Unfortunately the Signalling Bug hit me over the last few days. By this I mean I began to install Colour Light Signals on the layout. Once I started I could not stop. Unfortnately this has given way to doing scenery and also not running any trains
A few years back I build some searchlight signals and also some circuits to automatically change the Signals from Proceed to Danger once the train has passed the signal. I really like seeing this just as it is in the prototype.
I also thought hard how to avoid the rats nest of wiring I ended up with last time in my eager to get it up and running. So now what I do is secure the circuits to some ply and use this as some sort of work area.
I ended up having to buy some 3mm bi-colour LEDs as some blew and only would show RED or GREEN. What a pain it is to get them soldered back on. Today was especially a frustrating day after seeing the Arrival UP Home signal not displaying the GREEN aspect. So I soldered on a new LED and still no GREEN aspect. Tracing back the enamel wire I had connect the wire for the GREEN leg to COMMON so I had to go through the whole exercise. Very frustrating and sometimes I think is it really worth it. But seeing the Signals light up really makes up for the frustration.
Each Signal head that needs a detection circuit as well requires alot of wiring! For the three signal I have, that is four such circuits, which includes the LOW Speed arrival signal which was used on SearchLight Signals back in the day. Now I want to control all these signals from one are. So each signal needs three wires to this panel which makes it 3 x 4 = 12 wires. This is just for the DOWN end. I also need to do the UP end. Anyway here are some photos.
A few years back I build some searchlight signals and also some circuits to automatically change the Signals from Proceed to Danger once the train has passed the signal. I really like seeing this just as it is in the prototype.
I also thought hard how to avoid the rats nest of wiring I ended up with last time in my eager to get it up and running. So now what I do is secure the circuits to some ply and use this as some sort of work area.
I ended up having to buy some 3mm bi-colour LEDs as some blew and only would show RED or GREEN. What a pain it is to get them soldered back on. Today was especially a frustrating day after seeing the Arrival UP Home signal not displaying the GREEN aspect. So I soldered on a new LED and still no GREEN aspect. Tracing back the enamel wire I had connect the wire for the GREEN leg to COMMON so I had to go through the whole exercise. Very frustrating and sometimes I think is it really worth it. But seeing the Signals light up really makes up for the frustration.
Each Signal head that needs a detection circuit as well requires alot of wiring! For the three signal I have, that is four such circuits, which includes the LOW Speed arrival signal which was used on SearchLight Signals back in the day. Now I want to control all these signals from one are. So each signal needs three wires to this panel which makes it 3 x 4 = 12 wires. This is just for the DOWN end. I also need to do the UP end. Anyway here are some photos.
Schematic
Here's a video showing how the signals operate:
Ignore the Left Green Aspect at the beginning of the video as I was in testing phase:
https://youtu.be/9d6eaI0ONX4
