19/01/2015

Next BDL install part 2

We have come a long way
     Today marks the end of the third upgrade to the SFRSD CTC system. The fourth BDL 168 was installed back in November last year and the wiring of it to the CTC panel was dependant on the availability of two of my wiring team. With holidays, Christmas and the start of a new year we all new it would not begin until the early part of January. So the lads were available for one day a week beginning two weeks ago and Brendan who was also on holidays was able to catch up with the software required to implement this next stage.
     So armed with the latest work sheets wiring commenced. The first town to have its turnouts detected independently of the main line was Guthrie. The two turnouts on the East end were done first followed by the remaining turnout at the West end. This was quickly followed by wiring the turnouts at Red Rock. These two towns were chosen first as there were spare pins in one Zone on the 3rd BDL that was installed some time ago. These were tested and they worked very well with the panel showing the turnouts as detected with a loco sitting on them.
    We then set to to change the new BDL board number and had a devil of a time as all we could see was the green LED flashing off rather than on and leaving a dim light while off. Well to cut a long story short it pays to double check your plugs on your Loco Net cables. When I had put the plugs on all of the new BDL Loco Net cables back in 2012 one was around the wrong way. The system worked because this was the last plug on the then last cable. Not so with a new BDL. A full day was spent trying to trace this issue.
   Anyway the next session and Ponca City and Hackney were wired up and today we got stuck in and wired Winfield, Udall and the entry to Augusta eight blocks in all and finished just after lunch.
   A test run using a GP35 in SP colours and all was well.
   Here is a shot of John attaching the block wires to the West end turnout at Udall.


BDL168 number 4 under Hackney. Two wires right!

Here is SP loco 6525 sitting on the East end turnout at Hackney.
Sorry for the blurred shot, no tripod used. Here you see the turnout showing detected so now the dispatcher will have a far better feel of exactly where the train or cars are so turnouts are not thrown inadvertently.

You can just make out the turnout on the panel.
So another milestone has been completed on the Santa Fe Railway Southern Division due to the great help from three great mates for without their help this whole system would not and could not have been installed. So whats next for the CTC system. I guess you will just have to wait and see. OMDB.
Thanks for stopping by.
Rod.

3 comments:

  1. Nice work Rod, would really love to see this in action. It's one of the things Brendan and I have discussed and are implementing on our layout.

    If I can manage to find a spare minute in our schedule I really would like to get to an ops session. Jas...

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  2. Great work Rod, I love the technology side of things but need the layout to have it... Dare say I jumped the gun in 1997 buying a DCC system, it's only been used for testing... The technology has advacned so much is such a short time frame it will be interesting to see where we get to in a few years time. Excellent blogs by the way. Cheers Stephen Devenish

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  3. Hi Steve.
    Long time no hear. Thanks for you kind comments about my Blog. It's fun to share this stuff.
    Regards
    Rod.

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