Wessex Wagons

I like to collect the odd Private owner wagon from time to time, especially if it's from the local area.

Here are two recent addition ideally suited for "Pine Road" Both are from Wessex Wagons.

The first is a Five plank wagon J.H.Rose & Son A coal merchant from Gillingham in Dorset. It's good to see that this company is still alive and kicking. You may want to read more about the company and it's history, some relating to the Railway  Here

The second one is a Grain hopper of Rollerflour mills of Dorchester. I couldn't find anything relating to the wagon but this proved to be interesting

Wiring DCC Concepts point motors

I ordered a set of six DCC concepts 'S' levers from Platform Models. These duly arrived, so sat down to work out how one wires these things up.

  They give you this nice piece of PCB to solder everything to (good idea)

 Now, this is where it gets interesting. DCC concepts ask you to use there PSU2 power pack. It is a double wound transformer that gives you +9v and -9v so you only need to use one set of contacts on the S lever. Not having one of these power packs and using a normal '9v wall plug in' type transformer you need to use both sets of contacts on the S lever to change the polarity.

This is what you have to do.

Are you sitting comfortably ?

They give you a nice piece of PCB so the first thing to do is wire up to the wiring harness supplied with the Dcc concepts lever frame to the PCB. Note: there are 2 Reds, 2 Greens and 2 Black wires so, wire them in the right order, as they come from the plug. The first 3 wires, Green, Black and Red solder to terminal 1, 2, 3 respectively, then, Blue to 4, Orange to 5, Black to 6, Grey to 7, Green to 8 and Red to 5. Its worth wiring all these up as you never know it may come in handy in the future for signals, lights etc. (See photo below), Terminal 1 is to the left. The black and Red wire curling off to the left is the power supply feed, ignore that for the moment.

DCC Concepts wiring

    

Terminals 1, 2 and 3 are a momentary switch ie: Peco, seep point motors. You won't need these for slow action point motors.

Terminals 4 and 5 are your + and - input supply from your transformer for each lever switch. these need to be looped across for each lever switch.

Terminals 4 and 9 are looped together

Terminals 5 and 8 are looped together. This is the one that reverse's the polarity on the S lever.

Terminals 6 and 7 go to your point motor, that's the nice purple wires going to the terminal block in the photo below.

For more than one switch you will have to loop these over to each switch make sure terminal 4 and 9 are connected together and 5 and 8. Hopefully you can see how i did it in the photo.

      All plugged in under the layout

 Top side of the PCB all soldered up

Screwed to the bottom of the box i made, to house the lever frame

Think i will get around to painting these at some point (sorry for the pun). I believe that DCC Concepts are going to make a set of signal box windows to put around your lever frame.

Tried and tested and yes, it all works, "Yeah"

 It sounds complicated but it can all be done sitting at your workbench, listening to your favourite tunes on the radio, soldering iron in one hand and wires in the other. The PCB i held down with a lump of Blu Tack. 

"SIMPLES"

"It's been a hell of week under the baseboard sir"

"It's been a hell of a week under the baseboard sir"

Parkstone was originally wired for Analog, but decided to rip everything out and start again, Re-wire for DCC 

As Parkstone is my first soiree into DCC, What to use to connect one's wires to one's Bus ?

After years of using the old blue scotchlok things in the days of fitting a car with an actual radio, i seem to remember that they didn't always connect to said wire properly.

So i was looking round for something else, ok, same sort of thing but at least you have cut the odds done by 50%  

  

 You can get them here for about 10p each Note that the spade terminals are sold separately.
Also Rapid electronics do them and no doubt other places as well

All hooked up. blow me it all worked

Also, as it's now DCC all the section switches have gone, so apart from the five switches for the points there is no real need for a control panel anymore, so i have dispensed with that as well. It's something less to hook up at exhibition.

The point switches miraculously turned themselves into this  gorgeous little lever frame placed in the fiddle yard. It's not called a fiddle yard for nothing   

They need finishing off and wiring up but doggie needs a walk so that will have to wait for another thrilling episode of,

"It's been a hell of a week under the Baseboard sir"

Dorset group

First of all, i must apologize for the quality of these pictures, they are shocking. I am not quite sure what happened but will promise to do better next time.

Anyway, we had our monthly meeting of the Dorset 3mm Group  at the weekend. along with the usual of who has done what, bodged, broke, fixed, built, painted,

 One member brought along this 3mm scale 08 shunter which i have to say is superb. And runs beautifully.

  

 And then produces a second one in the making. I'm sure this will
be  a good standard if not better. Definitely the connoisseur of the 08
                        

And then he produces these exquisite mineral wagons.

Some 4mm scale shenanigans. Another member produces the Kernow Class 205 (Thumper) set in green as seen here on "Parkstone" This is a superb model but oh the price. ££££

A good and enjoyable afternoon was had by all, Including some really odd sounds coming from a certain Class 73 more of which later