For those of you who haven’t spent time in North America around this time of year, you may be unaware of two things: one, the obligatory non-stop loop of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” retail workers are subjected to starting November first, and two: there is a strong cultural association between Christmastime and model railroading that may not exist elsewhere. That may down to childhood memories of when we got our first trainsets, or an excellent postwar marketing campaign by Lionel. Either way, now that Mariah Carey is blaring, we’re thinking about our holiday track layouts. Which makes this long presentation on Wiring for Small Layouts by [Chicago Crossing Model Railroad] quite timely.
There are actually three videos in this little course; the first focuses mostly on the tools and hardware used for DCC wiring (that’s Digital Command Control), which will be of less interest to our readers– most of you are well aware how to perform a lineman’s splice, crimp connectors onto a wire, and use terminal blocks.
The second two videos are actually about wiring, in the sense of routing all the wires needed for a modern layout– which is a lot more than “plug the rheostat into the tracks in one spot” that our first Lionel boxed set needed. No, for the different accessories there are multiple busses at 5V, 12V and 24V along with DCC that need to be considered. Unsurprisingly enough given those voltages, he starts with an ATX power supply and breaks out from there.
Even if you’re not into model railroading, you might learn something from these videos if you haven’t done many projects with multiple busses and wire runs before. It’s far, far too easy to end up with a rats nest of wires, be they DCC, I2C or otherwise. A little planning can save some big headaches down the line, and if this is a new skill for you [Chicago Crossing Model Railroad] provides a good starting point for that planning. Just skip ahead a couple minutes for him to actually start talking if you don’t want the musical cliff notes montage at the start of the videos.
If you don’t have any model trains, don’t worry, you can 3D print them. Lack of room isn’t really an excuse.
“… if you haven’t done many projects with multiple busses…”
The word is ‘BUSES’.
You may have done many projects with multiple busses, but that had nothing to do with finishing the projects in a timely fashion.
Quite he contrary, most likely.
Busses is also a correct spelling for the word, albeit the UK English variant.
“…In 21st-century English, ‘buses’ is the preferred plural of the noun bus. ‘Busses’ appears occasionally, and dictionaries list it as a secondary spelling, but it’s been out of favor for over a century. This is true in all main varieties of English…
“…This ngram graphs the use of buses, busses, and omnibuses in English-language books and magazines published between 1800 and 2019…”
https://grammarist.com/spelling/buses-busses/
“…we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language…”—Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost
I always get this word wrong and I use it a lot at work! At least the spelling checker marks it for me. I think Bussmann fuses pulled me to the dark side. Fun (or perhaps no so fun) fact – Looking at web statistics, the use of busses rather than buses is more common in the US than in the UK but it isn’t common in either country.
“…the use of busses rather than buses is more common in the US than in the UK…”
…sadly…
Whenever someone suggests that I send them an email instead of what should be consigned to a proper letter, my standard reply is, “I would except for the fact that I don’t know how to write that poorly.”
“The reason the British hate the Irish so fervently is because the Irish learned to speak accurate English.”—anon
And not so anonymously!
“As for the Irish, it is felt in high quarters that we have always been too lenient towards them; — at least, if they had been harried a little more there might not have been so many of them on the English press, of which they divide the power with the Scotch, thus driving many Englishmen to honest and ineloquent labor.“—George Eliot, The Impressions of Theophrastus Such
Marking myself 21 days safe from the Mariahpocalypse.
Came for the model trains, stayed for… the model trains. Yeah.
The clamp work is a bit anal. Get a few chunks of Panduit ducts already.
Why not just use CAN, RS485 or ISOBUS?
2 wires instead of a whole bunch.
You can theoretically run everything off DCC, from locomotives to lights to points (turnouts). In reality, that just means you have a decoder for lights and then a bus to distribute to each of the LEDs.
Please don’t forget the third GND wire. It really is mandatory to ensure that the data signals stay within the range that the transceivers work properly.
I had a short look at ISObus. Never seen that one before. It’s also based on CAN. I do like it’s got a file server defined as standard part of the protocol. As a result, any node can log data to a centralized place.
I usually counter the mind/ear-splitting “All I Want For Christmas Is You” with the “Last Christmas” by De Alpenzusjes. While at it, find “Hutje Op De Hei” (and “Hoemparapapa”) by the same. Much safer/gentle and has some charm missing from the mentioned sqeal that passes for “singing”. Ah, just remembered, “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chirst, pardon, Chris Rea, classics that should have long replaced the squeal. I much prefer to arrive at better Christmas train station, musically speaking, and it is not exclusively US music, international, and not limited to one endless recycle of the same.
Railroad logistics is fascinating subject, btw, even though I never had enough spare time or money to properly dive into such. Some day.
(close to me there is Strasburg Railroad Museum in PA – and it has one reasonably installation that I pretty much seen being assembled piece by piece over the years – it was actually a fork of their original one, much smaller one, that grew out of its original place and moved to a separate room; it is a marvel of things, tiny figurines, etc, and the logistics only look simple, it took many volunteer hours to set up and tune).
Let’s not forget “Christmas Rapping” by the Waitresses…. or even “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-DMC. The counter of course is one of the best Christmas movies: “Die Hard”.
I second these. Also, mandatory “Home Alone II”.
I challenge Mariah Carey to out-sing “Sugarfree” – “Comment ça va”. Same chords. Similar style, but not so heavy. Doesn’t have to be louder, but has to have real life in it, like the original “Comment ça va” had in 1984.
IMHO, Nat King Cole, Bings Crosby, Dean Martin, Perry Como, plenty of good music/singing.
“Christmas in Jail’ by the Bobs from their album “Too Many Santas^
Actually I like the Windham Hill “Winter Solstice” albums
As an industrial maintenance technician I’m constantly finding other uses for PLC’s. I feel like a retired PLC could find a good home in an elaborate model train setup. Recently, another coworker and I were discussing using a PLC for his Christmas display this year.
“The clamp work is a bit anal. Get a few chunks of Panduit ducts already.”
Yea….not the way I would have done it…but….if it works.
…simply have to say this in defense of [Chicago Crossing Model Railroad]…
I am one cheap, miserly—and imminently practical (I think, anyway)—SOB.
My stash of things electronic includes all manner of those clamps, collected over many years, and NO ‘Panduit ducts’.
Guess what is used to tame and secure wires, whenever needed, around here…
Use Velcro not wire ties
Boy, I sure wish they had also released the information as a PDF, I’ve never been one for videos of the type. That’s alright, NASA wire harness/splicing standards are readily available(and they were integral in establishing the standards to begin with, as well as Western Union), as are IPC 610/620, not to mention Molex publications if all else fails.