Not a very visually exciting update today I'm afraid, and not much done, but at long last the fiddle yard is complete! To start off the day, I cut up some more ply blocks and worked out the lengths of spring steel needed for the wiper contacts which were then duly cut. After a bit of shuffling, I worked out the best location for assembly to sit and it was screwed down to the board. I couldn't get it in the perfect location because of the softwood block that the lazy susan sits on, and I'll explain what problem that has resulted in later.
Anyway, once I adjusted the bending of the ends of each wiper to stop it snagging on the table, the last set of wipers was constructed and screwed into place. As you can see, as predicted yesterday it's quite a tight fit because of how close together the loco stabling roads are.
Now it was time to wire it up, making sure I made a note of what wires controlled which wiper/track. I still managed to cock up one bit as I got one of the feeds the wrong way around. That was fixed eventually, and the whole lot cable tided to adhesive bases to keep the wires out of the way.
So going back to the problem I mentioned earlier. Basically, because I had very little room in the fiddle yard to separate the loco stabling tracks apart, once the turntable is rotated to certain tracks, 2 tracks become live at the same time. I don't really see what I can do to solve this problem except to move the loco stabling tracks further apart, or remove one entirely. The cause of it is that the outer two stabling tracks line up with two neighbouring tracks on the turntable.
I've also noted that the wipers have a tendency to push the table up, so in actual fact it may be necessary to add barrel bolts anyway!
Anyway, once I adjusted the bending of the ends of each wiper to stop it snagging on the table, the last set of wipers was constructed and screwed into place. As you can see, as predicted yesterday it's quite a tight fit because of how close together the loco stabling roads are.
Now it was time to wire it up, making sure I made a note of what wires controlled which wiper/track. I still managed to cock up one bit as I got one of the feeds the wrong way around. That was fixed eventually, and the whole lot cable tided to adhesive bases to keep the wires out of the way.
So going back to the problem I mentioned earlier. Basically, because I had very little room in the fiddle yard to separate the loco stabling tracks apart, once the turntable is rotated to certain tracks, 2 tracks become live at the same time. I don't really see what I can do to solve this problem except to move the loco stabling tracks further apart, or remove one entirely. The cause of it is that the outer two stabling tracks line up with two neighbouring tracks on the turntable.
I've also noted that the wipers have a tendency to push the table up, so in actual fact it may be necessary to add barrel bolts anyway!
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