Morning all. So, two years in, I'm happy with my digital, and Massoth choice. Now I'd like to ask another general question to sound out opinions, and it's about whether or not to consider extending the digitisation of the railway, namely regarding control of points and other accessories. It's prompted by the discovery that the analogue building lights wiring seems to have failed us; my brother-in-law is the electrical expert here, and he thinks we might want to renew the entire analogue cabling system. Since it was largely installed in 2009, it has done pretty well to have performed faultlessly up to now, especially as the Prague winters are always cold and sometimes with lying snow.
But overall the question is, if we are going to overhaul the set-up, is it worth investing in further digitalisation?
Quickly to describe the set-up. On the house terrace is the Massoth central station and also the LGB 50110 transformer which supplies the analogue stuff. Both have underground cables which run out to the wall at the back where the railway is. There is a big weatherproof box containing the analogue control boxes, all LGB 51750/51800 as appropriate. One 51800 box was also used to control isolated track when I was all analogue, all that wiring is still in place and perhaps should be removed as part of any renovation of the wiring setup.
I've now got 12 electric point motors on the railway. I currently have two electric signals wired up in parallel to signal motors and maybe 3 more we want to install. So, if we want to digitise that lot, that sounds like a lot of chips, a lot of money, and a lot of work...is it worth it? If so, what gear would people use? The advice has been to stick to one manufacturer , which in my case means Massoth, but I have read in other threads that they can be a pain to set up. I would never give Massoth any awards for user-friendly manuals!!
As for the buildings I've got 4 around the main station, plus the soon to be completed engine shed, and then two small stations further away from the control box. I'm quite interested in solar powering the lighting for these so I'd be interested in any examples of solar set-ups for buildings that people have.
So the questions are not very specific, but I hope are a natural progression from the first phase of this thread, which was certainly a great help to me and hopefully a few others too.
But overall the question is, if we are going to overhaul the set-up, is it worth investing in further digitalisation?
Quickly to describe the set-up. On the house terrace is the Massoth central station and also the LGB 50110 transformer which supplies the analogue stuff. Both have underground cables which run out to the wall at the back where the railway is. There is a big weatherproof box containing the analogue control boxes, all LGB 51750/51800 as appropriate. One 51800 box was also used to control isolated track when I was all analogue, all that wiring is still in place and perhaps should be removed as part of any renovation of the wiring setup.
I've now got 12 electric point motors on the railway. I currently have two electric signals wired up in parallel to signal motors and maybe 3 more we want to install. So, if we want to digitise that lot, that sounds like a lot of chips, a lot of money, and a lot of work...is it worth it? If so, what gear would people use? The advice has been to stick to one manufacturer , which in my case means Massoth, but I have read in other threads that they can be a pain to set up. I would never give Massoth any awards for user-friendly manuals!!
As for the buildings I've got 4 around the main station, plus the soon to be completed engine shed, and then two small stations further away from the control box. I'm quite interested in solar powering the lighting for these so I'd be interested in any examples of solar set-ups for buildings that people have.
So the questions are not very specific, but I hope are a natural progression from the first phase of this thread, which was certainly a great help to me and hopefully a few others too.
