East Staging -- DCC and Independent Control of Staging Tracks

While it first appears straight forward to wire a small staging module, my East Staging section turned out to be somewhat complicated.

Wiring under the East Staging Module: DCC feeders,  DC bus,
individual track power control panel to the far right.

With sound decoders in each of the locomotives waiting on the staging tracks, I wanted to be able to turn the power off and on for each track. Since I also wanted to be able to identify whether the tracks had power by a visual signal, I needed to start a 12 volt DC bus on this module to power LEDs as well as building lights or other accessories on the rest of the layout. Finally, as noted in the previous post, I am starting a 12 volt touch-toggled, Tortoise switch machine bus at this module as well.

The first step was to drop feeders from each of the rails, either to connect to the DCC bus or a control panel for the staging tracks. After soldering the feeders to the outside of the rails, I painted the ties and track with a brown satin rattle can. After the paint dried, I cleaned the top of the rails and used a Dremel tool with a cut-off disk to cut gaps in the outer or "black" rails. Then I returned to the underside of the module and the construction of the track power control panel.

Schematic

Powering the feeders was not complicated, but the control panel took some planning. The schematic to the right was what I came up with. As the actual wiring starts to be a bit of a rat's nest, I wanted to keep some sort of record of what is actually going on. The panel itself was made from a scrap piece of masonite, with holes cut for sub mini slide switches (RS 275-0033) and LED assemblies (RS 276-0271)  from Radio Shack.

Control Panel Rat's Nest

To the left is the so-called rat's nest behind the panel. Black Wires from the DCC bus and to the track were soldered to one side of the DPDT slide switches, while the other side controlled the LEDs with connections (red and white wires) to the DC bus that originates at this modules.


While both the bill box and the track power control panel still need labeled, the East Staging tracks are live with independent control. Accomplishment of some trackage ready to run trains can be seen in the photo below.