Signal Operations
March 13th, 2009
Uploaded a new video showing off the Signal Bridge and Double Target signal on the lower level.
Under construction for 1 year 6 months and 0 days.
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Name: Shaun Location: New Orleans, LA Age: 32 |
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The UP Elmwood Subdivision
by Shaun Ortolano is licensed under a
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Looks good. I have a few comments though. The signal should stay red, or red over red until the switch gets lined up and locked in place before going to a proceed indication. So if the control operator changes the route it should go red, the switch points move and lockup, then change the indication to Yellow over Red, or Green over Red for down the main, or Red over Yellow, or Red over Green (if lined out the other end of the siding) when lined into the siding. I am not sure what software you are using to drive the OS section, but you should be able to program a delay to wait for the switch to lock before the signal indication changes.
Keep up the great work, I wish I lived closer and could see it live, but of what I have see so far you are doing a great job!!
Tex-Hogger
You are correct, but I haven’t seen a way for me to make my signal logic hardware wait a delay. I’ll have to contact CML and see if there is and I’m just missing it in the programming software.
The main issue is aspects are all controlled by DCC status messages instead of physical circuit contacts. So once I issue a command to change the turnout position, the logic sees that DCC message and makes the change before the tortoise even begins moving.
It’s not exactly 100% prototypical but it’s something I can live with if the hardware doesn’t support delays.
Thanks for the comment!
How does this all work with your manual throws? I ask because it seems to me that if you throw an industry lead manually, for example, you want the block to go red on both ends until the train clears the main.
All the mainline turnouts, including those going into an industry will be DCC controlled. This way I can force the block signals to red if the turnout is thrown into the industry to protect the local work crew, and prevent a train from running through an opposing switch that is thrown.
Only the turnouts inside an industry, those at the refinery and paper mill, will be manual control. That was mainly a cost savings thing.
On another note, I dug through the programming software for the SIGM20 (the hardware running the signals), and there’s no option for adding a delay to a aspect change on a turnout point change.
It think the only way around it would be to add two dcc sensors to each of the switches on the tortoise (open/closed), which close once the tortoise moves through it’s full through. That way the signal would watch the for on or off status of that switch instead of the the actual change point command, and change when the points are in place.
a lot more work for a little detail, but something I may look into in the future.