Satan's Goldfish Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Note to self: 42 and 3/4 inches x12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Following note to self, legs! Work also continues on the corner board. Some unwanted problems have appeared due to my using screws that are too short to hold together the frame. So they all need removing and replacing with longer. However, some of the leg off cuts have been used to form the bridge across the middle. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 Useless update time! Bridge clearance checked on the curve board: Currently dog-sitting for my folks while they're away for the weekend so brought the boards with me to work on. Picked up some longer screws so the curve board can actually be held together properly! Plus, 'borrowed' Mrs SG's car to come over here which has shown that all 3 boards will fit in the back of it for transport Never know, by the end of this weekend I may be forwarding my £20 for the SECAG meet. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 I'd say that 'clearance' is a pretty critical thing so hardly a useless update! Looks good already - those cargowaggons must be pretty much the longest thing we're going to be running so I must remember to dig out my one (got one of those Taunton Cider ones somewhere) and use that for clearance on my station on my curved unit. Send the money... you know you want to really Let me know if you need any further help locating accommodation in the area beyond that included in the information pack. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 I'd say that 'clearance' is a pretty critical thing so hardly a useless update! Looks good already - those cargowaggons must be pretty much the longest thing we're going to be running so I must remember to dig out my one (got one of those Taunton Cider ones somewhere) and use that for clearance on my station on my curved unit. Send the money... you know you want to really Let me know if you need any further help locating accommodation in the area beyond that included in the information pack. lol, soon..... Had a fun afternoon screwing and getting sticky out in the sunshine. All screws on the curved board have been replaced with ones that are twice the length and it all now feels much sturdier. The end and bit of frame that fell off have been reattached. Having it on a nice big table is useful, on it's own the board never looks 90 degrees to me but using the table edges show that it is. All 12 adjustable feet have been fitted to the legs. I just need to build these into pairs now, the legs only need to be 12inches apart as none of the boards I've built are 18in wide apart from on the end plates. The feet will be on the 'outside' of each leg pair when put together and have the +/- 1inch adjustment ability as specified in the Dave standards. All 6 leg pairs will be identical for ease of setup, pockets need to be built in the underside of the module boards to locate the leg tops into. THAT IS ALL Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Todays endevours. I spent the morning at the Norwich model railway show, picked up a couple more 'speedlink' appropriate wagons. Very windy day here but I tolerated it long enough this afternoon to cut the cross pieces for my legs and then got as far as putting 2 of them together.....enough for a board to be supported So, With the sidings board set up, rail height above ground is checked. leg construction style. The other 4 pairs will all share this pattern: 45 inches above ground level is higher than I thought really, big dog added for scale: To check everything all the way through, a misappropriated petroleum subsector 37 arrives arrives at Devil's bridge sidings with a passing speedlink service. The Fisons fertiliser van is to be dropped of for unloading and the VBB van and Grainflow 'minibulk' are being collected. Once the wagons have been swapped round, the service continues on it's way. Shortly after leaving the sidings the services crosses the river: After crossing the river, the line curves to the right and passes under an imaginary bridge with an imaginary bus on top before heading off into the great wide world beyond: Hopefully the weather's better tomorrow so I'll finish the rest of the legs off. Trip to a DIY soon so I can make the pockets for the legs rather than leaning them against kitchen units! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Great work Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Cheers ess1uk. With yet more time to think and the fact that all 3 of these modules are being covered in 1 topic, I need to create some kind of order! So hence forth the bridge board will be known as 'Board 1' (Devil's Bridge), the sidings board will be 'Board 2' (Devil's Bridge Sidings), and the curve board will be 'Board 3' (Devil's Bridge Curve). They will all still be classed as individual modules, however I'm going to drill a couple of holes through their end plates so when they are in use beside each other they can be bolted together rather than using G clamps. The holes will be in the same place on each end plate so that they can still be arranged in any order depending on meet requirements. That's a feature I'll probably also carry over to 'Narwich' when I start on those modules properly (there's due to be a single track branch out the back of riverside yard in my current plan which these boards would connect to, more on that in the Narwich thread) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 13, 2015 Author Share Posted April 13, 2015 First piece of crazy centipede standing on it's own 4 legs unaided Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 13, 2015 Author Share Posted April 13, 2015 And now the other 2 boards have their legs a single clamp at each Dave end plate is holding them together in line without movement. Track still isn't fixed down but it was loosely lined up here, even so I was able to give the fertiliser van a shove from one end to the other with no issues at the joints Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 Minor update from today, other things in life have had to take priority recently. brass screws added for rail ends at board joints to be soldered to on all 3 boards, and banana sockets now fitted to boards 2 and 3. Next step really is track laying and soldering now, running out of things to do to keep putting that off. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 running out of things to do . Fill in the forms and send them back? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 Fill in the forms and send them back? best procrastination idea ever! No soldering for me tomorrow Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 best procrastination idea ever! No soldering for me tomorrow Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 Just to prove I'm not procrastinating too much, (although it is now drink break time) here's some track being laid and soldered Even thought I'd try banana leads: in other news, my parents are trying to start clearing out their house with a view to moving. My dad has horded a lot of building materials, helping him clear his shed today we find some potential Narwich boards and just visible sticking up at the back of the stack are 6x 4ft long 18inch wide sheets of 12mm ply that have 'module' written all over them Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 Long banana leads - good idea. The standards don't define where the connectors should be, so it's best to have some spare long leads as well so we can be sure of having enough length of connectors. As discussed elsewhere about having really long banana leads so as to not worry too much about losing signal via multiple plugs and sockets, I bought a 50m reel of 2 core mains cable today so I'll be making up a couple of 10 metre "jump leads" at some point this weekend for that purpose, to add to my crate of useful stuff which also contains a few extension leads and a variety of DCC cables and connectors. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 Long banana leads - good idea. The standards don't define where the connectors should be, so it's best to have some spare long leads as well so we can be sure of having enough length of connectors. As discussed elsewhere about having really long banana leads so as to not worry too much about losing signal via multiple plugs and sockets, I bought a 50m reel of 2 core mains cable today so I'll be making up a couple of 10 metre "jump leads" at some point this weekend for that purpose, to add to my crate of useful stuff which also contains a few extension leads and a variety of DCC cables and connectors. Good idea on long jump leads. All my banana leads are over 2ft long, the set pictured above can be 'stacked' with other bananas so they're a useful point for adding longer leads if required. I've only made 1 set with those connectors though. Anyway, track work continued a pace through devil's bridge. As seen earlier the team were laying through the curve and they've finished for the day at the sidings. With the line reopened, we catch the fertiliser service after it's rounded the curve and is crossing the bridge. the curves approaching each side of the bridge look a little unlevel, the engineers will have to come back and do some terrain leveling at a later date. Swapping to the other side of the line we see a parcels GUV in the sidings, on the opposite side of the line parts have started arriving for a new electrical installation.... Mean while, here's the underside of 1 end of the curved board. The arrangement of banana socket to choc block to track is the same at each end of each board. Leads are due to be added under each board between the blocks for continuation of the DCC bus rather than relying on the track! Onto the 'electrical installation' beside the sidings, trial layout of components. The DCC bus will connect through a 47k resistor onto the big switch and through the ammeter at the top. 47k should mean the circuit won't ever draw more than 0.5mA. From there, the ammeter will feed the CDU at the bottom and the much larger capacitor will be attached to the others on the CDU. DCC is a squared off AC wave form so the diodes in the CDU will save me from needing bridge rectifier and it doesn't matter which way round the bus is connected to charge the capacitors. The output of the CDU will have the voltmeter across it to be able to check there's enough power available to throw the point motors. The switch beside it will be a 'discharge' switch for draining the CDU at the end of a session with another suitable resistor added. Only 'down side' is the amount of time it will take from initial switch on to charge the caps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 A productive afternoon's work by the looks of it although that electrical thing still scares me Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 A productive afternoon's work by the looks of it although that electrical thing still scares me Yep, doing all that means I've been able to put off filling out forms... would you feel more comfortable if I attached a timer to it and made all the wires either blue or red? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 would you feel more comfortable if I attached a timer to it and made all the wires either blue or red? You'll need more than one capacitor then. But seriously, wouldn't it be simpler to just use a 16v AC power supply like the ones I bought from here ? (460-250)? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 You'll need more than one capacitor then. But seriously, wouldn't it be simpler to just use a 16v AC power supply like the ones I bought from here ? (460-250)? Most likely, and it will be very easy to retro fit one to this design if required, but without experimentation never comes innovation Defuseable bomb alarm clock looks fun. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 Most likely, and it will be very easy to retro fit one to this design if required, but without experimentation never comes innovation ... and expensive puffs of blue smoke, followed by choice cursings? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 ... and expensive puffs of blue smoke, followed by choice cursings? Don't worry, as it progresses it will be getting thoroughly tested (hence the built in metering) to ensure that doesn't happen. If I'm not 100% with it before the meet it will be hooked up to a seperate supply or just switched by hand. (As an aside, my current memorable records for damaging components during fault investigation consist of boiling a £150,000 water cooled power amplifier valve (badly tuned transmitter, I wasn't the one that tuned it!), A £80,000 transformer that weighed 2.5 tons and needed 7 people to change (it was on it's last legs anyway, I just pushed it over the edge while we were trying to find why that particular piece of equipment kept tripping), and setting a building on fire (long story, not my fault, I was just the one who pressed the on button), oh, and I blacked out an entire village twice in one night once.......technically that one was my fault, but on a completely different level of power supply! (Don't lay aross the top of a big transformer while reconnecting other components behind it, you will rub the 11,000v mains supply cables bare and wonder why everything's gone dark and quiet when you press the 'on' button). I've had some interesting jobs!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 (As an aside, my current memorable records for damaging components during fault investigation consist of boiling a £150,000 water cooled power amplifier valve (badly tuned transmitter, I wasn't the one that tuned it!), A £80,000 transformer that weighed 2.5 tons and needed 7 people to change (it was on it's last legs anyway, I just pushed it over the edge while we were trying to find why that particular piece of equipment kept tripping), and setting a building on fire (long story, not my fault, I was just the one who pressed the on button), oh, and I blacked out an entire village twice in one night once.......technically that one was my fault, but on a completely different level of power supply! (Don't lay aross the top of a big transformer while reconnecting other components behind it, you will rub the 11,000v mains supply cables bare and wonder why everything's gone dark and quiet when you press the 'on' button). I've had some interesting jobs!) That fills me with confidence. I'll make sure the venue double-checks their insurance for "Acts of Satans Goldfish" before the weekend... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 Work continues on board 2. Point motors mounted along with their 'ground frame' for operation. Dr Evil's lair is under construction with switches and meters mounted. CDU is hiding inside, just needs wiring up now. Initial tests will be without the 1f capacitor (just relying on the caps built onto the CDU) then the big boy will be attached loosly to run some experiments as my Narwich plans are starting to come together and they will need the big caps for multiple throws. Boards 1 and 3 are essentially operationally complete and ready for use pending a test, just scenery needed now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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