How to make a trolley stop on its own with k line streets

Z stuff has a trolley announcement and control board that will stop the trolley at certain intervals.

K-Line Trains Superstreets 6-21571 10 Inch Straight Insulated Roadway Sections should do the job.  Use the 153IR to energize and de-energize the section as desired.  

Hope this helps!  

Mitch 

Place the 153IR at least 1 Trolley car length before the Insulated Section.  Use the "NC" output of the 153IR to power the Insulated Section.  Set the 153IR delay to, say, 10 seconds.  Here's the sequence.

Trolley triggers 153IR.  NC output immediately removes power to Insulated Section.  Trolley has not even reached the Insulated Section yet so it keeps going.

Trolley clears 153IR sensor which starts the 153IR delay timer.  Insulated Section still unpowered since in the 10 sec Delay.

Trolley reaches Insulated Section and stops because it is unpowered.  After the 153IR delay ends, the Insulated Section again receives power from the 153IR NC output.  Trolley starts and continues onward. 

If it takes, say, 3 seconds for the Trolley to reach the Insulated Section after clearing the 153IR, then the station stop time will be 7 seconds (10 sec delay minus 3 sec transit time).

Notes:

The stopping only occurs in one-direction.  If the Trolley goes in the other direction, the 153IR gets triggered AFTER the Trolley passes the Insulated Section so the de-energizing has no effect. 

To stop in either direction, a 153IR could be placed at least 1 Trolley car length on each side of the station and the two 153IR "NC" outputs could be daisy-chained.  That way, either can de-energize the Insulated Section. 

Or bi-directional operation could be two Insulated Sections positioned on either side of one 153IR.  The 153IR "NC" output controls power to both Insulated Sections.  A Trolley would stop at one Insulated Section when going in one direction, and stop at the other Insulated Section going in the other direction.  Perhaps not prototypical but could be tradeoff depending on the relative cost of a 2nd 153IR vs. a 2nd Insulated section.

Hi Stan 

thanks for the great advice 

I’m having problems finding an isolated k line streets track or even a Bachman streets isolated section

any advice how to make this track insulated or on purchasing one ?

I searched on the # Mitch provided earlier and it appears they're available from several sources such as Western Depot which claims to have over 25 in stock at $8 for a 2-pack.  I don't use Superstreets myself so don't know if that's a "good" price but seems reasonable to me.

If you choose to proceed using the 153IR and need specific wiring instructions, be advised that there are (at least) 2 versions of the 153IR that have slightly different hook-ups.  So when I suggest using the "NC" output, this may not be enough info.  We can drill down to that level if need be...

Rsicinski posted:

Hi Stan 

thanks for the great advice 

I’m having problems finding an isolated k line streets track or even a Bachman streets isolated section

any advice how to make this track insulated or on purchasing one ?

 

You can make any super street section insulated.  Cut off the connector bar on the bottom of the track that is soldered to both out side rails.  Pull the pin off the end of the rail and its insulated

bluelinec4 posted:

You can make any super street section insulated.  Cut off the connector bar on the bottom of the track that is soldered to both out side rails.  Pull the pin off the end of the rail and its insulated

So if you wanted to isolate BOTH outer-rails from the rest of the layout, could you leave the "connector bar" in place and remove 4 outer-rail pins? 

The application here is for block-power control (NOT outer-rail occupancy sensing) and at the risk of putting the cart-before-the-horse, it may be that cutting the outer-rail track power is the preferred solution - instead of cutting the center-rail track power.

Yes you can do that but I would suggest putting some plastic rod into the rails to isolate yet give the support needed. 

We just installed the Z Stuff trolley stop boards on two lines and they work great  I will post some video later this week

Before you get too far into this project, there’s a few things to be aware of based on my experience running trolleys and other small powered vehicles on superstreets insulated rail sections: 

1. if your trolley has traction tires it may not run very well on an insulated track section, especially if it only has 4 wheels and 2 have traction tires. If the traction-tired wheels are on the live rail of the insulated section it will stall out because of no ground on the wheels without tires.  Not sure why they put traction tires on a trolley, but some have them.  You probably can run them without the tires. 
2. It sounds like you want the trolley to start up in the same direction it had been traveling, if your trolley has a reversing unit you will need to lock it out. If it’s the bump-and-go type, you’re OK. 

Also be advised that Bachmann never made an insulated section for E-Z Streets.  The K-Line superstreets versions are still around as Stan posted above and often turn up on eBay. 

Bill

stan2004 posted:

I searched on the # Mitch provided earlier and it appears they're available from several sources such as Western Depot which claims to have over 25 in stock at $8 for a 2-pack.  I don't use Superstreets myself so don't know if that's a "good" price but seems reasonable to me.

If you choose to proceed using the 153IR and need specific wiring instructions, be advised that there are (at least) 2 versions of the 153IR that have slightly different hook-ups.  So when I suggest using the "NC" output, this may not be enough info.  We can drill down to that level if need be...

Thanks Stan 

i ordered my isolated track from western depot it has arrived!

thsnks for all your advice 

You could also use a simple 555 timer circuit with a relay activated by a magnet on the trolley. The relay turns the isolated center rail on and off. A 555 timer chip costs forty eight cents. The other componants a few pennies, except for the relay and the reed switches. A variable resister enables you to set stop time from ten seconds to ten minutes.