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Offline grahamemarshall  
#1 Posted : 23 April 2014 06:03:44(UTC)
grahamemarshall

New Zealand   
Joined: 03/02/2014(UTC)
Posts: 11
Location: CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH
Sorry its me again, not so much as a problem but I want to get it right.
I'm just about ready to put the ply board on top of the frame but I would like to do most of the wiring before it goes on, to save me crawling underneath to many times (which is difficult after a big operation)
I will either use a Marklin control box (if I can afford one) or control the layout with my laptop.
I would like to prewire the turnouts and some spare wire for signals etc.

Thanks for your help
Grahame
File Attachment(s):
New Layout from Robert corrected.pdf (43kb) downloaded 63 time(s).
Offline cookee_nz  
#2 Posted : 24 April 2014 10:21:03(UTC)
cookee_nz

New Zealand   
Joined: 31/12/2010(UTC)
Posts: 3,946
Location: Paremata, Wellington
Originally Posted by: grahamemarshall Go to Quoted Post
Sorry its me again, not so much as a problem but I want to get it right.
I'm just about ready to put the ply board on top of the frame but I would like to do most of the wiring before it goes on, to save me crawling underneath to many times (which is difficult after a big operation)
I will either use a Marklin control box (if I can afford one) or control the layout with my laptop.
I would like to prewire the turnouts and some spare wire for signals etc.

Thanks for your help
Grahame


Hi Grahame,

Not sure what your question is here. Are you asking about advice on pre-wiring in general or something specific about your own layout?

If you use digital control then it should simplify things to some degree and looking at your layout plan (reposted below as an image for others) you appear to have 7 turnouts and one double-slip. This would require two decoders to control fully.

I have no idea what method of control you intend to employ, I saw your other question regarding suitable software but you've not mentioned your hardware.

By "Marklin control box" do you mean a CS2 or similar? - you are going to need a controller with PC connection capability for any sort of PC control, and if you were thinking of an older unit such as a 6021 then you'd also need an interface. I suggest you will also need some form of feedback detection from the layout so that the PC knows what's going on. There are various methods for doing this, you can either use track sections designed for this, or add reed switches around the layout and magnets on selected Loco's or rolling stock. There are also possibilities with infra-red detection modules.

Signalling is another thing to consider, and each signal installed requires it's own digital decoder port.

In any event, make your wiring as neat and clear as possible. Follow Marklin's lead and use nice straight runs of wire neatly stapled or otherwise secured. If you follow Marklin colour-coding it will help, but you may also wish to add different coloured 'tracers' to runs of the same colour to distinguish them. For example. magnetic accessories usually have a single yellow and two blue wires. But each of the blues is connected to a Green or Red port at the control box (push-button) or the decoder.

I know of users who prefer to run green and red wire stranded together for accessories to simplify this, and when a red is stranded with a green there is much less chance of it being confused with the Red to the track (I'd strand this with the brown if I were wiring like that).

How you do it does not really matter too much, if you choose to use blue all the way just make sure you group your runs in such a way that it's obvious. Adding some labels to the wires may help you also. It may seem clear as when you first wire it up, but a few months down the track when something stops working you'll be grateful for some foresight.

One of the theoretical advantages of digital is that if you have a cluster of turnouts close together, you can place the decoder centrally to all of them. This is neat and tidy, but can make trouble-shooting tricky if access to them if going to be awkward. For this reason you may prefer to have all your deocders close to your control panel and run all the wiring back to that location. Yes it's more wiring, but provided your wiring underneath is to a high standard (soldered wherever possible) then the possibility of failure is much reduced.

Not sure if this info helps you or not, more specific questions or examples would give us something more to work with and advise on.

Regards

Steve
Wellington
cookee_nz attached the following image(s):
layout.jpg
Cookee
Wellington
NZ image
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