Deliveries and Putting Them to Use

This week I received a delivery of three Digitrax DS64’s courtesy of my importer PK.  Yesterday, I installed the first of the DS64's at South Brisbane where I needed to wire up the last three point motors in that area.  The first two point motors are to control access to the three outer yard tracks at South Brisbane and the third point motor is to control the run around on the platform road.  This will allow the locos to be released after delivering the Brisbane Limited into South Brisbane platform.  I immediately connected the DS64 to the track bus and then connected the first two point motors and their common connections to the DS64.  I then tried to issue commands from my NCE Procab to the default accessory addresses 1 and 2.  The point motors would not throw.  That had me stumped.  I could set the address for the DS64.  I could set the addresses for the four accessory outputs.  I could toggle the DS64 from solenoid type to slow motion type and back.  But I could not get the points to throw.  To cut a long story short, I swapped this DS64 for another one and wired up the points to this one and luckily they worked.  So I have now relegated the first DS64 to my test bench with a test point motor connected.  Today I tried doing some testing of the DS64 but I could still not get it working.  It seems like this one was DOA.  I will now have to contact Digitrax via email and see what they want me to do for a warranty claim.  They may be able to provide me with some other tests to resurrect it, but I am not hopeful.  I had a look inside and it looks pristine.  They are no signs of anything being blown or damaged.

 

While connecting up the platform run around point motor today, I discovered that I had two input connections in my Mini Panel reversed so when I pushed the buttons on my panel, what I expected didn’t occur.  Instead of swapping the wires into the mini panel or reprogramming the steps in the Mini Panel for those two swapped outputs, I thought it was easier to just swap the two wires from my control panel.  Easily done and once completed, everything now works as designed.

 

Today I also did some work on a number of small control panels.  I had previously also received a few more eBay deliveries of SPDT switches and red and black push buttons.  So I replaced a couple of other push buttons on the South Brisbane panel, installed one push button on the Park Road south panel and built the Clapham Yard south panel.  I them installed three of the SPDT switches, which will allow me to isolate the power to the panel if required.  This was done to the South Brisbane panel, the Park Road south panel and the Clapham Yard south panel.  I also installed the last Peco point motor for Clapham south and wired up the common connections to all of these motors. 

 

Next week I will wire the 8 connections from the DS64 to the four Peco point motors at Clapham South.  However, at this end of the yard there are five sets of points, so I will eventually connect up an NCE Snap-It for the last point - once I buy one.

 

Apart from this work, nothing else has been done to my 73's the Pratt Truss bridge that I'm building or the layout.  I still need to find why a few of my head set plug in points don’t work on one peninsular.  I’d bet that it is just one broken solder connection.  So I still have lots of work to keep me occupied.