Craig's Shed: Finishing Odd Jobs

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Finishing Odd Jobs

Monday was cut out the control panels day. I used some 3mm thick white coated cheap board that I had left over. Then it was around to installing the master switches in each control panel and then drilling holes for the point motor push buttons. The panel I was building was three copies of the same panel to be located at three different locations. I happened to purchase 9 push buttons from a second-hand seller at the last Buy and Sell I went to. A bargain! The 3 push buttons for each panel were then screwed in. I also started cutting up the jumper wires from the master switch to each of the push buttons. It wasn’t until Wednesday that the panels and their jumper wires to the various point push buttons were all soldered together and the panels were attached to the layout fascia. Next step is to work out how to run the wires from the three panels to each other, and then back to the mini panel located under South Brisbane. Just as I was about to look at what locations I had to screw the wires from this bus into on the Mini panel, I realised that it was not the South Brisbane Mini Panel that they were to be routed to. But the Fisherman Islands Mini Panel. So the wire that I had made for the run to South Brisbane, just happened to be the correct length (maybe 1 foot too long), for the run to Fisherman Islands. Talk about Lucky. This was discovered before I soldered any of the wires to the panels.

The second panel from the left is teh new one. I will eventually put some tape to replace the pencil track plan.

I felt like doing something different on Friday, so I set about doing some fencing. On one side of Fairy Hill Loop, I had strewn fence posts made from (simulated) rail lengths, with 5 holes cut in them, years ago. So I finally got around to drilling holes in the baseboard and installing this fencing from Fairy Hill Farm to the cattle loading race in the siding on Fairy Hill Crossing Loop. I then decided that I wanted to put some fencing on the other side of the railway line. This was a mixture of simulated rail lengths and a wooden split post fence. When this was complete I did a small section of fencing do divide up a paddock on the opposite side of the track to the Cassino Meatworks, between there and Hotham Street level crossing.

Looking from the Fairy Hill Signal Box towards Fairy Hill Farm and north to Kyogle.

This shot is looking across the tracks towards Fairy Hill Farm

I also started running the wires for the three control panels for the Park Road- Dutton Park triangle. On Saturday morning I finally got the wires all connected to the panels and I tested one point from two of the three buttons on the panels. They all worked. However, I’m having problems with two point at Dutton Park, and them not throwing again. I’m not certain if this relates back to a NCE QSNAP-2 that controls these two points. If I had a spare QSNAP-2 I could swap it around and see if it works any better.

I made up two small boxes for my now larger timetable cards. The first was painted yellow and attached to the layout fascia right next to the current timetable card holder. The other one had some magnet strip attached to the rear, and when the glue dries, I will try to attach it to the fridge in the shed, which is located next to the North Coast Control’s workstation. That way it might give him a little bit of extra room to work with at his Controller’s Desk.

The new Timetable Card box

The new box for North Coast Control, magnetically attached to the fridge.

I have been planning to install the lights on Cassino Platform for quite some time. So today I drilled holes in the platform and fed the carious wires through. The next step is to turn myself upside down next week and solder these together and then to a power supply. This same power supply will control the station building awning lights as well.