Spent the day following Allan Gartner's advice on track wiring: "Every piece of track should be soldered to something." I have read and re-read several sections of his Wiring for DCC.


More electrical parts on order: power supplies (15v and 5v), terminal blocks and LEDs to make tracking effects of SW control easier to follow -- when I finely get there. Also ordered parts to make cabling for IR sensors. Worked on simulator display, wouldn't be needed if I had not increased the granularity of the display.


Added the turnouts and Smart Routes to the DCC++ data base. See turnout dump


Spent most of two days trying to tread a 3.5"x.025" spring wire through 3/4" long x 1/4" diameter hole in the baseboard and into a .032-.040" hole in the switch/turnout throwbar. Thank the gods (or designer) there are only 12 turnouts! Did get the Tortoises installed and Wabbits programmed (I think).


Mounted a small circuit board and LED to a powered truck to use as a test tool. The truck is intended to be a power pickup for rolling stock. With the LED mod I will use it to quickly check power to all sections of track, in particular through the sets of three turnouts. Each of the four wheels are a separate pickup. I want to rewire things to check power not only side to side but also "front to back." This would be a good check polarity through the turnouts.


The test tool works. Have found two track joints not soldered well, so far.