Thinking about my Control Panel Design

You're gonna need more wire.

John,

We are only running conventional, and our layout isn't quite as complex as yours. But my only advice might be related to the indicators on your turnouts.  We found after playing around with our own turnout panel that having LED's directly on top of the actual route that turnout is aligned to was much more intuitive at a glance than having a bi-color LED right on top of the turnout.  We wired green LED's on the through routes and red led's on the turnouts.  So color and position both are visual cues, versus just color.

However, the amount of room available on your panel really dictates that.  We started to run out of room in our yard areas due to some poor planning and schematic.

Also, I would suggest making sure you get the panel layout correct on a paper printout and use it for a while before cutting out or etching anything more permanent in aluminum or acrylic.  We found several knobs and switches and lights that we would have preferred to have elsewhere after running for a bit.

I don't have much to offer John except leave room for expansion. I know your plan is pretty well set but you never know. I used pinstripe tape on my panel. If you have a sign shop in your area they can probably do the engraving for you once you are ready to make the permanent panel.
I would mount the face on a small piano hinge so you can flip it open when doing the wiring. Also leave enough room behind for wire management.

Bob

My plan is to have the panel on a roll-around cart so I can have it inside my layout or outside.  There will be a gang connector ( or connectors) to plug the panel into the layout wiring.  The power panel is elsewhere, the panel will just have the controls and indicators for switches, power districts, sidings, and the turntable.  Also, there will be some provision for controlling accessories, TBD.

Right now I'm trying to gather all the ideas, good and bad, stir them up, and hopefully avoid mistakes of the past, mine and other folks.

I have come across @Chugman 's control panels in past research on the topic and they are quite nice.   I believe he said his son built them. Hopefully he can chime in to provide some tips.  It looks like he uses two LEDs for each turnout, rather than a single bi-color.  Then he uses yellow to indicate track/siding power. 

a completely different thought, maybe not helpful, but I've been thinking about getting a new Mac Mini with the m1 processor.  The new M1 macs are supposed to be able to run iOS apps.  I was thinking I would run the LCS app Mac and display that on a TV and run the Lionel Camera app on a different TV.  Both TVs are already in my layout room.  lots of great visibility. 

the only question is how good the m1 macs run those IOS apps.

@RSJB18 posted:

I would mount the face on a small piano hinge so you can flip it open when doing the wiring. Also leave enough room behind for wire management.

Definitely +1 on both of these.  Having the panel hinged to flip all the way up was one of the only reasons I was able to do it without pulling out my hair.

I would have built our panels 2x as big If I had to do it again.

Here's what poor space planning nets you:

I don't think a Mac is in my future.   I have an iPad that I'll use for the LCS function.

That is fair, could always AirPlay from iPad to a TV.  LCS would tell you everything a control panel does.

But I do realize there are differences. 

I'll be very interested to see your solution either way.  I've been contemplating what/if I want to do.  And I've been leaning more towards taking advantage of the LCS app (as you can probably tell from my responses).

@Jeff_the_Coaster_Guy posted:

Here's what poor space planning nets you:

@jrmertz posted:

That is fair, could always AirPlay from iPad to a TV.  LCS would tell you everything a control panel does.

But I do realize there are differences. 

I'll be very interested to see your solution either way.  I've been contemplating what/if I want to do.  And I've been leaning more towards taking advantage of the LCS app (as you can probably tell from my responses).

I have the LCS stuff, so I might as well wire it up.

Not too much to offer on your control panel but just wanted to comment that you picked a nice simple place in the layout for the lift bridge!  haha!  the idea of unplugging the control and plugging it in in another location is pretty cool.

A few pics of mine

you don't want to see underneath, ok here you go, and yet no problems in over 30 years

John, my purpose is not to try to change your plan, but to maybe plant some ideas. I have the layout with no physical controls, only LCS with iPads, iPhones and Cab2's. I have a 13" iPad with an Apple Pencil mounted where a real control panel would have been. I can operate the entire layout from that vantage point. In addition the LCS screens are also on two 10" iPads that are left on stools at the ends of each walkway inside the layout. I do not need to carry around an iPad because there is more than one. Works great for guests as well. I always default to a Cab2 for engines, just like them the best. My grandson prefers an iPhone.

One thing that comes with LCS is the ability to set pre-programmed routes. I have 10 of them. The best use of these is when visitors are operating, and when they are done. I can reset all the three mainlines to standard loop running with the click of an on screen button. No need to look at all 45 turnouts. Probably more important in two rail where running into an open turnout trips the overcurrent in the ZW-L. All the visitors to my layout are able to run trains with just a minute or two of familiarization since they can see the track plan on the iPad. Also I can fix incorrect turnout positions from my own iPad during visitor operation if I see it.

Using just LCS saves a lot of wire and terminal strips.

Yikes! I run 3 rail conventional, but I went with a CMRI / JMRI setup and only have a 4-wire network cable from my virtual control panel out to my layout.

@Chugman 's many control panels were designed and built by his son Jim who is an electronics engineer.  Jim placed emergency power cut-off switches around the layout as well as control on the panels.

I made my first panels from CorelDraw printouts and drilled Plexiglas. My new panels will be laser cut Plexiglas inlays to simulate the track paths. I have a circuit to control each DZ-2500C switch machines with a momentary push button and two indicating LEDs to simplify the control points on the panel.

I know I could use an iPad instead, but I like tactilely pushing buttons  and watching LEDs change with the turnout position.

John

Could you please clarify to what extent your panel will be a status display of blocks and switch position with lights vs controls to turn things on and off such as: block control, switch throw, TT, accessories.  They don't necessarily have to be on one panel

Thanks

Bill

The old "Blue" shops ad Office Depots have large format printers that they use to print blueprints; some have color capability.  Take the layout schematic that you have and add all your annotations you want to it; blow it up; and have it printed.  Take the schematic and reverse it right-to-left; add/remove annotations as switch and led positions, wire labels, etc; and have that printed the same size.  You can then laminate the prints together and then laminate them to a clear pieced of plexiglass. 

Jan

I like the physical control panel simply for the easy of teaching visitors how to control trains, get an engine off the turntable, etc.  There's nothing like the tactile feedback to make it easier for a novice to accomplish the tasks.

I still want the automation, and I'll be using LCS to control the layout switches and power.  I have to figure out how to represent stuff like the double-slip switch with the LCS panel, the track schematics are very limited in scope, so that may be problematic.

OK John,

This is what I've been waiting for!!!  This is exactly where I'm at with my new layout... I emailed Ray (sidehack) last night about needing to build a control panel because I *need* the visual correlation between the turnouts and the controls.  And, you are going to LOVE this... I'm ditching my Atlas switch machines ...I've gone tortoise.

Super Glad you started this thread.

dennis

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I like the physical control panel simply for the easy of teaching visitors how to control trains, get an engine off the turntable, etc.  There's nothing like the tactile feedback to make it easier for a novice to accomplish the tasks.

Well put... sharing, teaching and wonderment.

I think that's a bit more than I want to tackle Greg, maybe if you volunteer to come over and install it I could consider it.

I would like of course the status displays, but I also want to be able to operate switches, siding power, and the turntable from the panel.  I will also have the ability to operate the turntable, switches and siding power from the CAB1L/CAB2 as well, for those functions I'll be using the DZ-2500 switch machines and the SC2 controllers.

Power switching will be done at the control panel with 10A multiple relay boards, so the controls will just be 5V logic signals to the panel.  I have a bunch of 10A relay boards with four relays.  I bought those when they were $2/ea, and they're perfect for the current environment.

I did mine several years before this forum existed. It's made of Masonite with the track plan done in automotive pinstripe tape. The black push buttons control the NJI switch machines with green LED's showing the turnout direction. The silver toggles are simple off-on switches for the various sidings. As this was done in the pre-TMCC era, I may update turnout controls with SC2's when i figure out their wiring and where to buy the requisite relays, etc.

The double slip may look a bit out of scale on the iPad mimic but I think it would be made up with 4 turnouts with the divergent legs connected with a crossing. All 4 turnouts would get the same TMCC ID. Touching any one of the 4 turnouts on the iPad puts them all green, straight, or all red, crossing.

@AmFlyer posted:

The double slip may look a bit out of scale on the iPad mimic but I think it would be made up with 4 turnouts with the divergent legs connected with a crossing. All 4 turnouts would get the same TMCC ID. Touching any one of the 4 turnouts on the iPad puts them all green, straight, or all red, crossing.

Except that's not the way the DSS works!  Each end is a separate control, and they don't all switch together.  I can enter on one side in either track and exit on the other side on either track by selecting the two switch positions I desire.  It would have to be modeled with two separate switches I suspect, just don't know how ugly that would be.

I built small subpanels out of 1/4 inch birch plywood.  Painted them satin black and used 1/8 inch auto pin stripping.  Couldn't find a decent way to get around the need for the DZ push button switch controls as they support the LED lighting on both the panel and the switch motors.   They are far less offensive on a black panel.

My reasoning for small subpanels at major operating areas, is I need to be there to control switches for the classification yard, the entrance to the engine service facility, the passenger yard/station and the interchange track.    I didn't see any benefit for me personally in trying to have one large control panel showing all the track between the major operating areas.

You'll see one of the panels below the MTH brick station is mounted on a homemade "pull out drawer" disguised behind Pennsy Block Walls.  I needed a panel close to this area, but I didn't want it in plain view as it's the center point of the layout when you enter the basement, plus I take a lot of photos in this area.

All the panels are on hinges, for easy access to the back side from the front, plus it makes it much easier to wire them.   For the most part, I built and pre-wired the sub panels at the work bench, then installed them and ran the connections through terminal strips which are labeled.

My current control panels are on ¼” oak plywood.  I only have portions of the layout on the switchboard so it takes up less real estate.  I know what every switch does, but visitors might not so that method might not suit your visitor friendly goal.

My old switchboard was ¼” Masonite with the entire layout.

I used automotive pinstriping on both new and old to represent the track.

Here's a picture of a small control panel I did for the yard area of my layout. I used a program called Corel Draw to create an image of the panel, and then I sent it to a company called Bay Photo Lab to have it printed on a 0.05" thick aluminum sheet. I then glued the aluminum sheet to a 0.2" thick sheet of plywood for stability. I initially tried having it printed on 0.25" plexiglass, but I had trouble drilling the holes without cracking the plexiglass.

@gunrunnerjohn - My vote is for a 24in LCD monitor (or larger: 31in 16X10 is good) with touch screen.  That way you can get real time updates on train positions on the layout and monitor any stationary or non stationary cameras.

Anthony

I like the idea of smaller sub-panels, I'll have to give that some thought.  There's no real necessity to have one "do it all" panel I suppose.

@A. Wells posted:

@gunrunnerjohn - My vote is for a 24in LCD monitor (or larger: 31in 16X10 is good) with touch screen.  That way you can get real time updates on train positions on the layout and monitor any stationary or non stationary cameras.

You're going to come and install and program all of this, right?

@gunrunnerjohn - Most definitely! As quick as I'm done setting up mine.  A

@A. Wells posted:

@gunrunnerjohn - Most definitely! As quick as I'm done setting up mine.  A

And I'm guessing you haven't started yours yet, right?

John,

I got rid of my Oz panel years ago.  It was cumbersome and didn't lend itself to 'operating ' the layout.

I inserted these small panels close to industries and sidings.

I am also using the DCS app with iPads around the layout.  That gives me the option of using them as master panels or local panels.

I was able to add this scene where the old panel was.  The roof comes off of the building and there is a handle inside which allows the scene to be lifted.   There is a hidden analog panel underneath.  Overkill!

Thanks Dave, I'm giving the smaller panels serious consideration, that may make more sense.  Since I'm also going to have control of all the switches, sidings, and turntable operation from the TMCC or Legacy remotes, I'll have two ways of controlling things in any case.

Points to ponder, which is why I started this thread.  I figured all the collective wisdom here would give me enough viewpoints to make an informed decision.

All this talk of Control Panels makes me want to finish up my layout.  I finished the layout 14 years ago and only built a small panel for the power to a 4 track yard about 10 years ago.  Next week it's going to be very cold, so maybe I will wire up my switches and engine storage tracks.  Thanks to everyone for getting me back on track.

@CBS072 posted:

All this talk of Control Panels makes me want to finish up my layout.  I finished the layout 14 years ago and only built a small panel for the power to a 4 track yard about 10 years ago.  Next week it's going to be very cold, so maybe I will wire up my switches and engine storage tracks.  Thanks to everyone for getting me back on track.

It took us long enough to push you on, ten years?  I've only been working on this layout for a couple of years, but I have no idea when and if I'll ever "finish" it.

@gunrunnerjohn - Actually I have, minus the touch screen.  Before I go into some abridged detail, I did want to mention I've been running into a plethora of hurdles that are directly unrelated to the O scale layout but are ultimately necessary for me to finish certain base building blocks.  I've come very close to creating a post titled aptly enough "Overcoming Obstacles" to gain insight how forum members work through multi step issues.

To start with, I can't stand wires and wiring.  Short wires I can handle.  To this end, I'm using FRM69HCW radio transceivers in conjunction with SiLabs 8051 MCU's to affect various control of switches and other auxiliary components.  They will ultimately relay consist location information using RFID tags on the bottom of various locomotives and non powered cars.  I also have an Atlas Switch Sensor that I'm trying to prefect and this is where I've run into the host of non related issues.

Thanks to the work of Mr. Divecchio, I have the MTH DCS specs and some software which allow me to tie all of this together...albeit I'm behind in this area.

I have created 3D models of the majority of Atlas 3-rail track components.  Having said that, I have started back tracking on going the 3D route and have revisited just a 2D display.

I have a couple of Lionel Copula Camera Cabooses.  Each new release uses a different make and model of ip camera which makes it hard to solidify a working platform.  I've put this tangent on hold.

I have several other tangents on paper and a few mocked up with bread boarding...like the audio.

It's slow going since I work work (I should be doing that now actually) and my hope is that once I'm able to circumvent some of these obstacles that I can gain traction again to move forward at a faster rate.

Anthony

WOW, you're going all in!  I'm too old to get a project like that done in my lifetime, so I'm wiring stuff.