Sandy Shores - A re-wire & new point motors (MTB MP4s)

It's been a while...

I believe that my last update for Sandy Shores online was back in May 2024 - so 2 years ago! Perhaps not that surprising given that the layout is (almost) finished, and that any show reports won't have much substance due to exhibiting solo and not getting time away from the layout. However, I have in fact done a bit of work to the layout (replacing the roadway that leads through to the scenic exit with a sand dune and a small tree to better disguise the backscene hole), but I never got around to writing up a post about it.

(Oh, and as for Bramble's Boatyard, don't even go there - planning for that layout has been ongoing in fits and starts for years - that's what happens when you're renovating a house!😅)

Here's a quick montage showing Sandy Shores at exhibitions (apologies if I've missed some) since my last post on here, during 2024 and 2025.

Anyway, despite the house renovations, I have been to various exhibitions with Sandy Shores since May 2024, but it was the last exhibition* (the New Forest Model Railway Club's exhibition at Brockenhurst) that put a stop to the lack of updates, and forced me to do some work to the layout...

*well, there were supposed to be two later exhibitions, but you'll find out soon why they didn't happen!

Disaster!

The exhibition was going well, when half-way through the day the 'main' point (the one that controls access to the two sidings from the trestle) failed to throw in one direction, and also caused derailments. After trying to limp it through the busiest part of the show by manually moving the point tiebar, a quiet spell enabled me to look further at what had happened. I then realised that not only had the SEEP point motor rod somehow snapped in half, but that it took one of the switch rails of the point with it! Given how much of a struggle it is to cut those point motor rods, I cannot understand how it snapped. 

In any case, I soon managed to remove the broken part of the point motor rod, and get the switch rail somewhat located in the tiebar (but not fully, and it kept popping out for the remainder of the show). I had actually been planning to replace all of the SEEPs with MTB MP1s after having heard glowing reviews a couple of years ago, but I wasn't in a rush to. Needless to say, after this incident let's just say that process moved to top priority!

To be quite honest, on average I get one SEEP motor failure per 3 exhibitions - a failure rate that is simply not good enough. I'm now bracing myself for comments that are going to say "Well, I've used mine without a problem for 30 years!". I'm convinced the sudden jolt of solenoid point motors is not good for the points (it causes soldered joints to break off, moves the point motor out of alignment eventually, and puts undue stress on the point components), nor is it aesthetically pleasing watching the switch rails slam from one rail to the other.

A solution?

The plan was therefore to swap the point motors out ahead of Sandy Shores' planned visits to SWAG and Narrow Gauge South in mid-to-late April. Seemed simple enough...

...well, even though I like logical step-by-step processes, I am the first to admit that I do find things like maths and electronics a particular challenge. It took me a week over Christmas (15 years ago, can you believe!) when I was designing the layout to get even a basic grasp on the wiring for this layout; and only after kind help from strangers on NGRM was I able to get it eventually sorted.

That said, part of the appeal of the MTB point motors was that multiple people told me they were super easy to install; they have full adjustment in the positioning of the motor itself, and also you can adjust the pin travel, and the pin height - the latter of which was particularly appealing because I HATE cutting the SEEP pins. They're incredibly tough!

Above: A 6 pack of MTB MP4 point motors. Note the rods come separate, and are adjusted via screws on the yellow part of the point motors. Stupidly, I forgot to take a photo to show how that works, and how the throw distance is set. The latter is a bit difficult until you've done the first one and realise how it works. All I can advise is that there's no need to take the whole cover off of the point motor - just lever one end up a bit. You can then use a pair of flat needle pliers to pull the yellow plastic pin out from the cam to adjust the throw distance - it's very hard to grab, and very easy to damage - hence the spares provided! But when you've done it once, there'll be no need to change it. And to be fair, I never needed to use one of the spares so as long as you're careful you'll be fine.

Here's what I didn't realise after purchasing the MTB point motors... it turns out that my current control panel switches and some of the wiring on the layout won't work with the MTB motors. In my defence, the documentation on the MTB products is lacking, and it is stated that they are simple replacements for electromagnetic point motors, when in fact, it isn't that simple! To be honest, not even an internet search wielded much fruitful advice. OK, so yes the wires from the point motors are pretty much the same as SEEPs, but it's the fact you don't need a CDU and they don't work with momentary switches that causes the need to rewire the control panel. It is said they can work with up to 16VAC, but I've not seen anyone do this, and 12VDC is recommended instead.

A chance to de-quirk?

Given the state of the old control panel, and that I now needed to modify it anyway, it occurred to me that there are a few quirks on the layout in terms of operation that would also be nice to solve whilst I'm doing some major re-wiring:

Above all else, the main issue is that I put the rotary switch that controls the flat crossing nowhere near the location of the crossing on the control panel. This means that it often gets forgotten, particularly when others are helping to operate the layout. OK, so that is very rare in itself, but to be honest, the four quirks explained in the image above definitely make me more reluctant to let people operate the layout in the first place!

In an ideal world, the rotary switch wouldn't be necessary at all, and the polarity of the crossing could be set via changing point P1 (by the trestle headshunt). This does, however, mean that some form of protection would need to be put in place so that P1 and P2/P3 aren't all set to the crossing together - else a short will occur. There is also another issue with this approach in that you will have to change P1 even if you only want to access the loco shed/loco shed headshunt: something that would be very counter-intuitive, and I suspect worse than the current arrangement! I can't even simplify it further by linking P1 AND P2 with the same point motor switch to set routes, as, because of the need to switch both in opposite directions to avoid a short across the crossing, you would have to stop the train on the 'main line' to change the points again before you can access the trestle headshunt!

Thus, the electrics side of the crossing will remain the same, however, the rotary switch will now be on the actual location of the crossing on the control panel. I would've also liked to have use LEDs on the control panel to confirm the position that the crossing is set to, but I now realise this is not possible without having stacked rotary switches (as the feeds to power the LEDs would've otherwise been taken from the trackwork, thus will only light the LEDs when track power is applied, and only in one direction!). I have however added LEDs to show the position that the points are set to. Although that is not technically necessary as it should be fairly obvious which route is set as the switch would be facing in the same direction as the track it relates to, I would still prefer more visual feedback. Let's not forget that my original switches were 'backwards' according to guest operators - I set them so that the direction you flick the momentary switches correlate to the direction the point blade moves, not which track you wanted to access.

So here's the final control panel (not quite actually what has been fitted, but more on that later):

Above: The white circles indicate where the LEDs will go; there are 8 of them - 2 for each point. There is provision for two different power inputs bottom right. A 2.5mm jack for the new 12VDC to supply the LEDs and point motors, and a 2.1mm jack for the 18VAC power to the controller/track. Most importantly, the rotary switch for the crossing is now where it should be! It doesn't mean it won't get forgotten, but it's the best I could come up with given the situation.

Above: There's also one minor change (other than the removal of the fiddle yard and the section switches on the diagram), and that's the addition of a third loco isolator - this time in the loco shed. This will enable me to now have 2 locomotives on shed instead of just one. A bit overkill, but you never know when you might have a visiting loco to display! The photo doesn't show it, but the nearside rail was indeed eventually cut to form the isolating break required. The left hand part of the montage shows just how lucky I got getting a new isolating feed in - I could just about reach it without having to dig through any polystyrene terrain to find it!

Above: The new control panel could then be printed out, as well as a piece of 5.5mm plywood. Holes were then made in both to accept the various switches, sockets, and LEDs. The very observant among you will notice that the diagram printed does not tally up to the one shown earlier. Yes, I did all of this (and wired it all up) before I realised that the LEDs for the crossing switch didn't work!

Above: The control panel also gained a plastic cover (actually left-over packaging from some scenic mats) to protect the paper printout - shown here back-to-front before anyone asks!

Above: Whilst the panel looked great, I soon realised that the fake bolt heads that I had printed onto the control panel were in the wrong place (see the right hand edge of the panel). A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. More importantly, another thing I got wrong was the rotary switch... compared to the first diagram in this post, you may be able to see that the version in the photos shows 2 off positions - just like the original control panel did. I was annoyed that it had 4 ways as I specifically bought a 2 way switch, but it wasn't until I undid the nut on the back of the rotary switch to attach it to the panel that I realised you can change how many ways the switch can turn to. The default is 4, but it can be modified by pulling out a plastic washer and turning it to a different position. I only found this out because the washer fell out when I took the nut off the back - I then saw the multiple slots. Bugger!

Above: Regretfully, as I was short on time, I didn't change the diagram nor washer, but instead pressed ahead and started testing to see if I had understood the point motor wiring. Thus temporary leads were connected to one of the switches, the 12v supply, and to one of the motors. Success - the motor moved when I flicked the switch!

Above: So, I pressed onwards, working out where I wanted to run wires to cause the minimum number of crossovers and to try to keep things neat-ish. Cable clamps and connector blocks were added - the former secured via cut-down brass screws (see inset image). The left-hand connector block was solely for the point motor LEDs (as they were prewired), and the bottom one was for, left to right; +12V point motor power, -ve track power common from the controller, +ve track power from the controller, and then the switched iso feeds for the 3 isolating sections.

Above: The benefit of working on a small layout like this is it can easily be upended, and with no board joins everything can be wired directly to the control panel without going through extra connectors - thus minimising the chance of a dodgy connection! As I was pretty much rewiring the entire layout (OK, so a lot of the wires remained the same, but they were moved positions and routed more neatly), and I was also creating a new wiring run for the LEDs, more plastic clips were used instead of relying solely on the holes in the baseboard supports to keep them taut enough. Originally, there were a bundle of wires in the centre that drooped well below the baseboard level - it was a miracle I never caught them on anything and ripped the whole lot out! Anyway, the new control can be seen at the bottom of the photo, with the old one further back.

Above: A montage showing the new control panel temporarily clamped upside down to the underside of the layout whilst it is being wired up. Note that I've labelled every wire coming out of the layout!

Above: A close-up of the completed re-wiring. Note the new abundance of wiring notes as I tried to ascertain what I needed to do compared to what was originally there! It's quite confusing working on a layout that is upside down. It's very easy to get disorientated, even on a small layout like this. I had originally separated the LEDs, isolating sections, and point motor wiring into different runs and thus plastic clips, but it was actually making things more confusing and annoying to route them, so I ended up combining most of them as you can see! Things are still labelled where not immediately obvious as to what they are, to reduce the time spent fault-finding.

Above: One of the useful features of the MTB point motors (at least the MP4s) is that the connector block is actually removable - so that you don't have to squeeze wires into awkward areas. Here it is being demonstrated with the tightest spot on the layout.

On this particular point motor, left to right we have;

Green - M1 (point motor direction 1)
Orange - LED direction indicator 1
Blue - LED direction indicator 2
Red - LED common (+ve)

Black - Point motor common (+ve)

Pink - Point frog feed

Yellow - Point toe rail 1 (in this case -ve)

Blue - Point toe rail 2 (in this case +ve)

White - M2 (point motor direction 2)

Above: OK, so it's not the neatest bit of wiring in the world (I really did try, honest!) but it does all work*. If it wasn't for all the wiring required for the LEDs it would actually be much neater.

*except the aforementioned LEDs for the rotary switch!

Above: And just to prove it works, here's my trusty Trix track tester in operation on the crossing!

Above: Here's a sort-of 'before' shot of the original wiring (and less cluttered note-taking!). Note the new MTB MP4 motor on the left, versus the old SEEP motors on the right. Also note the hideous amount of unsecured rats-nest wiring! 

Above: Whilst here's an 'after' shot. Yes, there's a lot more wiring thanks to the LEDs, however, it's now much easier to access the point motors themselves, the whole lot is safer and all secured, and everything is labelled appropriately.

If only things were that simple...

From first glance, it may appear that everything went smoothly once the new control panel was produced. However, that couldn't be further from the truth, and what I haven't yet explained is the saga that fitting new point motors and rewiring the layout actually caused*!

When I wired everything back up, despite it having almost the same wiring (aside from the flat crossing switch which I changed from 3 pole to 2 pole now that there are no section switches complicating things needlessly), none of the track worked. I didn't get any shorts until I connected the Trix track tester to the rails. Suddenly the controller kept shorting out. I could not fathom for a week why this kept happening - it just did not make any logical sense. The situation was so bad that not only did I miss one exhibition (SWAG), I missed the second (Narrow Gauge South). I, for the first time, was a no-show. Invites that I had accepted in good faith and with people that I really respected, I had to, at the very last minute on both occasions, say 'Sorry, but I can't come' - leaving them in the lurch. I've never felt more helpless nor more humiliated. Those that know me know I do everything to avoid the smallest hint of confrontation or putting myself in an awkward situation. To let people down broke my love for the hobby, I thought, for good.

Fortunately, both exhibition managers were absolutely, incredibly, graciously understanding. Moreso than they should've been, for which I will forever be thankful for. That, coupled with how much I enjoyed going to both shows as a visitor this year, almost made up for the frustrations of the past month. And then out of nowhere it hit me. Wait... the controller I was using to test the layout... that's not the controller I normally use. Identical, yes, had it not been for the fact that the one I use regularly has a much larger knob (that Richard Holder kindly gave me when I was exhibiting at Statfold Barn for the 009 Society's 50th Anniversary) that allows you finer control over the speed. So I went upstairs, grabbed the usual controller, and plugged it in. Suddenly, almost everything worked! "Mum, you're not going to believe this..."

*Yep, it was that damn spare controller all along!

There were a few bits that didn't work, but they were soon fixed now that I finally had a working starting point to fault-find from. After an hour, everything finally worked - the biggest sigh of relief was let out, and I could finally rest knowing that I would be able to stop letting people down, and wouldn't have to chuck my beloved layout in the skip!

Oh, and for what it's worth, the only wires soldered in place at the moment are the point motor common feeds to the control panel switches! I'm still debating whether to risk changing the control panel diagram to the new one near the start of this post before I commit to soldering everything up...

...in the meantime, time for a cuppa and...

...a biscuit!