sector plate fun
Entry posted by Jimmy styles
729 views
so there is no stopping me now!!!!
first track down, first PCB soldered to the rails. just waiting for the glue to dry then i will be able to test.
the soldering is not pretty but it seems to work, (im still learning, this soldering lark is still new to me.)
so sector plate update....... well its been a long few days with some issues.
i started off with cutting the PCB board to size, this went very easy, so far so good i was thinking.
next was to tin the rails and solder the rail to the PCB. again this went with ease. i then remembered what i had been told on the forum was to clean the joint with nail varnish remover, the hardest bit of this was sneeking SWMBO'd nail varnish remover into the garage, where it still is after 4 days oops.
i measured and lined up the rails on the sector plate and trimmed them to size. it was now getting quite late and being tired and impatient i decided to lay the tracks, pinned and glued in place. i wanted to do this quickly so the glue had all night to dry. well this was my first mistake.
so at eleven PM i was out in the garage, i lined the tracks up pinned them and glued in place and went to bed happy with what i had achieved. oh how wrong could i be.
the next day SWMBO'd was out so i carried my layout into the dinning room pleased with what i had achieved it looked good and i was happy. i sat with a cup of tea looking at my master piece thinking to myself "well that was easy."
i then came to move the sector plate and guess what........... all the rails hit as i had not allowed a big enough gap for expansion.
so out came the metal file and about 1mm was trimmed off the end of each rail woo hoo this worked.
my next task was to work out a way of alignment. i went to see a friend who owns a model shop in the next town. we had a look through his stock and found some suitable brass tube and then tucked away we found a sprung canopy release for model airplanes which looked perfect.
i soldered the canopy release to the in road and the brass tube to each of the sector plates and hay presto alignment is perfect each and every time.
my soldering is not pretty but it works. and when finished wont be visible to the viewer just the operator.
i then wanted to make a quick video to show you, however please ignore Thomas on a WWII themed layout and the speed i am running the locos it was just to show you the sector plate in operation.
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