Dunster Level Crossing in OO.
Entry posted by Sasquatch
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About the age of 12 a piece of hard board became available to me on which a Hornby single platform station halt and crossing where mounted. Some simple scenery built up etc and for added interest the gates where operated with cotton thread, ever since I have wanted working crossing gates.
One of the ideas bouncing around in the old grey cells for years was this simple system of mounting the gates on L shaped wires to be swung by the back and forth movement of a plate below the base board with grooves in it.
One of the requirements on Dunster was to have the gates animated. When our DVD player broke the dreaded light bulb came on and I set about dismantling it. After about an hour the DVD drawer mechanism was up and running but much slower!
The gates at Dunster are off set and move one at a time. To accomplish this, the groves in my plate would be “S” shaped with a straight and the other straight with an “S” shape. A drawing was then quickly made of angles, posts and swing from which I could work out the shape of these grooves
¼” MDF was used for the plate; the grooves being cut with a jig saw and sanded perfect (Five attempts before getting this just right).
Two micro switches cut power which stops the DVD drawer. An on/off switch operates a relay which is wired as a DPDT current reverser to the drawer motor.
For added realism another on/off switch is mounted in the Gaugemaster hand held unit used on the Layout.
The relay is a plug in type and mounted under the signal box. Easy to replace if anything ever goes wrong with it.
Dunster has attended the Rouge Valley Model Railroad Show on four occasions at which the crossing performed rather well.
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