Creating a place for the DCC system

Up to this point in the layouts life the DCC system has been sitting on the floor under the staging yard.  The command station and power supply are attached to a piece of plywood with a small section of track with the output being being at a jack that the layout can be connected to.  I have often taken this setup with me to Ntrak layout setups to use as a programming station.

What I decided on was a similar setup that is mounted in a drawer that is directly under the bridge on the Harney section.  This is right next to the work bench so a test / programming track can be on the bench where I wanted it.  I actually reused the same drawer hardware salvaged from the last layouts control panel.

There is room underneath to set up a spare computer to use as a JMRI programmer.

So now with the old setup gone and not available to take to shows I think I better get going on building the long promised programming station for the Ntrak club.

Home made throttle holders

Several years ago I bought a couple of these throttle holders from a local shop and have really liked them.  These are designed to fit the throttles from several different DCC manufacturers.




The layout as grown to the point that I wanted some more but they don't seem to be in shops any more and on line they are now about $15.00 each which is quite a bit more than what I had paid before so I started looking at making my own using scraps.  It needed to be simple and only had to work with Digitrax throttles.

The design I came up with uses 6 scraps of 1/4 inch plywood and tempered hard board shown here.  These are the pieces and sizes.

1 Hard board back 4.25" x 3.00"
2 Hard board fronts 4.25" x .562"
1 Plywood bottom 3.00" x 1.00"
2 Plywood sides 4.00" x 1.00"

Here is the throttle holder after being assembled with yellow carpenters glue and sanded.   I rounded the top corners on the front strips before assembly.   There are a couple of mounting holes in the back which can't be seen in this photo because of the throttle.

I test fitted several types of Digitrax throttles and they all fit nicely.  I don't know if this would work with throttles of other DCC brands.





I like these home made holders well enough that I may make these standard for the home layout as they will all look the same.  Then adapt the other holders for use on the Ntrak modules.