New layout: All in a day's work - part two

Prior to today's hectic all-day session, the turntable has been cut out so that it will line up properly with the track (the Marklin turntable is much deeper than the standard Dublo one)

Hole cut, turntable test-fitted.

All six boards were then primed and painted prior to today's session, here they are assembled again for the first time since they were made and checked to ensure minimal warpage and of course that the dowel pins and catches still line up. 

It's a snug fit but everything works.

Once a good fit was confirmed it was time to separate the front & rear sections ready to fit the electrical connectors.

After fitting the front section first, the rear boards were flipped and the breakout PCBs that I had shipped over from America were cut into position. A nervous moment as a lot of money has been invested in these components with the intention of minimising the amount of manually connected terminal blocks, which the previous layout had many of. These weren't really intended for this kind of use, normally you would plug a 37 pin cable into the socket, not a PCB into a PCB. The theory here is that once the dowel pins have been lined up, these will connect together when the boards are then clipped together.

And it appears to work! - Each section was tested, separated and re-joined and each board connected properly with no fuss.

As time began to defeat us, there sadly wasn't much time to wire up or fit track. We did however manage to fit a perspex protection panel along the front edge of all three front boards (it's hard to see it in this picture but it's there along the top) after loose-laying all the track along the front three boards, I managed to mark and drill the holes for the wires to the two pairs of points and fix down most of the track on the first board.

Just a few more pieces of straight and the corners to fit, then this board can be wired. End panels have also been fabricated and bolt to the exposed board edges so that the track is fully protected for transportation, also means that the boards can easily be stacked.

Good progress again after another long day, still need to lay track, wire up and then start thinking about scenery, then there's the upper loop to be added but this can't be done until the hills & scenery are done. All agreed that if work slips behind and the deadline is at risk then the top loop will be put on hold.

Fingers crossed we can still meet the deadline in October.