close to the trigger pads and keep the wiring short.

Thanks for all the well wishes guys!

Unfortunately, this isn't one of those problems that will get better with time. As a long time diabetic, my kidneys are going. The surgery was to prepare for dialysis. I have a nifty scar on my left arm. I'll probably have to start within the next six months. It sounds like I might start feeling better after that.

I've already given it a lot of thought, and have been making plans for layout related activities that I could do while I'm stuck sitting around for four hours at a crack, three times a week. Fortunately, the list of activities is long, not the least of which is building my JMRI control panel on my laptop. I have to learn that crazy editor.

One thing to keep in mind is, the National Narrow Gauge Convention is exactly a year away! Lots to get done before that.

I really appreciate everyone's comments, as well as those who just hit the like button. Please don't feel left out if I don't address you directly. I'm trying to just answer questions or specific layout related comments because there are so many.

Mark - Fortunately, there hasn't been a lot of that kind of troubleshooting to do. Up close, it's not as neat as the pics would lead you to believe. I did learn my style from an electrical engineer, but he was far neater than I am. A bad conductor in a cable is not something you expect to find, so you don't start your search there. It was the last thing I could think of, and a simple test with my meter confirmed it.

Bill - I have a real incentive to complete this layout in a timely manner. I just have to keep plugging away at it, and remind myself not to get too frustrated if things don't go quite right.

Paul - Glad you like my wiring posts. It is something that so many around here seem to fear, or simply not understand, but it's one of the most important parts of this hobby. Sometimes I do things a little fancy or simply different, but that's part of the fun. I'm always happy to take advice from those around here who know more.

John - I wish I had known that when we started this project. Those lines at Red Wing are the short ones. I had plans to do some really long ones, like 10 - 15 feet. This is going to take some serious rethinking. I just took a look at the datasheet for the sensor units. Would adding a resistor desensitize them? The value may vary with length of run.

Ray - We had a separate topic discussing why not push buttons and other such things, a couple years ago. Part of the problem was mounting them to the fascia. We came up with this hybrid method that seemed to solve all the problems (til now). Yes, all the relay panels are done, unless I dream up something new. No helpers this month, and that doesn't make the progress situation any better.

Matt - I hear you about visitors. Typically, mine hang around between an hour or two, though I did have one kid hang around for nearly four hours. As far as who got me started with trains, both of my parents had a hand in it. Of course, they may have come to regret that later on when I didn't outgrow it. They had created a monster.

Elliot,

I understand completely about your condition.  My wife was a dialysis nurse and head nurse before our girls were born.  Her dad went through the whole process over the years until he was on dialysis.  My prayers are with you!

Thanks Mark, I would say that you definitely understand my situation. It feels kind of good to not be keeping it a secret anymore. I've actually known for years that I was heading down this road, but my condition has deteriorated rather rapidly of late.

At least I shouldn't have to do much more heavy wiring until it's time to put in the signals.

There are times I have regretted building a fairly good sized RR.  Sometimes it can seem like nothing is getting accomplished with all the work needed.  But then I revisit this work in progress.  My RR is a card table compared to your endeavor. 

It may be helpful to some of us if you could lay out a typical weeks RR work schedule when family and health issues are not on the docket.  Great job, slick workmanship.  Thanks for the encouragement.

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

John - I wish I had known that when we started this project. Those lines at Red Wing are the short ones. I had plans to do some really long ones, like 10 - 15 feet. This is going to take some serious rethinking. I just took a look at the datasheet for the sensor units. Would adding a resistor desensitize them? The value may vary with length of run.

Refresh my memory about the exact model of the sensor units.  If I have a spec I can take a look, and if I can obtain a unit I could do a couple of experiments for you with longer cables.

Elliot another amazing update. I'm sorry to hear of your health challenges, that said you get much more completed on Your train layout then average. Is that an 86' boxcar on the upper level? Those cars are cool! Do you have an industry for them?

Tom -  You're just being modest. From what I've seen of your railroad, you are much more of a craftsman than I am. Doing 2 rail is much more difficult, as track work is much less forgiving, and all of the electrical considerations that go with it. It is always a good idea to take lots of pictures as you go. That way, when you think you aren't making a lot of progress, you can go back in time, and prove that you are. Personally, I wouldn't trade my large layout for the world. It has become a big part of who I am. Beside, it's fun and there are always new challenges.

John - I'm using the standalone 5-pad. The datasheet is in the link. If you can tell me what to do, I can take care of it. If it comes down to it, I have a couple spares, I could send you one. Thanks!

George - Thanks, I try. It goes a lot better when I have a little help, but the summer was pretty thin, and the usual suspects were all busy with their own lives. Maybe fall will see some of them crawl back out of the woodwork. Fingers crossed. Yes, that's an 86' box car, and there are a lot more of them up there, along with a fleet of 89' auto racks. That upper level is the old Twin Cities Ford Assembly Plant. Unfortunately, the plant closed in 2011, and the building was torn down. The tracks are still mostly there while the city decides what to do with the land.

Here's the real Ford Plant, the building is off in the distance obscured by the fog.

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

John - I'm using the standalone 5-pad. The datasheet is in the link. If you can tell me what to do, I can take care of it. If it comes down to it, I have a couple spares, I could send you one. Thanks!

Elliot, after reading some of the data sheet and app notes, I have a suggestion.

First off, I retract my opinion that shielding won't work, it "may" work.  I'd obtain some RG6U coax and test wire one board of five sensors with it.  The shield goes to the DC ground to the board and the other shield end at the contacts is not connected.  Although this adds capacitance to the sensor, the constant capacitance might not trigger the board.

It's going to be an experiment any way you slice it, and my suggestion for having the boards as close as reasonably possible still applies.

You may have to mount the boards close and run the output wires to the original location.

John, I have tons of coax laying around. I'll give it a shot. It will be a little awkward because it's so bulky, but if it solves the problem, it's worth it!

Sorry to hear about the health issue.  I've been fighting deteriorating health for a decade.  It doesn't get easier, but one does find the spirit to over come a lot of it.  Doing layout work of a light nature while recovering from various procedures has saved my sanity on more than one occasion! Best of luck fighting it!!

Thanks Kerrigan. You're right about the hobby being therapeutic. My plan is to take things one day at a time, as cliche as that sounds. No work on the layout Sunday, the wife, my son and his girlfriend all went to the state fair. I walked more than twice as far as I normally do. When we got home, I crashed!

Tomorrow is a new day, and I hope to successfully test GunRunnerJohn's coax cable theory, thus solving my technical difficulties with the uncoupler project. Should be able to handle that, as it is a low energy project, and I could use one of those after the fair.  

I hope the co-ax is the answer, as the next idea is probably to move the sensing boards closer.

I did a little more research into capacitive sensors and remote sensing.  If the coax is too long, it will damp the signal and reduce the sensitivity, the allowable length would be based on the capacitance per foot of the coax cable.  However, the recommend solution to the issue of cable length is one that probably isn't going to work with these sensor boards as they're currently configured.

I know you're not going to want to hear this, but I think the solution is to move the sensors to the back of the touch panel and use the existing wiring you have to carry the button press logic outputs to the rest of the circuitry.  This is probably going to be the way to get this working properly.

Thanks John, noted. I'll head down in a little while and start playing with it. The goal is to see what kind of length I can get it to function at. This is going to be a bit more labor intensive than my original plan.

Each installation was going to be unique based on the locations of the uncouplers being driven. With this information, I will make every effort to bring the sensor boards as close as possible to the carriage bolts.