A Small Railway gets signalling

[jimmielx]

I've recently installed some signals on the line.

The body of the signal is just a wooden base and front upright with a plasticard cover on the back and sides - all sprayed black. The pole is some 8mm aluminium rod from B&Q. The main lamps are 10mm coloured LEDs. One of the signals has a feather which is made of 5mm LEDs - the warm white super bright variety which needed a whole load of extra resistance to get them down to a comparable level to the 10mm ones - can't have the driver blinded as he approaches the signal!

There are six signals in all. Three two aspect on the exits of sidings and three three aspect on the main loop (one with a feather). They are all wired back to a CML Electroncis Accessory decoder. This is an 8 way accessory decoder, but has the added advantage that instead of controlling 8 points with A or B type outputs it can also be set as 16 simple on-off outputs. That is how I have it set so each lamp is individually controlled. My railway is automated using iTrain software and this also controls the signals, so as the trains run around the signals are set (and obeyed hopefully) automatically.

One problem I do have is that the software is European and does not at the moment support British signaling. For the most part this isn't a problem as there is a Belgian 3 aspect signal supported which works in just about the same way as a British one. Except that we are pretty unique in indicating the route in the signalling. So I have managed to get the feather to work just about with a bit of funky coaxing of the software. The only problem I have is that there is one instance where the signal will display red with the feather on. Hopefully British or at least route specific signalling will eventually be supported by the software too.

Signals on the line are coloured light, whilst the signals in the station will be semaphores which are coming from Pendelbury. I like both so Rule 8 says that I shall be mixing both!

Cheers

 

[jimmielx]

I still have to install hoods for the LEDs as they become a little hard to see in direct sunlight. I just need to get the length right, unlike on the prototype I do need the birds to be able to see them as well as the driver!!

 

[Gizzy]

I do like those?

Signalling is a future project for my own railway too....

 

[steinz]

They look really good !!
Many thanks for sharing with the rest of us - really appreciated

 

[nicebutdim]

That looks really good. Correct me if I'm wrong though (which I probably am), isn't the feather signal supposed to lead to the facing of the point, as opposed to facing the trailing of the point? Or is there another point around the corner?

 

[Andy Worsfold]

Yeah I wondered that as well. I do like your signals very much and I have a mix of colour light and pendlebury semaphore here.

 

[jimmielx]

That looks really good. Correct me if I'm wrong though (which I probably am), isn't the feather signal supposed to lead to the facing of the point, as opposed to facing the trailing of the point? Or is there another point around the corner?

There is indeed another point just around the corner which is what the feather indicates!

 

[tramcar trev]

They do look smart.... you say they are software controlled so who controls the software? I discovered a good way to get multiple LEDs to glow at the same intensity is to hook them up in series.....
Anyway most impressive array....

 

[nicebutdim]

Just an idea with the feather light coming on with a red aspect, you could place a relay or TTL circuit powered from the red supply that would cut the power to the feather when the red aspect is on.

 

[jimmielx]

They do look smart.... you say they are software controlled so who controls the software? I discovered a good way to get multiple LEDs to glow at the same intensity is to hook them up in series.....
Anyway most impressive array....

Hi Trevor

The four LEDs in the feather are in series, so as you say they do all glow at the same brightness. Apart from them being much too bright compared to the coloured LEDs I also had another problem. They have a maximum forward votage of 3.2v and the supply from the controller was 12v - I assumed therefore that no series resistor would be required - I was wrong and they popped within thirty seconds! It turned out that the measured supply was more like 14v, and I needed some resistance to pull the brightness of them down anyway.

A brief explanation of the software side:
The railway is run by a program called iTrain. This operates the trains and points. Working on a block system where it will allow only one train to be in a block (section of track which must not include points) at any one time (just like the prototpye), it drives trains on predetermined routes from block to block setting the points and now the signals as it goes. Each block has two (or more) current detecting sections of track in it which feedback to the computer (via the command station) when a train is in that section. Simply put, when a train needs to stop in a block, at the first sensor it's speed is dropped to a slow braking speed, and at the second sensor it's speed is dropped to zero and it stops. The software knows which train has triggered each feedback and thus in which block each train is, because it knows where each train is going and thus is expecting the feedbacks. At the end of each block there can be a signal protecting the following blocks and the software drives this.
There is a bit more to it than that, but that's the basic explanation. Without the computer connected I can still happily run trains as normal, but the signals would not work....

Cheers

 

[jimmielx]

Just an idea with the feather light coming on with a red aspect, you could place a relay or TTL circuit powered from the red supply that would cut the power to the feather when the red aspect is on.

Thanks for that Tim, that is a splendid idea!

 

[tramcar trev]

Yes, I thought putting 4 x 3.2 volt Leds in series would eat the 12 V supply but for reasons I don't know, to prevent them burning out a resistor is always best bet, it controls more the current rather than the voltage (no doubt an expert can correct me).... iTrain ahhhhhh yes your explanation is noted, far to complex for a dinosaur like me, I'll stick to basic electronics....
Still I LUV your signals, very European but they do look quite exquisite.....

 

[UKSGR]

You could have a look at the Picaxe chips to control that feather. I started looking at it after reading the post on 2.4GHz control in this section and for anyone with a programming mind it is very easy and the Logicator software manual shows LED interfacing. Hope this helps

 

[ntpntpntp]

I'd have thought all you need to do is power the feather off the same wires as the green or amber LEDs, but via an accessory switch on the point motor so it only shows when the point is thrown for the desired route?

 

[jimmielx]

Thanks for the suggestions chaps.
Paul, I'm sure I remember programming PIC microcontrollers at Uni - quite sure I can't remember anything else about it! I've had a look at a couple of websites and it all seems achievable though... I think I'll store this idea up for a future project...
What I'm going to do to sort the feather out is a combo of roughly what Nick and Tim have suggested. I can get the software to show the feather only when the route is selected (but in either direction) very simply. So all I will do is add a relay on the red LED circuit which when on will switch off power to the feather. This should be super cheap and simple (if a bit old school!) and take very little time to install.

Cheers

 

[Gizzy]

Take it you are thinking of a Peco PL-13 accessory switch..

Sounds like it Gordon. Did a big N guage layout with Bachmann Dummy sig colour lights converted by 1.2mm leds, including their 2 track gantry until I had a batch of 100 etched for me in the Jewellery Quarter in Brum. Looked great in a low light level illuminated room.

LGB make a similar product to fit their point motors, the 'Type 2' EPL Supplementary Switch part no LGB 12070....

http://www.champex-linden.de/lgb_pr...81FD44A6565E98525696C0072A222/$FILE/12070.pdf

http://www.champex-linden.de/lgb_pr...C4F11980FC785256B1E006B8B9A/$FILE/12070-1.PDF

 

[dumpy]

I still have to install hoods for the LEDs as they become a little hard to see in direct sunlight. I just need to get the length right, unlike on the prototype I do need the birds to be able to see them as well as the driver!!

Am to automated signalling at the moment. Circuitry and switching no problem but am changing the bulbs for LEDs. Much brighter etc etc but hoods? What are you thinking of using. I need something about 12.5mm (half inch), probably plastic tubing of some sort. So far my searches have not revealed unless I buy metres of the stuff. Anyone got ideas?

 

[tramcar trev]

Try using some of the brass tube you can get from hobby shops, Cut it with a razor saw in a mitrebox, then a 90 degree cut and make hoods like that , superglue into positition with the wicking type superglue. you put a small drop at the joint and capilliary action draws it in... I used this technique to make the brass masters for my tramway signals and it worked well for me, you only have to buy 30cm too

 

[nicebutdim]

I used hard plastic tube from Homebase. They have a little section that does strip and angled metals, as well as tubes and strips of plastic. I ground the hood onto the end of the pipe (using a angle grinder as nothing else handy at the time) by grinding in half length wise by about 5mm, and then cut the pipe carefully using a junior hacksaw so there is a ring of pipe about 1mm behind the hood. Using sandpaper and small files I get the ring down to about 0.3mm and shape the hood, then just glue onto the signal board. Sounds long and drawn out, but doesn't take long at all and is very easy to do.

 

[jimmielx]

I haven't found anything exactly right for the hoods for my signals, but those are some good suggestions.

My ideal is a black plastic tube 10mm inside diameter, 12-13mm outside diameter. Which I can the cut appropriately and araldite in place. I've found clear plastic tube of the right size on ebay, but I'm quite sure that once I've painted it black it will no longer fit over the LED.

I do have a pack of black pipe stiffeners (from Wickes) which are a little small , but I can cut in half and squash in the vice a little to make them fit over the LEDS, making a hood for the top half of the lamp. I may go with this...