One of my coworkers found this book in an antique store and bought it for me.
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The book is nearly impossible to read, unless you are a complete nerd-junkie like I am.
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I have never encounred another such academic study of “electronics” in model railroads. The book is from 1977, and 90% of the “electronics” are just fancy DC wiring.
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Does anyone else know anything about this book?
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-Kevin
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Wow, never heard of that ones. The classics were always Linn Westcott’s and the two volumes of the Paul Mallory ones. Mallory’s went into such things as proper cable lacing technique - so neat and elegant compared to wire ties, but wire ties are faster so lacing just isn’t done like that any more.
–Randy
Never read the book, never heard of the book.
But, how can a book be both fascinating and boring? LOL
Rich
I think I have a copy of that packed up somewhere…
Having been a young adult working in electrical engineering in 1977, and being a model railroader for nearly 10 years at that point, “electronics” was still largely just diodes, resistors, transistors and relays. The world of machines was still controlled largely by relays.
And the authors comments about relays are completely off base. By that time control relays had long been dust proof, sealed, and very reliable. And now they are also low cost.
The relays he describes are from the 30’s.
Sheldon
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I have a second printing copy of Linn Wescott’s book. I have often thought that book should have been titled “How to Burn Your House Down”.
Reminds me of my favorite unreadable book “IBM 370 Principles of Operation“
That’s the first thing I thought of. Aren’t they sort of mutually exclusive.
Seems we can always count on frequent new and bizarre topic titles here at MR forums. [:o)]
That’s almost exactly what I was thinking [:-^]
Regards, Ed
Let’s start a petition to get Kevin to change the title. [:-^]
Or, start a contest to pick the most appropriate title. [swg]
I’ll go first. How about Interesting but Mind Boggling Book? [8D]
Rich
That’s ok, I’ll watch. I never would have a book like this anyway, I don’t like the pictures.
I wonder what the last check-out date on the library card would be? [%-)]
Mike.
OK, I will play along.
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I thought the title was 100% accurate, because I am fascinated by the subject matter, and the trip back in time. However, the book is extremely academic and very hard to keep reading, so it is boring also.
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I believe in the 1970s we could by ICs at Radio Shack that had for “AND”, “OR”, NAND" or “NOR” gates in them for a couple bucks. Why go through the mess with relays for a model railroad?
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Keep the suggestions coming.
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-Kevin
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I typed “James Kyle” into the magazine index on this website (a rare instance where I could actually get it to work!) and the man seems to have left no footprint in model railroad publishing other than this book. No other articles that I could find - and that index covers dozens of magazines, many now long gone of course.
Books about wiring and electronics tend to be difficult for me to read or find interesting - and oddly, almost all of them describe themselves as being “easy” and “practical.” For lies of that magnitude you’d normally need to go to a dating website …
or so I’ve been told [:$]
Dave Nelson
At that time (the 1970s ) the IC could not handle the current for the switch machines in use at that time.
Maybe for some lights, but a toggle switch worked just as well.
Why use relays?
They offer discrete switching at the power level.
They allow for intergation of both power and control information with less “layers”.
They have become cheap and reliable, espeically in the last 20-30 years.
I use 24 volt ice cubes with 4PDT contacts to run my Advanced Cab Control which fully intergates turnout control, detection, CTC, and throttle selection into one system.
Unlike typical DC cab control, I use the relays to automaticly power X sections (think of them as sub blocks between major blocks, like a crossover) based on turnout positions, eliminating over half the “block controls”. And the block controls are done with a relay matrix that allows the use of pushbuttons in multiple locations for both cab selection and turnout position locally and on the CTC panel.
Pushing one button selects complete routes like wyes, complex crossovers, and returns other turnouts to their default positions.
When I was developing my control system, no solid state solution offered lower cost or easier installation - still the same today.
I do use solid state inductive detectors made by Dallee - and their output is - relay contacts.
Those relay contacts in series with relays that repeat the turnout status (because those relays control the turnout) is the
I was talking about using relays as logic gates. AND, OR, NAND, and NOR.
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Of course I know there are many uses for relays.
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[:P]
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-Kevin
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Yes, I understand. And yes, as I explained I use them as logic gates.
They control my signals, they automaticly route track power, they set up interlocking routes with one button.
Inputs = detection, turnout position, CTC permission, throttle assignment to track sections, all in the form of relay contacts.
Outputs = logic path for each signal lamp from power supply, logic path from throttle base units to track sections, logic path directing track power based on turnout position.
Same circuits that the prototype has used since the beginning of signaling. Just now starting to be replaced on a large scale with solid state.
Here is how I use them as logic gates for route control of turnouts, like this three button control for a wye:
By using relays, the additional contacts can route track power, power frogs and logic the signals with no additional equipment or layers.
And using the standard machine control start/stop station circuit, redundant controls can be placed in parallel as many times as needed, as shown on this drawing as “local” and “CTC”.
Here is how those same relays both throw the turnouts and route the power:
Yes, ocassionally I need more contacts and need a repeater relay. But generally the 4PDT relays provide all the logic needed.
The relays I use have 5 amp contacts, my average price to acquire is $1.50 per relay.
The whole mainline
Unfortunately I can’t see the image of the book, but I’m guessing it’s “Model Railroad Electronics” by James Kyle, based on the later posts. Interesting that the cover blurb mentions “command controls”?
$6.00 from Amazon, $3.99 for shipping. Hard cover.
No, not that bored yet. But I grew up with stuff like that in the 1950’s.
Rich
My formal electronics eduation began well after the introduction of the microprocessor, let alone logic ICs. I STILL think relays are perfectly valid devices for power switching, even with DCC. The relay switches plenty fast enough to prevent sound decoders from stopping, even without keep alives. I’ve been holding my tongue on recent posts on the NCE group where Bruce Petrarca has been badmouthing relays as old and slow. in a discussion on autreversers. It’s not the relay that matters, it’s how fast the rest of the circuit detects and triggers the relay that matters. I fully plan, for simple reverse sections, on using switch machine contacts to drive a relay to swap the track polarity instead of buying a fancy autoreverser. My one and only job where i actually did any electrical engineering involved large machine tools, racks fo computer boards which at least in the case of the spindle drives almost 100% used relays to switch the power. The axis servos - not steppers, not in a precision machine tool - were driven with power transistors or, on the newest machines, used AC motors. The one thing that was directly driven from solid state components were our EDM machines, basically shorting and sparking through bansk of 2N3055 power transistors. I think each module was 5 amps in most of the machines we had, and you just plugged more modules in to each rack chassis to gain power. I want to say each rack cage held 10 modules, so each rack unit was 50 amps. These were made by some company in Englad, and each of the actual power modules with the transistors seriously looks like it was soldered by some 8 year old kid in their basement. I rebuilt countless numbers of these, we kept a large inventory of known good ones to reduce shop downtime, just swap out a failed one to get the machine back up and set th ebad one aside for later troubleshooting and repair. When inventory dwindled we’d sit down at the bench and go through the bad ones and fix them. The really didn;t last long with this abuse, a he
A few more thoughts:
Paul Mallery, Ed Ravenscroft, and Bruce Chubb all were way ahead of anything Linn Westcott was doing.
But I agree, Westcott covered the basics just fine.
Ravenscroft and Chubb in particular used relays very effectively and their signal and control systems and are well documented in MR.
Their signal systems, turnout control systems and CTC systems will in fact work just as well today with DCC as they did back then with DC.
It seems to me that too often modelers fail to define their goals before they go looking for equipment and methods to meet those goals…
Do you really need/want permissive block signals? Do you have dozens of miles of desolate mainline between interlocking points on your layout where you intend to stack up trains moving across the country side?
Or do you really just need the control point interlocking signals? And maybe a few approach signals?
So why do you need a computer or micro processor to do what one 4PDT relay per block detector and turnout can do? Less wire? Not really.
There are times where solid state is the best answer - I use solid state inductive detectors, solid state regulated power supplies and solid state wireless radio throttles.
But solid state solutions for my turnout controls, signaling, cab selection and power routing would have no cost, performance or installation advantages. Here relays shine, being both a logic device and a power switching device in one.
Sound engineering principle suggests we should define the goals before we consider solutions. Today it seems model railroaders often see someone elses solution, and try to fit their needs into it?
Still marching to my own drum, quietly in my own head…
Sheldon