Called in at my Tauranga Hobby shop here in NZ for supplies and came across ‘Just Plug’ LED nano lights to my delight! I’ve been looking out for Pico LED’s sold locally until I spotted them thanks to the shop owner.

Some time back I got and made a Ratio 470 LMS home signal in the hopes of using a servo for its operation and of course it needed to be lit as well. Although the Nano is a size up from the Pico it was as close as I could obtain.

The signal lamp needed modifying which proved quite a challenge mainly due to the scale sized lamp and size of the nano wire leads. The lamp is powered from the 5 volt bus line that supplies all my servos that also works the signal.

One thing I’ll do for the other Home semaphores is to find a better way for using a diluted colour wash on clear styrene sheet for the spectacles as the green/blue could have been better now the LED is lit behind it.

This was my opportunity to see if it was feasible to add a light and motorise a Ratio semaphore, made all the harder after finding out that the signal mechanism would need to go through a 52 mm deep x 13 mm diameter hole to mount it as it wasn’t possible to clear the occupational tunnel #116 sub structure underneath the baseboard, hence the need for the deep hole!

The servo needed to be mounted horizontally to connect the linkage requiring a bespoke 22 swg metal bracket (it must be a good to have places in the UK where you can get things straight off the shelf) and so with some additional fettling for the hole to allow control arm travel was also done.

All in all it was a good outcome, I’ll will be up for more of the same again as I found the future signal locations are all much easier than at the first signal to access. Watch this space!

Evergreen 1.5 x 3.2 mm #156 strip clearance issues. The pictures show too much wood material to remove.

The redesigned linkage arm is stronger. The added Evergreen #296 4.8 mm angle linkage support was made to improve the system whilst the layout module is being worked on. All the original Ratio signal linkage was kept and connected using a spare servo arm fixing screw from my RC supplier.

The 13 mm hole to fit the signal base through the 12 mm baseboard had to be enlarged slightly for a snug fit for easier signal placement and removal.

My Servo ESU usually has a 680 Ω resistor for point control, but after much experimentation with wire (I’m using ordinary paper clips) link lengths I found by just changing the resistor to 130 Ω gave the servo greater movement needed to operate the Ratio signal linkage arrangement for improving the LED light display through the semaphore spectacles.

Presently the starter signal #19 operates via a link to the single slip & down line point #34 with switch 32b / 33b on my control panel using plug in connectors.