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The Realisation I'm an Idiot

richbrummitt

Entry posted by richbrummitt

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A New Year means that exhibition season is under way. It used to start earlier back in the North but there isn't a lot locally until January and then it's St Albans, Southampton and then it is busy through until March until it's over for another year. Returning from St Albans the realisation hit me of what I had done to myself. Then I get an email from an exhibition manager to confirm details for next year that very much confirmed it. I am an idiot. I unwittingly talked myself into this over a year ago and now I have to live with it.

 

Since that conversation some work has been done on the layout. This has been to remove some items I wasn't happy with. When making the platform substructure I had second thoughts about the ground contour and after asking second opinions of many people with the prototype photographs I have I concluded that the rear siding had to be relaid. Up it came...

 

blogentry-8031-0-89533700-1359064238_thumb.jpg

 

...and back down it went - a little higher than before. It is now nearly platform height at the buffer stops and the ground levels can look much more like the real thing must have been. The many rolls of solder make useful weights until I get around to using them up on my unbuilt kit mountain.

 

blogentry-8031-0-87753900-1359064242_thumb.jpg

 

Another area that has given me massive headaches and continues to do so is the turnout operating units. These were built as a moving sleeper below the track bed with 0.3mm wires coming through a slit in the 2mm plywood and soldered to the point blades. They worked until someone prodded one loose at Ally Pally where the boards were sat on the Association stand as a demo piece. A repair was impossible to effect and the truth was as bad as I feared as the design was proven wholly unsuitable. Proper planning...? Idiot! They had to go and I'd put it off for over six months. Finally I built up the courage to cut out the mechanisms. This is an example before surgery:

 

blogentry-8031-0-77245500-1359064250_thumb.jpg

 

First the electrical connections were severed and the sleeper removed.

 

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The plywood was cut away along with the sleepers because they were fixed to baseboard far better than they were to the rail.

 

blogentry-8031-0-44479300-1359064253_thumb.jpg

 

Now I must replace them. A more robust solution would be for small tubes to pass through from the TOU to just below rail level with a thin wire soldered to the switch rail that is a sliding fit in the tube. To begin with a jig was milled in Tufnol to create a gapped structure with the small tubes at the correct separation. The following series of pictures demonstrate its use.

 

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blogentry-8031-0-53087800-1359064259.jpg

 

blogentry-8031-0-52805900-1359064260.jpg

 

I now have seven of these soldered up waiting for divine inspiration to provide the rest of the mechanism from my ganged DPDT slide switches to these. This hasn't worked out well so far. I have read the Associations latest publication Track How it Works and How to Model it and that didn't result in any tungsten filament above head moments either. I have some parts mocked up from telescoping styrene sections but I am not sure how I can actually assemble the only idea that I keep coming back to in my head. Anything that is fitted needs to be less than 4mm in depth because that was how much space I thought would be needed when I had the router out and put the recesses in for the TOUs. A consequence of the baseboard design is that it is not possible to access the switch from beneath the baseboard. I used 20mm ply and it is not much wider than the cess at each side of the track so cutting this up would have been unwise to begin with and very difficult to achieve now. The remaining requirements therefore are bombproof reliability whilst being sympathetic to the small section loose heel switches and plastic chairs. I've done various things in the meantime to distract me and remain motivated but I really need to get this problem of my own idiotic making behind me to move on with this layout.

 

I have trains and I have a venue and a date and I need some reliable working switches. :scratchhead:

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  • RMweb Gold
bcnPete
  • RMweb Gold

Can't help you on the TOU switches am afraid Rich, but thats some nice neat work done there.

 

BTW, which exhibition have you signed up to and when? I might even be able to come and visit :O

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D869

I'm convinced that far fewer models would ever get built if we did not set ourselves arbitrary deadlines by accepting show invites.

 

Not sure that I understood the question regarding point control - you seem to have a lever, a wire, a tiebar and a way to link the switchblades to the tiebar, so what's missing or what doesn't do the job?

 

Regards, Andy

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richbrummitt

Not sure that I understood the question regarding point control - you seem to have a lever, a wire, a tiebar and a way to link the switchblades to the tiebar, so what's missing or what doesn't do the job?

The sliding assembly to attach the tie bar to that provides it's positive location. The switches aren't attached to anything to locate them longitudinally at the non planed end so I'm asking quite a lot of my mechanism.

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Lisa

Why do you think you are an idiot? The person who does not make mistakes, is the person who has done NOTHING!

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D869

The sliding assembly to attach the tie bar to that provides it's positive location. The switches aren't attached to anything to locate them longitudinally at the non planed end so I'm asking quite a lot of my mechanism.

 

I'll have a try...

 

I'm thinking that your tiebar is a bit of an awkward shape, so perhaps solve that by building it up with something insulating (plastikard) until it is a nice rectangular shape and sized to suit whatever it will run in.

 

Then cut a slot in the top of some of that square brass tube that I see in the photo so that it has something to run in. Solder on some flanges or brackets to take some screws to fix it to the trackbed.

 

You also need to figure out a robust way to attach the wire. My own under board tiebars use point sleepers and have a hole drilled for the wire, but this is a point of weakness and some have broken when knocked during under-board work, so fix something stronger to the end of yours to take the wire.

 

Hope this is of some use.

 

Regards, Andy

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D869

You also need to figure out a robust way to attach the wire. My own under board tiebars use point sleepers and have a hole drilled for the wire, but this is a point of weakness and some have broken when knocked during under-board work, so fix something stronger to the end of yours to take the wire.

 

On second thoughts... if your wire does get clobbered, something is probably going to bend or break, so you should think about which something will be easiest to repair.

 

Regards, Andy

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RichardW1

Rich- I'm trying to get my head round this... as the next task on Maxstoke is the TOUs. I take it that in the pictures the milled tufnol blocks are just to locate the wires onto the tiebar, prior to soldering? How are the wires on the tie bar connected to the switchblades? I asssume f

the tie bar sits below the trackbed which the wires pass through and are then soldered to the switches? is this correct?

 

deadlines have been the driving force for CF to get progressed- so I welcome them personally

 

Keep up the good work

 

Richard

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Tim V

There comes a time when accuracy from the camera at 2cm becomes irrelevant. The aim of a TOU is to work reliably. Try to think outside the box. Certainly I saw a number of ideas in the track book, also there are any number of ideas in back-number magazines.

 

Try and think bigger would be my advice.

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  • RMweb Gold
bcnPete
  • RMweb Gold

 

BTW, which exhibition have you signed up to and when? I might even be able to come and visit

Oi! You ignored my question... :P

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richbrummitt

Rich- I'm trying to get my head round this... as the next task on Maxstoke is the TOUs. I take it that in the pictures the milled tufnol blocks are just to locate the wires onto the tiebar, prior to soldering? How are the wires on the tie bar connected to the switchblades? I asssume f

the tie bar sits below the trackbed which the wires pass through and are then soldered to the switches? is this correct?

 

deadlines have been the driving force for CF to get progressed- so I welcome them personally

 

Keep up the good work

 

Richard

 

Thank you Richard.

 

The tufnol is a fixture for soldering the tube. The wires fit into these tubes and will be soldered to the planed end of the switch with the rail in situ.

 

The deadline will probably result in me not building much rolling stock this year but it will give me somewhere of my own to play with the stock when I do build it.

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  • RMweb Gold
bcnPete
  • RMweb Gold

I haven't answered it here either though.

:rolleyes:

 

Re-reading it again I'm guessing St Albans 2014...

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  • RMweb Gold
Donw
  • RMweb Gold

Rich as you seem to need some thing a bit stronger to locate the blade ends perhaps a brass tack in the tubes with the tip of the blades soldered to the heads might be stronger than a bit of wire.

There is then the issue of how to restrain the pcb operating arm I suggest soldering a brass rod to each end which is a sliding fit in a short piece of plastruct tubing these can be fixed either side to the base to allow the pcb arm to move. If is not allowable for it to rotate at all. Square tube in square plastruct could work. The only thing left is the connection to the operating mech. The brass rod could be extended but that would connect the operating mech to the rail posibly some insulation would be required.

Well it probably got all sorts of problems but that's but starting point.

Don

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richbrummitt

Rich as you seem to need some thing a bit stronger to locate the blade ends perhaps a brass tack in the tubes with the tip of the blades soldered to the heads might be stronger than a bit of wire.

There is then the issue of how to restrain the pcb operating arm I suggest soldering a brass rod to each end which is a sliding fit in a short piece of plastruct tubing these can be fixed either side to the base to allow the pcb arm to move. If is not allowable for it to rotate at all. Square tube in square plastruct could work. The only thing left is the connection to the operating mech. The brass rod could be extended but that would connect the operating mech to the rail posibly some insulation would be required.

Well it probably got all sorts of problems but that's but starting point.

Don

Hi Don,

 

There are some places ( in the platform area and so not in the picture above) where the extensions would not fit. I like the idea though - I just have to polish it. I hadn't yet mentioned explicitly that the electrical feed to the switch rails is also via the underboard tie bar and dropper wires so I need to provide for insulation.

 

I've just oredered some of those lovely S4 Society lever frames to a total of 10 levers. I couldn't resist them after playing with Jerry's on Tucking Mill previously and then again on the demo one on the S4 stand this last weekend.

 

Thanks,

 

Richard.

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