I spent the last week prepping and wiring in the DCC. I first needed to lay down my two main bus lines, that also required that I rough in the river:
I made another benchwork stringer to serve as the basic outline for the river, then I used some 1/2 plywood screwed to the bottom of the benchwork for the basic river bottom. When that was done I was able to route the buss wires under the riverbed.
I'll be adding insulation foam to contour and raise the river bottom. When I figure out the river depth, I'll router out the plywood stringers to that height. (I hope that makes sense.)
The thing about wiring is there isn't much to see. I just ran my two bus lines around the layout and attached feeders to them using the suitcase connectors. These made hookup very easy. I made a couple mistakes, creating some shorts as I went but I tested each section as I hooked them up so it was fairly straightforward to catch. I did get a short when I accidently impaled a feeder with my staple gun but I caught it right away and it was an easy fix. I've been running a proto1000 F-3 around the layout for the past couple hours to see if it can find any bugs.
Another thing I found by raising the layout an extra 6-8 inches is the extra space I now have under the layout. Now that the wiring is done I started to clean up and organize things. These drawers are all my scenery supplies. I hope to have the rest of it cleaned up soon so I can start work on the Portable Station kit.
I made another benchwork stringer to serve as the basic outline for the river, then I used some 1/2 plywood screwed to the bottom of the benchwork for the basic river bottom. When that was done I was able to route the buss wires under the riverbed.
I'll be adding insulation foam to contour and raise the river bottom. When I figure out the river depth, I'll router out the plywood stringers to that height. (I hope that makes sense.)
The thing about wiring is there isn't much to see. I just ran my two bus lines around the layout and attached feeders to them using the suitcase connectors. These made hookup very easy. I made a couple mistakes, creating some shorts as I went but I tested each section as I hooked them up so it was fairly straightforward to catch. I did get a short when I accidently impaled a feeder with my staple gun but I caught it right away and it was an easy fix. I've been running a proto1000 F-3 around the layout for the past couple hours to see if it can find any bugs.
Another thing I found by raising the layout an extra 6-8 inches is the extra space I now have under the layout. Now that the wiring is done I started to clean up and organize things. These drawers are all my scenery supplies. I hope to have the rest of it cleaned up soon so I can start work on the Portable Station kit.