Check inside your loco bogies

I opened up the bogies to see if I could increase the conductivity of the pickups of the Austrains T Class. I couldn't believe the amount of grease! I cleant away most of the excess and then applied no-ox id to improve conductivity. Apparently this reduces oxidation and hence improves conductivity. I think it pays to check inside your bogies next time your loco is up for its mainteance. I think you may be suprised!

I also spent some time updating the code for the inner loop automatic signals. After two rounds in the inner loop, instead of the signal changing back to a green aspect, the signal now remains at the yellow aspect as per the signalling protol on the prototype for Automatic signals. Off course the signal changes to Red and then after a while to yellow then to the green aspect for the second run across, then it drops to red and after some time chanes to the yellow aspect and remains there until I toggle the switch again. The beauty of these arduinos! Was a very frustrating exercise but enjoyed the challenge.

Movements in the month of Feb

The following photos shows all the movements that took place from 07th Feb to 27 Feb.  Unfortunately I didn't record the movements that occurred during the period of 01 Feb to 07 Feb.  From the ones that were recorded, there was a total of 46 movements.  This show how much I am enjoying the layout - obviously there are times when I am not motivated, doing other things on the layout,  or too busy doing other things that are not model railway related.

1 / 46

2021:02:06 13:09:25

2 / 46

2021:02:06 13:19:17

3 / 46

2021:02:06 13:40:20

4 / 46

2021:02:06 14:19:46

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2021:02:06 14:45:21

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2021:02:07 07:52:15

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2021:02:07 07:54:23

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2021:02:07 08:11:27

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2021:02:07 10:44:43

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2021:02:07 10:58:52

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2021:02:07 11:19:39

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2021:02:07 11:38:07

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2021:02:07 11:46:48

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2021:02:07 13:44:10

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2021:02:07 14:18:41

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2021:02:07 15:23:54

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2021:02:07 15:34:17

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2021:02:07 15:39:12

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2021:02:13 16:22:34

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2021:02:13 16:33:37

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2021:02:13 16:45:05

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2021:02:13 16:54:05

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2021:02:14 14:29:48

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2021:02:14 15:21:57

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2021:02:14 16:43:59

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2021:02:16 16:30:04

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2021:02:16 16:51:17

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2021:02:16 17:06:21

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2021:02:20 07:38:50

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2021:02:20 07:53:37

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2021:02:20 08:05:02

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2021:02:20 10:13:13

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2021:02:20 10:24:38

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2021:02:20 10:41:09

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2021:02:20 10:49:12

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2021:02:20 16:29:17

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2021:02:21 08:20:18

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2021:02:21 08:32:46

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2021:02:21 09:07:51

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2021:02:21 10:29:29

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2021:02:21 10:43:45

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2021:02:21 10:52:56

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2021:02:27 08:29:42

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2021:02:27 08:39:36

46 / 46

2021:02:27 09:28:39

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I have added a timestamp to show when the movement arrived at the railway station.  

LM324 Op Amp Wonders

As I have explained in my previous posts on how I operate my layout which is basically from the viewpoint of a locomotive driver calling on shift to do a job from one main town to another main town, both having a crew change stop.

Given the small layout I have, I use the same station area as multiple places that we pass through until arriving at the next main town where this driver gets out and clocks off.

This entails a few laps of the layout.  I have settled on two inner laps and then one outer lap where the station is located.

 I am always looking at ways to enjoy this small layout.  One issue I have with this operation is the changing of points every-time I leave the outer loop/station area to traverse the two inner loops (which represents some distance between stations).  Instead of enjoying the layout from different viewpoints, I am called back to the location of the layout where I can change the points, one is operated by a Modertec Lever and the other by a Tortoise Switch machine.

I know I could use a decoder to control both if I replaced the Modertec lever with a tortoise, but that would entail more cumbersome button presses on the throttle.  Wouldn't it be good if I could automate this whole concept, namely, for every two passes of the inner loop, the points would change to the direction of the outer loop and every time a train was in the outer loop, the points would change and a path would be made to take the inner loop.

I researched whether this was possible and to my amazement I came across the following schematic that uses the LM324 OP-AM  connected to an Arduino Micro-controller!

However I had some major thinking to do in the realm of how to code this.  Lucky for me, I had some spare Current Transformers as detection circuits which I had built previously for my signalling project so I could use these as well.

Logic used to construct the code and the different scenarios I had to take into account:

	Tortoise T1 Point near staging	Tortoise T2 Point near station
1: Travelling in the UP Direction SW2 HIGH and SW 4 HIGH	T1	T2
ex staging
Goes Over detect A0	HIGH	HIGH
Goes Over detect A1	HIGH	LOW
Goes Over detect A1 again	LOW	LOW
Goes Over detect A0	HIGH	HIGH
2: Travelling in the DN Direction SW1 HIGH and SW3 HIGH	T1	T2
ex staging
Goes Over detect A0	LOW	LOW
Goes Over detect A1	HIGH	LOW
Goes Over detect A1 again	HIGH	HIGH
Goes Over detect A0	LOW	LOW
3 - Travelling in the UP Direction SW2 HIGH and SW3 HIGH	T1	T2
ex STATION
Initially Set: using flags in code	HIGH	HIGH
Goes Over detect A1	HIGH	LOW
Goes Over detect A1 again	LOW	LOW
Goes Over detect A0	HIGH	HIGH
SW4/2:Traveling in the DN Direction Can be used as 2! SW1 HIGH and SW3 HIGH	T1	T2
ex STATION
Goes Over detect A0	LOW	LOW
Goes Over detect A1	HIGH	LOW
Goes Over detect A1 again	HIGH	HIGH
Goes Over detect A0	LOW	LOW
MANUAL: When our train takes loop for Cross/Meets SW1 HIGH and SW4 HIGH	T1	T2
When this SW5 SW4 set to HIGH	LOW	HIGH

After some thinking and coding, I got to the testing phase and then came the deployment phase.  This took about one whole day to get all the toggle switches and wiring set up as well as the wiring from the Arduino UNO and the LM324.

Power was supplied and to my relief I heard one of the Point motors make that crawling sound.  Good, now I need to run a train and see if the points set correctly, so I took a Down Goods and as it went over the sensor block of the outer loop, both points changed and made a path for the inner loop! Good!! Now, two passes of the inner loop and again, automatically, both points changed to make a path for the Outer Loop!  WOW!  Total automation of the points!!!  I was ecstatic!  Now I can walk round the layout whilst we make the journey from one major town, passing some intermediate towns and then arriving at out crew change location.

LM324 soldered to a veroboard (2 pins from the UNO which is not shown are connected to the LM324):

The only times I need to change points, is when leaving the yard and when re-entering at the end of the journey at the "other" location.

So I now have the signalling of the DOWN section near the station automated, points for the correct path automated, the two automatic signals displaying the yellow aspect and automated.  The only section left is the UP side near the station to automate.

The following video demonstrates the LM384 automatically changing the points when the sensor is detected

The opportunity cost of spending all this time spent on the electronics side is that I have not spend any time on scenery.  But the winds are full in my sails so I am not going to change course at this point.