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Wickham Trolley and esoteric device


Fen End Pit

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Friday night saw the ends of the Wickham trolley assembled and then Saturday saw the roof bent to shape and the parts soldered together. At the moment everything is just resting together but you get the general idea. The wires sticking out the front are to the motor.

 

blogentry-7212-0-03122200-1361829737_thumb.jpg

 

The plan is to stick a DCC chip under the roof and run the four wires up the each of the corner posts, the power from the track up the rear posts and the drive back to the motor down the front ones. The seats were mighty fiddly but the effect of not having the trolley filled with mechanism is rather nice.

 

I also did a bit of drawing, followed by some laser cutting this lunchtime. The result is a prototype under baseboard turnout operating unit. The idea of the design is that the brass tubes stick up through the baseboard and have a wire attached to the switch blade threaded through them. The drawing needs a bit of fine tuning to get the holes a nice tight fit but the basic principle seems good and very easy to put together.

 

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Let me know what you think..

 

David

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Look like another neat idea (and rendering). Of course, it also looks like a cassette tape (or am I showing my age there?). Would it benefit to make a series of holes in the actuator arm so the throw could be varied? Or am I looking at it wrongly? Or is it a set distance deliberately? Questions, questions...

 

Whatever; still very neat. You seem to be at ease with banging this stuff out. Oh... and the trolley looks good too!

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  • RMweb Gold

Yes it does look a bit like an audio cassette!  The operating arm has five holes currently ~.9mm at 4mm intervals to allow for a variety of throws.

 

David

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Of course the best thing about it is the colour :good:

 

Is the wire thin enough to disappear behind the corners in the trolley? When I needed to pass a wire through some very small tube I sacrificed a cheap (

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  • RMweb Gold

Is the wire thin enough to disappear behind the corners in the trolley?

I'll try it with the thin wires from the DCC chip first. I might be forced to make a folded 'curtain' against the rear uprights if push comes to shove. We'll see how it goes.

David

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Hi David

 

I note the concentric circles around the screw holes and assume these are a pseudo countersink using two engraving passes. Looks a good idea how well did it work out?

 

Regards

 

Mike

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi David

 

I note the concentric circles around the screw holes and assume these are a pseudo countersink using two engraving passes. Looks a good idea how well did it work out?

 

Regards

 

Mike

Actually it was 4 concentric circles each of the same engraving power. I did the smallest one first and worked out which gives a slightly more 'rounded' effect of smoothing out the layers. The result is good and perfectly adequate for a countersunk hole

.

 

David

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