Harlequin
-
Posts
5,563 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Events
Exhibition Layout Details
Store
Posts posted by Harlequin
-
-
3 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:
Kernow have kindly advised me as follows : The standard model will only run on DC, but you won’t get any sounds at all from it. You can only get sounds from a standard model by installing a DCC sound decoder (which we don’t sell separately) or by buying a DCC sound fitted version in the first place. The DCC sound fitted model will run on DC and DCC. However only basic chuff sounds will be heard on DC and the overall top speed will be less than on DCC. Approx 4 volts are required to produce the sound and you can’ t make the whistle or other additional sounds work.
( 97 remains jerky at slow speed despite careful examination, lubrication and running in over 2 hours.)
What do you mean by jerky running? Can you post a video showing what you mean?
Do you hear a clicking sound when she runs? If so, have a look at @mikesndbs very important "Last Tip".
-
1
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
This is what I came up with using current Peco Streamline 00 turnouts and fitting the throat into the 1ft by 3ft6in footprint of the 00 plan published by Peco in "60 Plans for Small Locations":
Two Small radius turnouts (blue) were needed to fit the throat into the restricted length and it's crucial that the inbound tracks turn 15° across the board to use the maximum diagonal length. There's a short 3° turn between the two main crossovers to achieve that.
The light brown turnouts are all Mediums and the green is a Curved left, which really makes the plan work.
I have actually built this and it looks as smooth in real life as it does in the drawing! ☺️
IMHO, if a plan doesn't have that characteristic "Minories Eye" of the trailing and facing crossovers combined with a turn, it ain't Minories. That is the source of all Minories' magical powers.
-
17
-
3
-
1
-
Quote
Any ideas where I should apply battery power to on the motor to see if it's actually still working?
To the top and bottom electrical lugs on the motor.
QuoteThe lining bands don't continue across the top of the firebox; should they?
No. A painter got badly injured while trying to line the top of the firebox and after that it was discontinued.
If the motor does work, check that the two copper contacts here,
do make contact with the pickup metal on the keeper plate. I.e. bend them out a bit.
-
1
-
-
I have a problem with number 97: I had run her quite a lot backwards and forwards on my oval test layout with no problems but I turned her around today. (Should have done that sooner, I know.)
She is now hesitating intermittently when turning right on 2ft2in radius curves, sometimes with a click and sometimes even with a small hop into the air!
I assume something is jamming in the motion but I haven't been able to see what yet. I don't want to push it too far so if I can't diagnose the problem soon I'll have to report back to Kernow MRC.I have fitted the smaller scroll irons but I don't think they are involved.
😞
-
7
-
-
3 hours ago, Mike Todd said:
97 now safely received, setting yet another high standard for RTR !
Slow running is a little uneven at present in time with the valve gear despite lubrication and running in, visually checked and nothing appears out of alignment. Will continue with more running in,
Dumb question : DC running still requires a decoder for sound ??
What kind of controller are you using, Mike?
-
55 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:
Its all been a bit quite at Henley lately - other things seem to be getting in the way ☹️
With the SRM landing at Kernow, I have resisted the urge to post on the SRM page on RMWeb - but I have checked when I paid for it 😎 1st December 2022 - Hopefully with the news that Kernow are working on November / December 2022, my sound fitted version will be despatched soon.
In the meantime, the passengers and crew have arrived from Modelu. I ordered more sheep as well - you cant have enough sheep on a layout - although I should have ordered a new signalman and some loco lamps. Hopefully I will remember next time.
I opted for HO crew and passengers and OO sheep (although compared to my other sheep, they are quite small).
On the far left is the guard from the SRM crew, with the fireman and driver on the lower right.
The OO sheep are on a board - a wider version of a coffee stirrer, to the right of them is the first batch of SRM passengers, the second batch being on the right (You get 5 in a pack), with 2 seated chaps in the middle, who look as if they are off to the Regatta!
The two characters on the far right are whitemetal crew that came with the County loco kit.
Whilst painting the characters, I was waiting for the loco running plate to dry. I had previously glued it together, but it wasn't quite right! - Its looking better this time.
To be continued.... (as ever!)....
Let’s go surfing now,
Everybody’s learning how,
(Even the sheep!)😆
-
1
-
1
-
3
-
-
Hi Matias,
The Americans would call this a switching layout but in British terminology we don't use the term "switching" so much in this context. We call it shunting. (Switching usually refers to electrical gubbins.)
With the small footprint you have available it's definitely best to keep the plan simple. You need to use just enough turnouts to make the layout entertaining and no more, and employ as many clever tricks as you can to avoid turnouts.
(A "Turnout" is a ready-made bit of track combining a set of points and a common crossing.)
If shunting is the aim here, do you need to clutter things up with passenger-related platforms and station buildings?
Some sort of temporary, off-scene track work (a "fiddle yard") can represent "the rest of the world" where locos and wagons come from and go to. It can also do the job of some of the station turnouts (see previous point). For instance, it can act as the turnout at the far end of the run round loop. ("Run round", not "runaround.") The simplest fiddle yard is just a length of track that you connect to the layout when you want to operate it, like @DCB showed above.
The plan will look more interesting and dynamic if the main line is curved and/or diagonal.
-
2
-
-
This is very welcome and quite clever because it allows Accurascale to push back very gently on a difficult issue: People still using ancient DC controllers.
-
4
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:
Thanks - found it again. Where do you get this mesh from? I see on eBay I can get six inch squares for around £5 which have holes about 1mm square:
You need 75mm width. I don’t think 50mm is quite wide enough. Screwfix sell something similar for 3 times the price!
I had some left over from my house build. A full 30m roll would probably be enough for about a thousand tenders!
-
1
-
-
13 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:
Phil @Harlequin can you remind me where it was you posted about grills with coal over for speaker covers. I am trying to recall what form / source of mesh you used for your rather neat trick.
thanks
Andy
Hi Andy,
Search for "Lode Star", "Killarney" or "Dean goods" in the DCC sound section.
I use stainless steel insect mesh and I'm convinced that having the sound come out directly at you makes a big difference.
-
1 minute ago, Colin_McLeod said:
The chimney on mine was also loose, but thankfully I found it on the workbench before the carpet monster got it.
Can it be glued it without causing problems?
Meanwhile I've stored it in the detail pack so that it doesn't get lost.
The chimney has to be removable to get the body off the chassis. E.g. if you need to get inside for decoder fitting/changing.
-
1
-
3
-
-
I very gingerly opened up No. 61 to fit a decoder:
The vertical boiler and its fittings are lovely:
The blue capacitor in the luggage/speaker compartment is labelled C17 but I haven't worked out what its purpose is yet.
I found that there are some cunningly hidden vents to let the sound out just above the rear driving axle:
-
10
-
8
-
-
Here's an attempt at focus-stacking, to keep the whole vehicle in focus:
It's not a great photo but it does show the impressive length of the steam railmotor. She's standing on a 2ft radius curve. The smaller scroll irons are fitted.
-
14
-
1
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Here's a focus-stack attempt, also under artificial light:
-
24
-
1
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
5 hours ago, gwrrob said:Maybe Phil @Harlequin will post some photos on here of his.😉
Over time I've realised that I don't take very good photos of my models. I think that's due to bad lighting, no scenery, the wrong sort of camera and rank amateurism on my part.
So please bear that in mind... The first four photos were taken in natural daylight.
(Cat hairs in the motion already!)
This photo shows how long she is and you can see some nice underframe detail.
This last photo was taken under artificial light.
-
35
-
1
-
1
-
4 hours ago, sjrixon said:
That's amazing news.. And, interested that a sound fitted one has been dispatched.. What's the sound like?
The sound is pretty good. It's loud enough and all the sounds are nicely balanced but maybe a little bit muffled.
It comes with "Active Drive" enabled, which I like. That means that you get gradual acceleration, deceleration and when decelerating you just hear the valves going phut phut.
The chuff sync with the motion was a bit out and needed tweaking.
The main whistle sound does seem to have a bit of distortion at the end. It might be loud enough to overdrive the speaker, perhaps? I need to do some testing.
I can't see any clear sound paths out yet but I'll know more when I open one of them up.
-
4
-
-
36 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:
Life getting in the way of hobbies has thus far prevented me from collecting at Camborne. I should be the happy owner of my model within the next few days. Looking forward to it.
In other news it's surprising how far east Camborne is when you live way out west! A couple of hours needed for the round trip including a little "dwell time" at the "platform".
I live in Devon, which is considered by most of the country to be the westest west of the far southwest (they think Swindon is in "The Westcountry") - and yet Camborne is so far west from me it's almost in a different time zone! 😆
When I drove down to Kernow MRC a couple of years ago it took me two hours. Admittedly I did get caught up in the A30 roadworks. (Are they ever going to finish the A30?)
-
2
-
-
I'm happy to say that the courier did manage to find me today.
I had a nice surprise because the parcel included both my non-sound No. 61 and my sound-fitted No. 97! They were both icy cold when I opened the boxes.
97 has been chuffing around my test loop, running in as suggested. I replaced the scroll irons with the smaller ones and she looks much better for it. No sign of any clashes with the motion on my 2ft radius curves.
-
5
-
2
-
-
So near and yet so far... 😞
My Railmotor was out for delivery today but the cr*ppy final stage "logistics company" (man in van) couldn't find me, even though it turned out when I rang them that he was within about 30 yards at one point. The problem with handing off deliveries to these small companies is that they don't have the big databases of the national couriers who know where I live. Grrr...
It will be out again tomorrow with detailed instructions on how to get here - assuming the young lady I talked to wrote them down correctly. (She said, "Hold on a moment, I'll find a pen" and then said "Left" when I told her "Right", so I don't have great confidence).
Hope you all have better couriers where you live!
-
12
-
-
1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:
Adding to Phil's diagram.... if LEDs are wanted then within the rectangle on left which is the control panel, connect LED+Resistor between the Red supply wire and the relevant black turnout direction output wire.
Now with indicator LEDs:
-
2
-
1
-
-
Quick diagram without indicator LEDs:
-
Here's the OS 25" per mile [corrected] map revised in 1897 showing the signalman's cottage (I think), level crossing, signal box and no bridge:
https://maps.nls.uk/view/106018050
-
6
-
-
There have been photos on Facebook but nothing here, unusually. Maybe the Facebook collectors were quicker to order than us. 😉
I received a, "Your order has been shipped", email from Kernow MRC yesterday and I too am patiently waiting...
-
4
-
-
For simple analog manual control of points from a panel look at the existing MTB MP1 point motors.
They just need a suitable power supply, a standard SPDT switch for each motor on the control panel and each one will switch the "polarity" of the relevant frog, whether that's DC or DCC.
-
1
-
Theory of General Minories
in Layout & Track Design
Posted · Edited by Harlequin
The axonometric view is reproduced in my track plans album, using my Streamline plan:
BTW: I think that the statement of 3ft minimum radius that accompanies the original plan in "60 plans..." was simply a mistake. I don't think it is or was possible in the 7ft by 1ft size given for the 00 version with the kickback siding.