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by **mikerm** on Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:52 pm

Finally found the cabinet I wanted to use for my pet project. I knew that between my chances of getting a real cabinet I could actually afford and getting girlfriend approval (whenever that happens) were about 0, so I decided to look for a nice cabinet that would fit in like furniture. I originally was going to get a wide lower kitchen cabinet that I could use the top to put whatever on, but this was nice, and cheap. The shelves are made of 3/4" plywood with a trim piece glued on the front, so they would be easy to replace for any reason. It's also very sturdy, and has the best feature of all... glass doors!

Pretty! Now, it needs some parts:

Not bad! it's a start. The second shelf will go up one more notch, and I should be able to use square trim to make grooves for the load switches to stand in. The only problem? It's going to be REALLY tight to do wiring in! The bottom part is a great storage area. I shoved my Transyt 1880EL and extra wire, parts, etc in it. The cabinet is also on casters, so it's nice and "portable". Lot's of work and parts needed ahead!

by **EPAC-EPIC-MARC** on Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:42 am

Thats looking pretty cool! I like the glass door idea! :good:

My suggestion is to do much of the in-cabinet wiring on a bench or table and then transfer everything over. Signal wiring you'll have to work in the tight space, unfortunately.

by **steven1981** on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:13 pm

Looks like an ideal location for your signal controller equipment.

by **traffictechgreg** on Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:08 pm

Neat! I may steal your idea,

as I have several backpanels mounted on plywood currently and your idea would work much better, especially when I get all my signals mounted

by **BigTbird1974** on Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:02 pm

traffictechgreg wrote:Neat! I may steal your idea,

I LOVE it too -- and you found a nice oak (?) cabinet to start with, Mike! :thumbsup:

But fair warning: Greg isn't the only one having that thought...I've been plotting something similar for one (or two) of my GammaTronix controllers too, one of these days... :Wink2:

all their little red and orange LEDs and neon indicators should look just splendid behind a likewise 1970's "smoked glass" door... :crazy:

by **mikerm** on Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:49 pm

Yeah, I actually was thinking about grabbing a piece of thin plywood to mount all of the connections on so I can slide it out for easy access on the bottom shelf (non-removeable).

I honestly haven't touched in a while. The money had to be used for other things that came up :glare:

by **mikerm** on Sun Nov 11, 2012 6:53 pm

Some updates! Work has finally progressed on it. It's up and running! Although it's only up and running at the absolute minimum you need, so it's really only 25% there. I also already need to re-wire it, as some wires were mis-labeled at some point somehow, and I accidentally wired up phases one and two to the first two load switches shown, instead of 2 loaded switches that will be on the far left.. oops. I'm going to be hitting my ceiling of knowledge pretty soon though, so it's going to be a learning curve as I wire up the NEMA B connector, and get more parts in.

Overall:

You can see my quarter-round trim slots. It was a good idea I thought, but I didn't take enough time to measure the distances and I didn't glue them on correctly. It works, but not great.

Storage:

Storage for the extra parts and pieces. I will be wiring up the other load switches soon. It also contains the "master" switches. Left to right: main, signal, flash, cabnet lights

Inside closeup:

Running simple 2 phase operation, the controller is probably wondering why I'm bothering to waste it's time when there is a more suitable 1880EL waiting, hehe. All of the extra parts (terminal strips/blocks), wires, etc are coming from my local surplus store, except the wall switches and box, which came from Home Depot (I cut the nail ears off of the blue box).

To do:
LOTS. I can't believe how complicated real NEMA cabinets can really be. I already have a billion wires in there and it's not enough. Soon I will have a conflict monitor, 2 loop detectors, flasher, flash relay, etc etc, all the little parts that are still missing. I also am going to put LED light strips on the inside lip of the front trim (next to the glass) for the cabinet lighting. The LED's will face in from the front and should give plenty of lighting.

by **EPAC-EPIC-MARC** on Sun Nov 11, 2012 9:38 pm

That has come along nicely Mike!! NEMA TS-1 has a wire for everything...which can help troubleshooting. You just follow the problematic circuit. The downside is...the amount of wires!!

You've managed to keep your custom cab looking need and tidy and I am sure you will continue to keep it neat with the B cable. I have to commend you on some nice progress. I love the cabinet choice too. Like furniture! Keep us posted!

by **mikerm** on Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:34 pm

WHEW! It's been a long 4 days. I decided to strip it down and re-do it, the more-right-way, but it's finally more finished than it was before! Too bad it's not completely finished yet.

I decided to get rid of that crappy quarter round idea I had. It honestly would have worked fine if I would have taken the time to measure it all out. Thankfully I found the right Jones sockets for the load switches, which meant I didn't need to make it flexible. Knowing that, behold! The frame of sockets!

At first I wasn't sure if it would stand up to the plugging and unpplugging of the switches, but it's doing perfectly fine. I anchored it onto the shelf with L brackets.

Lots and lots of soldering later....

And with that, all we needed to do was wire everything together....

And viola! You have yourself a super basic but much better than last time cabinet!

It even worked correctly the first time! :cool:

Now, 2 of the switches are dark for phases 5 and 6. This is because I don't have the "C" cable yet. It's on the to-purchase list along with a conflict monitor, flasher, and 4 loop detectors. The lighting is brought to you by a 6' rope light. As before, there are 4 switches behind the doors for master, controller, signal, cab light.

Now I just gotta clean up the mess. :hurl:

by **jab8356** on Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:38 pm

Nice work!!! :thumbsup:

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