Panel Wiring Details

Panels need to be made with 6PDT rotaries for pack selection and will have a separate SPST micro toggle to kill power to the block mounted next to the rotary. An LED indicator light will also be mounted next to the rotary to indicate when DCC is selected for that block. This LED will need one leg(black wire) wired to the Green DCC feed where it comes into the panel terminal strip before the rotary and the other leg(red wire) wired to the opposing(wire coming from the rotary that is fed by purple DCC wire) outgoing wire from rotary to track terminal strip to make it illuminate when the rotary is turned to DCC. Rotaries will be wired with Pack 1 as the farthest left position then rotating clockwise the other packs will be added with the fifth position empty and DCC in the sixth position.

From the terminal strip to the rotaries should be wired with no smaller than 16GA wire. Outputs from the rotary to the track will also terminate at terminal strip. From the panel output to the tracks a two wire bus will be run beneath as much of the track that block is controlling as possible. This bus will be black and red 14GA wire. Before wiring in a new block double check your orientation to make sure your drops tie into the correct bus wire. Using Sousa City block as a starting point(right hand running rules) all Westbound mains  will have white(black) feeders on the engineer side rail and red on the fireman side rail. All Eastbound mains will have red feeders on the engineer side rail and white(black) on the fireman side rail. Drops from track to the bus should be made where able to and each rail should be fed once at least on every other section of track. Track feeders will be red and white(black) 20GA wire. Try to keep the lengths of these feeder wires as short as possible. Red track feeders will tie into the red panel bus wire and white(black) track feeders will tie into the black panel bus wire. 

Bock detector toroid will be inserted where the SPST toggle attaches to the barrier strip.

Build details and Example

Dusty's panel schematic

Electrical Schematic of 1 Block Power Control

A panel may have multiple blocks

Panel Wiring of Single Block

Block Occupancy Detection (BOD) and Overcurrent Protection

•  James Hughes Details about block detectors and overcurrent protection

Physical Panel Opening

Printable area for text is 4x12.5

4.5" x 13" on open plexiglass framing for viewing area. This has been converted to the new, smaller height panel.

5x13.5 actual paper cut size