going to start hooking up switches, any designs for a control panel out there?
Here’s mine-
The face:
This is a sheet of paper with the track plan printed on it (computer graphics), sandwiched between two sheets of Lexan. The frame is dimensional lumber (2X 12) cut to make a sloping panel face. A groove is cut into the wood which holds the panel face.
The back during construction:
Obviously no wiring is in place yet in this photo.
The finished arrangement:
The panel sits atop the stainless castored cart in the first photo. I can roll the cart around a bit to get it out of the way or move it to where I’m working. The cart also doubles as a place to store wiring and such during construction.
The second photo shows the cabling tying the panel to the layout:
I’m currently adding some train detectors (IRDOT’s) to the to-be-hidden yards, and these will feed bi-color LEDs that will be added to the track diagram at the appropriate locations.
Mark showed you a great DC panel. Since going DCC with radio, I did not need a central panel and put my turnout, routing and lighting switches in the facial where they were used. My humpyard levers are still in my DC panel because I have not gotten aound to changing them.
Here are mine. I use a tethered walk around throttle so the only thing I needed was a place to mount the pushbuttons for my turnouts.
I first painted the panels with gray primer. When that dried, I used chart tape to lay out the track plan. Then I sprayed the panels black and peeled off the tape.
Tom
I used 1/4" birch plywood for mine - painted green with striping tape from the hobby shop and stick on letters from the office supply store. I forget the exact widths, but I used wider tape for the main lines, and narrower tape for the branchlines:
I also drove a row of sheet metal screws, and washers along the back frame to act as a terminal strip:
Nick