If you are regularly following this blog, you’ll recall the comedy of errors I committed while installing the wiring for the optical detectors a few weeks ago.  I mentioned in that post that I’d decided to rip everything out and start over.

This past weekend I did finish ripping out the old work and I completed the new and improved wiring installation for the phototransistors in the west staging area.  The results were much better than my original efforts.  Armed with the success, I will now repeat the lessons learned over at the east staging area (which is twice the size).

I also have to put in the illumination for all those PT’s.  I’ll be using infrared (IR) LEDs attached to overhead supports, one over each PT.  I have no specs for the IR LEDs that I have, so I’m going to have to assume their characteristics in order to select the current limiting resistors that will be required.  I’ve never worked with IR stuff before, but I’m told that if you look at an IR LED that is turned on through a digital camera, that you can see the light.  I hope that is so, as I think aiming and adjusting will be much more difficult if I can’t even see what I’m trying to do.

Plenty of other things have occurred over the last couple weeks, though mostly things that don’t really show any progress.  I finished installing all the cable hangers for the main cable runs throughout all of the benchwork (a significant task itself).  I finalized what control panels will be required and their locations.  I’ve even started some preliminary drawings for panel layouts.  I’ve coordinated where other things will be on or under the layout’s fascia once it’s installed, particularly the work shelves and throttle plug-ins.  I’ve got the Willis yard ready for track installation now.  I keep a marker board filled with a running list of tasks that need to be done, and I manage to erase a couple each weekend.

I’ll likely be doing wiring for at least several more weeks before moving back to the roadbed and track.  But I figure it’s good to try keeping the electrical and roadbed/track current with each other.

Most of you that are subscribers to this blog are relatively local, so if you’d like to visit to see things for yourself, you’d be more than welcome.  Just drop me a line, and we’ll make it happen.

-Jack