CTC is something new – not a small evolution but a revolution. No wonder, then, that we are currently being asked many skeptical questions. So we still have quite a bit to explain or prove.
With this article, we start a series about the big test layout of our chief developer. It was started many years ago and then parked to develop CTC. This is how it looks today, on September 7, 2020:
Technical Data
- Area 6.5 m², Length 4.60 m, Depth up to 1.90 m
- 7 levels: mountain route, main level, deep station, S-Bahn and three levels of shadow station
- 2 track helixes to the shadow station levels
- Track material in the visible area Märklin K-track, station and S-Bahn Märklin C-track and shadow station Märklin M-track
- At final expansion around 60 turnouts, 60 light signals, and at least as many CTC-IR-balises
- Around 40 locomotives from the very old analog treasure to new acquisitions will run with CTC locomotive modules at the end
- The Car-System is also expected to run with CTC one day.
Already equipped with CTC turnout modules are 19 C-track turnouts. In the first load tests, we had another 30 CTC turnout modules and 5 converted locomotives running without problems. The analyses showed that increasing to up to 250 modules overall should not be a problem.
Except for the Car-System, CTC can already handle everything needed – it is only a matter of available free time until the conversion is complete.
Planning
Last weekend was mainly dedicated to planning.
First, the deep station should be functionally completed according to the Stuttgart 21 model. The turnouts already have a CTC module, but the IR-balises and light signals are still missing.
Light Signals
Märklin unfortunately always installs a decoder in its current light signals, which we can control but doesn’t bring any added value for CTC. Looking at the price, it quickly became clear that they would not be Märklin signals. For all those who already own Märklin signals and want to switch to CTC, we have still acquired two Märklin signals and will discuss their control in a separate article.
For the demo layout, Viessmann signals for the visible area and Völkner self-build signals for the invisible area have now been ordered. We also refrained from using Viessmann’s multiplex for cost reasons.
Such a Viessmann signal has up to 10 individually controllable LEDs. This is too much even for our CTC-Multi-I/O-Board. So a new module that already existed in the back of our minds was quickly created: The CTC-IO-Extender. Up to 7 such modules can be connected to any CTC module via the I2C bus and offer 16 additional switching outputs each.
In about two weeks, the prototype boards will arrive and will just need to be equipped. Until then, we can already start manufacturing the IR-balises and soldering the cables to the correct lengths.
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