More Phone Panel work and Control Panel work as well

Saturday Afternoon I got down to the shed and made two brackets for the shared phone panel for Grafton and Acacia Ridge Yards. I attached them to the facia and attached the panel. I also spliced some cat-5 cable to where the existing cat-5 cable came out from the wall. This was fed through the facia and soldered to the new panel. I then tried the call switches from North Coast Control to Acacia Ridge Yard and Grafton Yard. The LED's both worked. Amazing. I then tried calling from Acacia Ridge Yard and Grafton yard to North Coast Control - the LED's lit again. Brilliant.

The shared Acacia Ridge and Grafton Yard phone panel.  Here Acacia Ridge Yard is receiving a call from North Coast Control. But there is no phone to answer the call yet.

North Coast Control receiving a call back from Acacia Ridge Panel.

Now if only I could find two new (old) phones.  Both Saturday I spent some times trawling through second hand shops and Sunday I went to one of the local Sunday markets.  I found quite a few modern phones, but being unsure if the speakers would be compatible I decided to leave them alone.  Although today I found an old clunker phone at the Sunday Markets, but the guy wanted $55.  Tell him he's dreaming.

On Saturday I also checked out Barry's loco. It worked. But on DCC it must have had its momentum turned up real high. So this was set back to 0 and it ran a lot more responsively.

 

Today I got out to the shed and fixed two of my new control panels to the layout facias.  I installed the panel at Murwillumbah and the panel at Kyogle.  Both with be set up with a duplicates in another location.  One of the panels for Murwillumbah is fully wired and one of the panels for Kyogle has the wires for 4 of the 6 push buttons run, but not yet soldered on.  I think I better install the five point motors soon, or the panel at Kyogle will be a bit of a waste of time.

 

The main panel at Kyogle on the front facia

  



 The second of my NCE mini panels with the push button wires connected.

This Tuesday is Tuesday Nighters at my place.  I hope it is not cold and rainy as there may be a few in attendance.  We may have to split up to fit everyone in the shed.

 

I plan to work on installing the point motors at Kyogle over teh next few weekends, followed by the drivers headphone communication system back to North Coast Control.  I wonder when my sound decoder will arrive?