Hi,
I am about to build my base board. It is an at home layout.
It will sit on a cabinet with a few draws for storage etc.
I was wondering how people go about access on the underside of the board for wiring point motors etc once scenery is added, like hills, farms, tunnels and bridges etc are added.
Due to the draws being under it access would be very limited not to mention being 62 I'm not very flexible.
It is primarily 009 with an oval of 00.
It will be a L shape 2400 x 1300 in size.
It could be a number of base board joined together, happy to consider all options.
Even total redesign
Thanks in advance
John Petherbridge
On Westdorf as it has limited access under the surface most of the point motors are located on top of the board in buildings that are removable.
Here are a couple of examples after the first of the scenery was added, more was added later.
This is a photo showing the Peco point motor mounted on thge Peco adapter base with two peco accesory switches fitted. One for the essensial frog polarity the other is for automation. This is located in a removable line side building. In this case the point motor is about 6 inches from the point and uses a wire in tube system laid in a grove on the baseboard under the track. You can just see the start of this on the left. (Also note the wire I use to hold all the accesory switches in place.) This is for a standard gauge point, but this is the same set up for the 009 points.
You say it contains an oval of OO along with the 009 and it is on top of cabinets which suggests it is against a wall. An oval of OO is likely to be quite deep so access to the rear for cleaning track, derailments and so on could be an issue if there isn't an easy way to get to the back of the layout.
For top mounting of point actuators it is also possible to extend the distance between the point and actuator with a push-rod, wire in tube and so on. I don't think I've seen it done with solenoid actuators but it is quite common with slow motion ones
Quote from: GraemeD on March 28, 2023, 08:23
For top mounting of point actuators it is also possible to extend the distance between the point and actuator with a push-rod, wire in tube and so on. I don't think I've seen it done with solenoid actuators but it is quite common with slow motion ones
This would really help disguise the point motors as well as making construction and maintenance much easier. I recall one OO layout on which all the point motors were lined up under a hill on one edge of the baseboard with wire-in tube links fanning out across the board to reach the points.