I had some pleasant time wiring up the new streetcar layout. I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time and now that I was sort of in the groove with things electrical on the EVRR, I thought I’d do the long postponed Alta Vista TC wiring.
[That power plug on the front connects to a terminal strip where each track section gets a feed. The end panels are connected to the strip via plugs so that they can easily be disconnected for transport - that's one over on the left.]
Ok, well the Alta Vista TC trackage is just a big, thin loop with funny shapes on each end, so not much wiring. All I did was add power leads to each track section on each panel so that power wasn’t dependent on good inter-panel connections and power drops were minimized. Also I wanted to make it easy to plug in my DC power pack as well as my DCC so I could quick change from running DCC equipment to DC stuff. So, nothing really exotic, just making sure the solder joints were solid and that the panels could be easily plugged and unplugged from the main power terminal. I used 2.1 mm jacks and receptacles for all that.
Once everything was done, and some DCC streetcar runs were made, I pulled the old AHM DC powered trolleys from the shelf and gave them a try. It's a good feeling to have some track ready-and-able for testing and playing with streetcars again.
I like the way you take your time and get things done without rushing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your site; I visit it often. And, I now have a voice to go with the words!
Thanks for the kind words! I heard talkies had been recently invented, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon before it was too late :-)
DeleteAs large as those couplers are, I'm surprised it got caught up in the turn. Do they make expandable couplers?
ReplyDeleteI should post a picture of the 'couplers'. They are actually rigid metal bars and the turn forces them into a configuration that causes them to bind and then forces the alignment of both cars to dig into the rails instead of being guided by them. I think if they were replaced with something with a little more flexible and loose, pulling the trailer would work.
Delete