Wired Wednesday - Construction Report: August 16, 2017

Feeders! Lots of feeders went in to Pine Valley Yard over the course of a few evenings. Once I settled on a technique the rest went pretty fast.

I choose white/red bell wire for my feeders (red in back, white in front) with a spool of green 22AWG for the frogs.

This side of the layout is actually the back.

Using the bell wire, I soldered the first few feeders along the web of the rail. This was fine for the back of the rail that won't be seen but I thought it looked a bit unsightly for the front of the rail. So, I switched to a method I've seen in various paper/online publications.

I bent the end of the wire 90 degrees then flattened the end with needle nose pliers. After that I cut off a small amount of the smashed copper to allow the wire to rest inside the rail web just like a track spike.

Feeder wire

There's also a way to solder the feeder wire to the bottom of the rail to make it totally invisible. A Resistance Soldering unit makes this that method really easy-peasy. The way I settled on was pretty fast also and made for an acceptable minimally visible solder joint. When I get to laying and wiring Adena Yard I know someone with a resistance soldering unit that will help make very short work of that project.

One small problem I found were my drill bits were too short for certain areas. To help punch though the 2 inch foam and the thicker removable fuse box access section, I purchased a 3/16th 6" aircraft-type drill bit.

Feeders on the removable section

Feeder drops 

The green wire turnout frog feeders were soldered using the same method described above to one of the PC board ties used to build the switch. I made the connection at the back side of the frog so it would be out of view. The turnout frogs will be powered though DPDT switches attached to linkage that is typically used to move not only the turnout rails but also to change the frog electrical polarity.

At first I felt over whelmed at the amount of feeders that needed soldered to the DCC bus under the layout. Daydreams of battery equipped engines with the new "dead rail" systems started to fill my head. I soon remembered that many layout builders in the Yahoo Groups Proto-Layouts group swear by using 3M ScotchLok displacement connectors. I ordered a box of the red type off Amazon and quickly found them to be a godsend. I ended up with grouping feeders together with a wire nut connected to a short drop wire that in turn runs to the 3M connector at the main DCC power bus as seen in the below photo.

3M ScotchLok and wire nuts

I can't imagine wiring the layout in any other way, in only a few hours I had the whole yard wired. The best part was not soldering at awkward locations under the layout and making my neck sore. Actually that was the second best part, the BEST part was finally testing it out.

Taking some NKP GP9s for a spin.

My next plans are to get some turnout controls in place and begin the east end of Adena Yard.

DCC: Decoder Wire Source

Recently I've installed a few DCC decoders in my son's equipment so that he can run his engines now that track is being laid. I have some nice thin flexible wire but would soon need more. I was reminded not too long ago about a potential source for the thin flexible wire that's perfect to use for decoder installs, PC ribbon cable!

Being that I build my own computers I naturally have a lot of old parts and cables stashed away. Old hard drive ATA and floppy disc drive ribbon cables are what you need to find. Cut off the cable ends and just like string cheese, peel off a few strands. In my example below, I had a fancy ATA cable that was designed to improve air flow inside the PC case. Even better it has three colors of wire to pick from! I hope this little tip can help you save a few bucks on DCC supplies!

Indirect Purchases

To me there are two main ways to spend money on this hobby, directly on trains of course and indirectly on support items. The difference in my mind between the two results in some strange behavior sometimes. For example I have no problem purchasing an engine that I like but to spend the equivalent on a couple of sounds decoders or DCC equipment gives me pause for some reason. I have more than enough engines and cars to my make the Wheeling District come to life so it's time to change that mindset.

My current DCC equipment is just a NCE Powercab, which will become underpowered as the layout expands. I haven't decided if I'll expand my Powercab with a SB5 Smart Booster and add an antenna for wireless or save up and just buy a complete PH-Pro Wireless system. In the meantime I added a throttle so Brendan & I can run trains together once Adena and Pine Valley are operational.

I scored a good deal for a wireless Cab04p Throttle on eBay last week and added a NCE UTP Cat5 Panel from an online retailer having a sale. The wireless throttle will be tethered for now until I can expand to a wireless system.

99% of the time I've had good luck with my eBay purchases but this throttle gave me a brief scare. Tethered it should work without batteries, so I plugged it into my Powercab's power panel but the Cab04 did not light up. A switch on top of the throttle lets you pick between two throttle addresses and changing the switch position did nothing as well. I'll admit I started to get very concerned that I was sold a nonworking throttle. I remained calm however and dug up my NCE manuals and quickly discovered the Powercab can only handle one additional throttle (which I knew) and it MUST be set to an address of 3. Because this throttle was used, who knows what it address it was set to.

After following the directions and reprogramming the Cab04 to an address of 3, I'm happy to say it works great!

One other really useful purchase I made recently for the layout was more in the tool category. I only had two good screw-type clutch clamps and the assorted size plastic spring clamps you can buy in a bag at Home Depot or Lowes.

As a side note, I do not recommend using the large cheap plastic clamps in the assorted size bag at all. The plastic is not strong enough for the spring and started cracking near the hinge. I've thrown all but two away after one cracked in half, throwing half the clamp at my face giving me a pretty good black eye this past fall. The small clamps in the bag are fine but the big ones are just plain dangerous.

One piece hit me right on the eye socket and the other luckily missed Brendan who was helping hold some wood.

I've always wanted some good clamps so I finally picked up a pack of Irwin Trigger clamps a few days ago. I don't know how I lived without these as they were indispensable in helping to build the final section of Pine Valley benchwork.

I love these clamps and would buy another 4 pack in a heartbeat. Plus they won't shoot your eye out!

Upgrading the Athearn RTR SD40 with an iPhone 4 Speaker

When I first tried out my two N&W Athearn RTR SD40's with Soundtraxx DCC sound, I was happy with their performance and detail but felt the speakers left much to be desired. Most factory equipped sound units have speakers or speaker enclosures that can't produce a rich sound with at least the impression of low frequencies. I'd seen online where people using cell phone or tablet speakers have had surprising success making their model train engines sound more like the real thing. This thread in Model Railroad Hobbyist and others furthered my interest in these small speakers that might help my N&W SD40s sound more like their big brothers.

Last week I finally bought a couple iPhone 4 replacement speakers off eBay for $2.00 each to experiment with. Today they arrived so I installed one of them, took some pictures and made a comparison video to share along the way.

Factory Athearn speaker at top, iPhone 4 speaker at bottom.

The iPhone 4 speakers were way smaller than I thought which gave me hope they would easily fit inside the SD40's long hood. I guess I've forgotten how tiny the iPhone 4 was since getting my iPhone 6.

Testing the iPhone speaker out.

From the moment I temporarily hooked up the iPhone speaker to the SD40's decoder I was blown away at the amount and quality of sound this little thing was producing! And this was without the engine shell enclosing the speaker which would only help deepen the diesel sound.

A perfect fit on top the old speaker location. More weight could be added in the hole left by removing the factory speaker.

Just enough room to route the speaker and power truck wires around the speaker enclosure so they don't interfere with the shell.

Now for the video comparison, but first some disclaimers!

• The only programming these Athearn units had was their address changed to their respective engine number. 

• I have not changed any other CV values like EQ settings or volume. I will change the volume level soon because out of the box these engines are way too loud.

• The N&W SD40 1613 has the factory equipped Soundtraxx "Onboard RTR Sound" DCC Decoder and a factory speaker.

• The N&W SD40 1611 has the factory equipped Soundtraxx "Onboard RTR Sound" DCC Decoder and a new iPhone 4 replacement speaker. I soldered all contacts and taped the speaker unit to the metal weight where the old speaker was located.

• This is my first real YouTube video, how embarrassing!

In my opinion the factory speaker sounds really high pitched compared to the fuller more dimensional sound of the iPhone speaker. For only $2.00 the iPhone speaker was a big upgrade that will only get better once I play with the decoder settings. Especially once I lower that volume! Wow Athearn, let's revisit some of those factory settings!

I know some people disagree with using cell phone/sugar cube speakers over traditional cone speakers for sound fidelity reasons, but for tight installs and based on my what's left of my ears, this two dollar speaker wins hands down!

I do have some iPhone 5 speakers on the way to try out also. I've seen some mixed reviews on those in modeling forums, so I'll be sure to report my findings as well.