Introducing The PistonBroke Line

[OBJack]

Thanks Charlie, Carl and Gus, I appreciate the comments.
Well Folks, it's been a week or so since I put ASCII characters into cyberspace, so here comes the next part of the puzzle.
I have great difficulty in nutting out the electronics from a book,... unless I can just do it and see and see if there are any sparks, if not then proceed to the next step..This was a while back but I still need some direction and advise, so pay attention, as there will be questions .
So.... progress so far:

I purchased a few tortoise switch machines

And some stationary decoders ( The WabbitFBs )

My take on the Wabbits with the feedback capability is that it doesn't matter whether the turnout is thrown by a toggle switch or your cab control/hand piece the system will always be able to tell you which way they are thrown.
And I assumed this was not possible with the basic wabbitt or Hare.


My problem has been ( and still is) that I think I may need another bit of hardware to hook it all up to the power station.

So I have wired up a few tortoise switch machines to the turnouts, and then wired them to the wabbits to give cab control as well as toggle switch control of the turnouts.

A few problems arose 'cause a turnout happened to be directly above a bit of the benchtop structure, but nothing a big hammer an oxy welder a crescent and a bit of wire twitching couldn't fix.

The other problem was that my benchtop with the foam base was to thick and the length of wire (which is supplied with the tortoise) used to throw the turnout was not long enough.

So a bit of piano wire was purchased which I could cut to length. it was also a bit thicker than the original.

Next problem: I didn't have a drill bit long enough or small enough to drill the pilot for the tortoise' wire thru the foam and baseboard:
because all my track has been laid, I needed to drill from the top thru the hole in the turnout bar to get the exact location of where the hole needs to be .

Solution: I used the piano wire as the drill bit. It was obviously small enough to fit thru the the hole in the throw bar of the turnout. Worked a treat, went thru the MDF baseboard quite easily. At last a Score to Jack.

I bought all the wiring out from under the bench and put it on a board / boards screwed to the side, to make working on the wiring so much easier. Hopefully it will be covered by a curtain one day.

And by putting a few cuts in the rail at strategic places and a bit of wire back to the wabbit, you can ensure that if a train is going to enter a turnout which is turned against it, the turnout will automatically switch to the correct alignment to stop a derailment, or short circuit.

And I seem to have been able to wire two turnouts (which create a crossover) together so that they will always be in alignment ie: they both switch together.

Now I will have to put all these accessory decoders onto their own power supply. 'cause I guess if you have a short you wont be able to switch the turnouts. At the moment everything is running of the track bus wires.
The switches on the control panel will be DPDT momentary on - center off switches so that the cab can always switch the points if desired.

Now for da question

I still want to know if an extra bit of hardware is needed between the wabbits and the power station so that the cab/throttle can tell which way the turnout is thrown when you call it up, ( by showing either a + or a - ) 'cause at the moment When I call up the turnout to switch it, I can't tell which way it is set.
I am using a lenz system, And it uses a + or - to show how the point is set, but at the moment if the point is changed by a switch on the control panel then the system doesn't update the change to show on the throttle.

Remember this Lynn? Can you tell by looking at your throttle when you call turnout up to switch it ...which way it is set?

I haven't progressed much.

Next ... The Control Panel

Jack

News Flash
At this point The War Office returned from work and said that the Principal of the local school would like to bring 20 kids to view the Pistonbroke line for a school assignment on perspective.

Must scurry off and tidy up the Layout and pack away some junk before the pack arrive .