# Control panel project (in progress)



## tankist

thread describing the CDU that drives the turnouts was moved here

printed out layout diagram, glued it to piece of plywood and screwed sheet of plexiglas. drilled through holes for tactile micro buttons. i got the ones with longer shank so about millimeter is protruding. the holes for indication diodes are through plywood only.

and thats what i got













besides the fact it came out somewhat sloppy for my taste i realised that i decided to use pair of push buttons per turnout. yet again i hit my head with the same impatience stick  redesign was inevitable. i removed the top plexi cover and used it as back. cut another piece to size to serve as the new front cover. cut the middle plywood away leaving the borders for strength and as something to screw the panel to










printed out new sheet with improved buttons and indicators layout. glued it to the plexi back and drilled 3mm holes for LEDs and pilot holes for the buttons.











lined up the two sheets, screwed them together and enlarged the pilot hole to hold the buttons.
looks cleaner now 











underside. marked the turnouts for less confusion during wiring. buttons are held in place with dabs of adhesive caulk. when dry it proved to hold them very nicely - took some effort to get them out of plywood. i will solder wire leads to LEDs before installing. 











since there is some room inside the enclosure i will try to install the capacitor discharge units into it as well (blank proto PCBs shown) 












and finally , thats how it will look when done 
this time i'm quite happy with what i see


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## Reckers

Looks like it should get us to Mars just fine. My plan was to just touch two wires together when I want a turnout to activate.


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## T-Man

Good job, :thumbsup: does it come with a coffee cup holder?


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## Big Ed

When you hit the button to activate the switches does it light up on the panel?


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## jsshieldsjr

No it lights up in the kitchen. Bring me another beer!

:lol_hitting:


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## tankist

not at the moment obviously, but the plan is to constantly have indication of route selected displayed. i will be using bi-polar LEDs and all of them will be lit. green/green (quasi "Clear" aspect ) for straight through routes and red/green "medium clear" when diverging route selected. the left most turnout has direct indication for each rout, green for active one, red for the other


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## tworail

Great job. Need a video of it in action when completed 

I wanted to do something like that for my layout but I don't have the patience.. or skill for that matter. I might do it for the smaller one I built though which is more analog based, with only digital train control.

I just started doing the proof of concept stuff for my large layout control and it's very frustrating... contact tracks and feedback and routes and bla bla bla.. barely have anything to show for two night's work.


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## tankist

soldered leads with header connectors to buttons.
soldered wires to the LEDs as well. lucky me i decided to test them prior to gluing them in. i distinctly remember ordering bi color LED' in green/red. and what i got is Blue/ red  WTF!!! what do i do with blue/red!?
EDIT: bunch of police cars perhaps, but chase scene from blues brothers is not something i'm going to model

off shopping again and then desoldering the already wired LEDs  ...












i guess i can use them as reds only...
if anyone wants blue/red let me know, i have a bunch of them


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## Reckers

Red could be useful for modeling Amsterdam....


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## tworail

I'm going to make one of these for my small Marklin layout. Just need to lay my hands on all the supplies to do it.

How difficult is it to have the route selected displayed?


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## tankist

not difficult really


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## jsshieldsjr

OK how do I get pictures to show up in a post like this? I started a Fotiki account but still get the links instead of the pics!


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## tankist

jsshieldsjr said:


> OK how do I get pictures to show up in a post like this? I started a Fotiki account but still get the links instead of the pics!


look here:
http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=2595

BTW, Mods, i thing that picture posting guide should also be made a sticky


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## jsshieldsjr

http://images51.fotki.com/v747/photos/1/1623361/8409720/10013120_22_34_Cibolo_Texas_US-vi.jpg


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## tankist

jsshieldsjr said:


> http://images51.fotki.com/v747/photos/1/1623361/8409720/10013120_22_34_Cibolo_Texas_US-vi.jpg


use {IMG} tags instead of {URL}


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## tankist

soldered new LEDs to lead wires flattened the dome and glued them into the panel. everything looks the same apart that there are twice as much wires sticking from the underside now. a jungle...

started on the boards these LEDs plug in to. powered from the non current blocking side of the CDU ( the left wire terminals basically direct connected to the power plug) . as a second option boards can be powered from the DC or DCC rail voltage (program/run toggle) with polarity kept constant or rectified with schottky diode bridge and voltage regulated with 7805. 




i went through that bag of chinese diodes and tested every single one. about 80% were blue/red. the rest were actually green/red and there were coupe of 3 legged ones. lucky my to get an odd bag.


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## Reckers

It was the Committee messing with you, Anton. We're still watching you.


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## Guest

*Great control panel*

I like the idea of the schematic of the layout to aid the operation of the trains and points (turnouts?). Do the switches light up ?


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## tankist

vinnouse said:


> I like the idea of the schematic of the layout to aid the operation of the trains and points (turnouts?). Do the switches light up ?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj_GGW0_nXw


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## tjcruiser

Anton,

Good to see you back here, buddy. Hope all is well on your end.

TJ


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## tankist

ohh, all is good 
just came back from trip to Europe, litterally couple hours ago (logged in last night to check us in for the flight back) - first vacation in past 1.5 years. we flew into vienna, then took hydrofoil ship to bratislava slovakia, then train to prague czech republic and rented a car for day trip into dresden germany. all in 7 days.

foto report of railroad and model railroad related activities (scale live steam ride, shops, etc) coming up as soon as i overcome the jet-lag.


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## tjcruiser

Anton,

Wow! Sounds fabulous ... looking forward to the details and update! :thumbsup:

TJ


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## Guest

*seeking power requirements*

to tankist,
Your control panel looks great. Are those switches with lights commonly available? How many power contacts do you have to run trains plus accessories on your layout? are they 12 volt or more? Sorry I am new to this so my question may be basic. I am building a 6'x 15' , hoping to run 3 or 4 trains on 3 tracks. what power requirements do you regard I would need?


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## Reckers

Anton, welcome back! I'd wondered what had become of you!


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## tankist

vinnouse said:


> to tankist,
> Your control panel looks great. Are those switches with lights commonly available? How many power contacts do you have to run trains plus accessories on your layout? are they 12 volt or more? Sorry I am new to this so my question may be basic. I am building a 6'x 15' , hoping to run 3 or 4 trains on 3 tracks. what power requirements do you regard I would need?


was cleaning up my threads and realized i never replied. he never logged in after but still... i must have somehow i missed this post, srry dude.

yes, tactile micro push buttons and LEDs are commonly available. not sure what do you mean by "power contacts", if you mean power leads i have one or two per isolated district. panel is powered from power on rails (regulated down to 5V and rectified in case powered by DCC). one good powerpack most probably will run 3-4 trains


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## norgale

jsshieldsjr said:


> No it lights up in the kitchen. Bring me another beer!
> 
> :lol_hitting:


Hahahahahahahahaha! Good shot Shields. Love the emoticom. Pete


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## tr1

*Tanklist route displayed correctly through wiring*

draw a schematic, color code the wires, follow the drawing, that should reasonably get you closer to your destination of a displayed route. Also use terminal strips with jumpers,
wire or metal for keeping the wire routing neat, and use tie wraps and number the wires to reduce confusion, lug the wires for easy connection to the terminal strips.
Radio Shack may have a small how too booklet on wiring techniques.
Remember to make, and have a plan to follow, to reduce confusion and take your time and follow your drawing when wiring. 
regards,
tr1


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## tr1

*Where to get some?*

Above, I was replying too two rail's question about the difficulty of displaying the route assigned to the train by illuminating the track schematic on the control panel board One thing now I'll be trying to attempt after my PAYPAL card is set up and the proper vendors
of micro switches are determined. I'm Still looking for vendor's of micro switches to purchase. Does anyone have a solution for vendor's or ideas? Thank you in advance, I'm still doing dc.


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## gunrunnerjohn

Well, it's been about two years since tworail posted here, and a year for tankist so I'm guessing they don't stop in often.


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## Big Ed

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Well, it's been about two years since tworail posted here, and a year for tankist so I'm guessing they don't stop in often.


Not so John, tworail supposedly posted this late last year,
http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?p=168183#post168183

Though I don't think it was him doing the posting. :smokin:

Tankist MIA since July. Even then he just came on to vote Xrunner from returning to the site.

Now B&M the SUPER MOD? It has been over 2 years.


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## trains galore

Nice panel, I would love to be able to make a nice one like that, but I don't think my woodworking/cutting skills would be up to it
What did you use for the top layer just beneath that perspex? It needs to be thin I suppose so the buttons come through enough to screw them in?

Anyway nice work!


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## gunrunnerjohn

big ed said:


> Not so John, tworail supposedly posted this late last year,
> http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?p=168183#post168183
> 
> Though I don't think it was him doing the posting. :smokin:
> 
> Tankist MIA since July. Even then he just came on to vote Xrunner from returning to the site.
> 
> Now B&M the SUPER MOD? It has been over 2 years.


Late in 2012 Ed, look again.  In case you're not paying attention, it's 2014 now.


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## Big Ed

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Late in 2012 Ed, look again.  In case you're not paying attention, it's 2014 now.


Yes I was mistaken that was his last post that someone typed for him.

But the last time he was on line was,

tworail tworail is offline
Site Administrator
Last Activity: 12-06-2013 10:49 PM

But as with his last post, I don't think that was him logging on either as the admin is logged on the same day at 10:44 PM.

It is a big dark secret of MTF. Why did the admin and super mod drop off THEIR site.
I think that was in the agreement when they sold the site. :smokin:


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## gunrunnerjohn

I saw that, but I looked for the last posting time, which is more telling.


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## norgale

Why did they sell the site? Must have been big bucks. Pete


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## sjm9911

Ed, there all the same person. They were all grj from the start I just blew your mind! It' something like that anyway but in reality, on here, who cares. Some people move on. Some stay. This site is what it is. It's a pretty good site, mostly great people. If the site changes for the worse II'll leave. Ed, you'vebeen hhere for a long while. I, even though I haven't been around too long, didn't think iI'd make it back. Who knows what happens in life. Some people might but maybe they, beholdent to others, might not be able to talk about it. It's an enigma wrapped in a riddle and all that . Churchill is rolling in his grave.


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