For its first test I am running the Dapol Track Cleaner over the recently ballasted trackwork.

Here it is, hooked up behind the Class 60, ready for its first trial.

After running over the single track, in both directions, this is what it managed to collect. I was quite impressed with its performance, and I’m sure it is going to prove itself very useful.

Also, in the same session in the loft, I started to wire up the transformer for building and scenic lighting.

Pressing the old Hammant & Morgan transformer into service as power supply for building and scenic lighting.

I’ve decided on a colour combination of black and orange for wiring the lighting, with black being the common wire.

It’s been a busy old week, so I’ve not had much time to dedicate to the layout, but I did manage a small amount of ballasting.

Ballasting continues at ‘Overdale Tunnel’

The ballasting is slowly creeping towards the quarry

The ballasting viewed from the ‘Overdale Quarry’ location

No, I haven’t decided to ditch DCC and adopt DC control instead. Rather, I just had time to do a couple of small jobs the other day, one of which involved digging out this old Hammant & Morgan transformer.

This ‘Powermaster’ model was originally my Dad’s and, according to the contemporary 1960/61 price list that I found inside the manual, cost him about 84 Shillings. Goodness knows what that equates to now, but it was probably a fair bit at the time. The manual describes the ‘Powermaster’ as a variable transformer unit with six DC circuit selector switches. The unit also has separate uncontrolled 12v DC and 16v AC outputs on a tertiary winding. All-in-all, ‘a right clever clogs’.

I’ve installed a new shelf for the ‘Powermaster’.

The job I have in mind for this second transformer is as a power source and controller for both building and scenic lighting. I’m thinking of dividing the layout up into six lighting districts and using the circuit selector switches to control these.

The second little job I managed to do was a bit more track ballasting.

Ballasting continues at ‘Overdale Tunnel’.

I’m doing the ballasting in small steps, as the mood takes me. Which isn’t very often, to be honest.

Maybe I’m just a blockhead, but when it comes to understanding some of the instructions associated with DCC block occupancy (or DCC in general, for that matter), often they’re as clear as mud!

When assigning addresses to blocks on the LDT RS-8 in JMRI, there were really two parts to the story. Part 1: Setting the block addresses of the RS-8 and Part 2: Understanding the block addresses set in JMRI.

JMRI addresses for the RS-8 feedback module being applied to blocks on the trackplan

Part 1: Setting the addresses of the RS-8
To assign addresses to the blocks controlled by the RS-8 in the first place, I first had to workout how to get the Lenz system to talk to it. This isn’t immediately obvious from the instructions, as these assume you have the Lenz LH100 hand controller. I have the Lenz Compact and LH90 controllers, but the simple answer is that the address is assigned in the same way as you assign addresses to turnout decoders. Just follow the instructions for ‘Switching points and signals’ for the controller you have, but make sure they’re numbered between 65 and 128, which is the range reserved for feedback modules. 1 to 64 is reserved for turnout decoders with feedback function.

The other point to note is that you only have to set the address of the first block (track section), the other seven addresses on the RS-8 are assign sequentially by the module itself. Unlike the Lenz LS150 turnout decoder where you can set the addresses individually, one after the other. The RS-8 comes with the default address of 65, so its addresses would be 65 to 72. So, logically, you would set the address of a second RS-8 to 73 to give a range 73-80, etc.

Re-labelled RS-8 feedback module

Part 2: Understanding the block addresses set in JMRI
Once I thought I had worked out how to set the block addresses on the RS-8 feedback module, I began to doubt myself. When I tried setting up blocks in JMRI’s ‘PanelPro’ the ‘Sensor table’ was showing block addresses beginning with XS513, where I was expecting to see XS65. In fact, if you look back to the picture of the RS-8 in the post ‘Wiring Wunderland’, I had already labelled the track sections XS69, etc., which is where I was going to start numbering sections from.

Fortunately it didn’t take me too long to track down a reference to this anomaly on the Yahoo – JMRI Users Group, which is essential membership if you are using JMRI. Basically JMRI, as I understand it, allows for eight addresses per module. Meaning that the module at address 1 would give outputs XS1-XS8, module at address 2 would give outputs XS9-XS16, etc. So, by the time you get to 64 (The end of the range allocated to turnout decoders) JMRI is allocating an address of 64 x 8 = 512 (or XS512). Which means that address 65 in JMRI would start with XS513 and end with 65 x 8 = XS520. See what I mean, clear as mud!

Wiring routed through the RS-8 to power separate track blocks

Re-labeled track block sections, to reflect my newly acquired understanding of JMRI’s addressing

PanelPro now indicates occupied track sections correctly

However, the upshot of all this brain ache is that PanelPro now indicates occupied track sections correctly on the track schematic (apart from turnouts, which I am not detecting) and I wasn’t going completely mad!

I apologise for the lengthy post, but in this case I think less is definitely not more!

Now that the turnouts are computer controlled I am turning my attention to block detection. To this end I have recently got an ‘RS-8′ feedback module by the German manufacturer Littfinski DatenTechnik (LDT), which I bought from Digitrains. Before I can make any use of it though, I need to add a feedback bus to the layout.

The yellow and green wires, which form the feedback bus, must be a twisted pair and are connected to the R and S terminals of the Lenz LZV100 Command Station.

Laying out the feedback bus.

The Feedback bus is laid out under the layout, and labelled, but it takes a different route to the power bus, to avoid signal interference.

Wiring the feedback bus into the back of the second control cabinet.

The feedback bus is eventually routed to the back of the second control cabinet, which I made recently. The other wires in the photograph are the wires to the turnouts, which I have temporarily disconnected whilst the cabinet gets a coat of paint.

The main layout control functions wired to the back of the second control cabinet.

The feedback bus ends up at a terminal block, along with the other two main control functions, ready to be wired up to the RS-8 feedback module.

The first three points are in place at ‘Overdale Quarry’ and wired up to the Lenz LS150 accessory decoder. The output addresses for these turnouts on the LS150 have been left at the defaults of 1 to 3. These can be thrown by my Lenz hand held throttles. To do this I have to access the ‘Switching Points’ menu and select the appropriate number. Although this works, it isn’t particularly intuitive. What I really want, is to switch the points with the click of a mouse and for this I’m using ‘PanelPro’.

Changing the turnout icon in PanelPro.

Rather than use the icons provided by ‘PanelPro’ I am creating my own, to overlay onto my custom ‘Dales Peak’ schematic background. ‘PanelPro’ requires four icons for each turnout, to represent the four different states: closed, thrown, inconsistent and unknown.

In the screen above I have already placed icons for two of the points and I am just selecting the icons for the turnout labelled XT2. PanelPro’s system naming is formed from a single letter representing the hardware system, followed by a single letter indicating the type. In this case ‘X’ for the Lenz ‘XpressNet’ and ‘T’ for ‘Turnout’ followed by the hardware address.

Adding the turnout to the track schematic

Having changed the icons I now click the ‘Add right-hand turnout:’ button and the icon appears at the top left of the panel.

Turnout closed

The turnout icon is then moved into its position on the schematic. This is done on a Mac by either ‘right clicking’ the icon, on a two button mouse or clicking whilst holding ‘cmd’ + ‘alt’ on one button mouse and dragging the icon to the required position. When first positioned the turnout is shown in the closed position.

Turnout thrown

Now when I click on the icon the turnout changes from closed to thrown and ‘hey presto’ the point is thrown on the layout as well. How cool is that, at this point I’m feeling like a big kid and I’m really impressed… ‘Progress’.

With the first turnouts and Tortoise point motors in place at ‘Overdale Quarry’ and armed with some industrial sized reels of equipment wire from Maplin’s, it is time to start animating some of the track work using the Lenz DCC control system.

To keep things simple to work on I made another control cabinet at this corner of the layout. This will house the static decoders like the Lenz LS150, one of which I have already installed.

The Lenz LS150 installed and wired up to the first Tortoise point motor.

The 2 rectifier diodes per output are needed to allow the LS150, with AC voltage, to drive the Tortoise switch machine, which normally requires DC voltage.

The first two Tortoise motors all wired up to the detachable card edge connectors, which makes soldering easier.

A third Tortoise is now installed and completes the point motors at this end of Overdale Quarry.

I took advantage of a quiet moment the other day and started to lay some sections of track around and through the ‘Overdale Quarry’ loading bays.

Track laying progresses at ‘Overdale Quarry’ with Peco track gauges in place.

Three sections of track were layed, glued and pinned in place. I used some Peco track gauges to keep the ends of the two front sections parallel at their ends.

Eventually the loading chutes will be removed.

I’ve included this close view of the building’s loading chutes to show how they were assembled as per the original kit’s instructions. As the building is sited now, they are out of place. So, as I get around to doing a bit of kit bashing, I shall be removing them and possibly using them elsewhere.

I’m looking forward to being able to run wagons through the loading bay in the not too distant future, hopefully.

The track laying viewed from the direction that unloaded wagons will approach the loading bays.

This side of the layout had been in a right mess, until I did a bit of spring cleaning.

The top level of the layout, where the ‘Dales Peak Cement’ works will be, has been used as a dumping ground for tools and materials until now. After tidying up, the damage that condensation had done during the winter to the backboard was obvious. The insulating of the loft roof is only part done and condensation is still able to form on the reverse of the Thermawrap foil insulation and run down.

The decks are cleared.

Once the decks were cleared I started to think about track laying on this side of the layout. There will be a fair bit of track work to do at ‘Dales Peak Cement’ works, when I get that far. In the meantime, however, there are the tracks in the foreground to consider. The branchline leaving ‘Dalesmouth’, and the circular double mainline.

Some of the buildings for ‘Dales Peak Cement’ works, arranged in no particular order, on the upper level. One of the dummy road bridges is roughly in place. Evident too, is the missing track in the foreground.

Before I reworked the track layout of ‘Dalesmouth’ station, I did have one complete loop of the double mainline in place. Now, I’m going to starting piecing it together again, as far as track stock allows.

Track for the branchline being test fitted on the departure from ‘Dalesmouth’ station.

I had bought all the turnouts I needed to complete the innermost mainline circuit, but changes in the plans have meant that I haven’t necessarily got all the points I need now. So, I’m going to have to complete sections of track for which I’ve got all the parts, rather than in any logical order (So, nothing new there then!).

With the addition of the new siding at ‘Overdale Quarry’ I have now updated the trackplan to keep it in line with developments.

Click the trackplan to go to the trackplan page.

Also, while I was in updating mode, I decided to update and move the track progess plan from the dalespeak.co.uk site to its own page here.

Click the track progress plan to go to the track progress page.