Harlequin
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Posts posted by Harlequin
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Have a search through Teaky’s Attic for his recommendation.
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Barnstaple Victoria Road, Dulverton and Wiveliscombe, same day (18th April 1960):
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18 minutes ago, billbedford said:
I've done that -- it doesn't make any difference.
Same.
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14 hours ago, Harlequin said:
That seems to fix the problem for me on iPad. But I saw the same thing when I cleared my browsing data and cookies and after several hours it came back so can't say definitively yet.
Bad news... It’s back.
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38 minutes ago, AY Mod said:
Could someone who's experiencing the problem try this...
Go to the bottom of the page and click on Reset Cookie Options.
When prompted do the necessary bits with the consent pop-up but don't turn off all the consents as that prevents a cookie from being set up for the login details.
I haven't got an Apple-flavoured device at this end to be able to try if it helps.
That seems to fix the problem for me on iPad. But I saw the same thing when I cleared my browsing data and cookies and after several hours it came back so can't say definitively yet.
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OK, I see. If the frogs on the 3-way asymmetric turnout are not electrically connected to the closure rails as supplied AND IF they require external switches to power the frogs (that is to say if they can't be switched by the blades alone without causing shorts as John R was trying to work out above), then yes, Suzie's method doesn't apply and you may as well solder wires across the rails.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with the 3-ways.
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33 minutes ago, MattA said:
One thing that's always bothered me about DCC sound in steam locomotives are the amount of engines that have blatantly incorrect numbers of chuffs per revolution.
I spend a lot of time "chuff syncing" as part of every sound installation I do. With some decoders it can be very tedious but when it finally comes into sync I always feel the realism steps up a notch as I watch the loco move.
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2 hours ago, tomparryharry said:
Sound, especially railway sound, has always 'interested' me. Although the regulated sound of a locomotive is reasonably easy to replicate, how do you replicate the spontaneity of the human element? Slamming of carriage doors, enquiries,... More important, the Anglo-Saxon vernacular that makes it real. Then, there's accents... Anywhere from BBC English to real 'Urzlem-Burzlem' Cardiff to Merthyr is 24 miles, with 3 accent variations en route. if you go via the Rhymney valley, add another....
How? Get yourself a programmer and create your own sound projects!
Ok, so I'm semi-joking but it could be done.
Re. spontaneity: Obviously you, the operator, can be humanly spontaneous with loco sounds. You can slam the doors (many projects have door slam samples), toot the whistle in a characteristic way, open the injectors when you feel it's right, etc. Also remember that all sound projects are setup to make random noises as appropriate and just for fun I recently set up my Large Prairie (sorry not Dapol, the Hornby one) to toot it's own whistle at long random intervals.
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3 hours ago, RFS said:
For the 3-way point look where Peco have cut the webbing across the sleepers just below the first frog. For improved reliability, you need to solder a wire across the 3 rails on each side. Better still, especially for DCC, make that wire a dropper. This largely eliminates dependency on blade contact for current flow through the point.
Hi Robert,
We are talking about Suzie's method of NOT soldering across the rails but instead bringing droppers for each rail through the baseboard so that the connections can be made underneath.
We just need to be sure exactly which links to cut underneath the turnout and where to solder the droppers to because there are two gaps in the webbing of the 3-way - one below frog 1 and the other below frog 3.
I'm sure @John ks's drawing shows the basis for this but I haven't got time to check right now - got to make a living to be able to afford the railway!Edit: Apols: @John ks Didn't do a drawing for a 3-way turnout.
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2 hours ago, melmerby said:
IMHO all sound fitted steam locos are unconvincing and diesels not much better. There is no bass!
The hiss type sounds and suchlike are OK, but little speakers mean no proper bass.
I can remember standing on the platform at Snow Hill next to GWR 4 cylinder locos making a brisk start towards Paddington and you can feel the sound as well as hear it. Sound fitted 4mm doesn't do that.
I meant unconvincing in comparison to other similar steam sounds, for instance YouChoos’ Prairie project.
When I was assessing the YouChoos Mogul sound I tried connecting a much larger Visaton speaker, which has a much better frequency range, to be sure the speaker wasn’t affecting the chuff sound. But it sounded just the same.
You’re right that bass is lacking from the small speakers (and I do wonder if low frequencies might have been filtered out of some sound projects). I think it’s just a question of making the best of it until someone comes up with a clever idea. Such as using the whole tender body as a sealed sound-box or implementing Psycho-Acoustics in a DCC decoder...
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19 minutes ago, MatthewCarty said:
Has anyone on here fitted a mogul with sound and/or can anyone comment on different sound projects available? I am considering my first 'try' with sound and want to do this with the mogul. I have not purchased one yet as I'm still trying to decide if there are advantages to fitting the sound myself rather than buying with sound fitted. I volunteer on a preserved line on the footplate so am likely to be more critical than most on the results so want give it the best shot of impressing me! Can anyone help with any advice for this first attempt?!
Sound fitting this model is very easy. Fitting it yourself allows you to combine the decoder brand, speakers, and sound project exactly how you prefer. (Speakers plural, note.) There are just two wires to solder in the tender and you have to be careful to seal the sugarcube speaker in the smokebox to prevent buzzing.
(I did my own sound installation and went a bit further than the basic setup by cutting a hole in the tender coal space to improve the sound. There's a post here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129125-oo-gauge-gwr-mogul-and-prairie/&do=findComment&comment=4201823
In my opinion the chuff sound of the YouChoos Mogul project is unconvincing. The MrSoundGuy chuff sound seems to be better to me but I'm only judging that from his YouTube videos at the moment. (I think the MrSoundGuy project is what Dapol supply for factory fitted sound in a Zimo decoder.)
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Hi John,
Here's a Code 75 Electrofrog Small that I've recently attacked:
You can see the the small link wires have been cut in their pockets. (I made a bit of a mess of the plastic doing that but no problem - it won't show) and then four dropper wires have been soldered to the exposed rails.
My convention for wiring colour is "Black at the Back" and I will stick to that whatever orientation the turnouts are on the plan.
I can't answer for the 3-way turnout - that's a complex beastie that I'm not familiar with. (It would help if we could see a photo of the other side to see where the insulating gaps in the rails are.)
As far as the general wiring for your trackplan goes, the normal conventions apply: Isolate frog rails where the changing polarity could conflict with the rail beyond and ideally supply power feeds to every rail so that you aren't relying on feeding power (and signal for DCC) through the metal fishplates. You have shown insulating joiners in the right places to allow all rails to have their own power feed and for DCC they could all simply be wired together but for DC you might need to feed some of the sidings through switches.
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6 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:
That bottom line in the coal depot involves some entertaining shunting operations! Potentially 4 reversals to get a truck in or out of there. I'm left scratching my head as to why it was designed like that.
Yours, Mike.
There were lots of ways of shunting that didn't require a loco... Pinch bars and shoulders, horses, cables and capstans and, of course, gravity for some of the moves if the yard allowed it.
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Have you turned the loco around again and tried it in the direction that it originally seemed to work?
Or by "swapping the direction" do you mean you changed the value of CV29? If so, are you sure you got the binary maths right?
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The 18in boards were just to illustrate that corner curves aren't necessarily a problem. In reality of course, you'd vary the width to suit the room and its other functions.
You're right that min radius 12in curves in 2mm scale would give you more width for the scenic sections than I had imagined - I was looking at the Size 1 and Size 2 layout elements in your drawing. But you'd get even more length by not dividing the layout up and using the space around the corner curves for scenics.
I'm sure the feeling of oppression of a high-level, wall-mounted layout can be designed out by matching layout width to the functions of the room below and the use of under unit lighting.
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I don't think the idea of separate scenic elements linked by plain track stacks up in this size of room.
Even in 2mm the size of the scenic sections will make it very difficult to fit interesting track plans into them, requiring the sort of compression that drives people crazy in 4mm scale! Furthermore, it results in awkward internal and external corners in the baseboards that waste space and are difficult to disguise scenically.
Edit: Dividing the layout up into different sized sections with joining pieces also flies in the face of trying to make a neat domestic setup. For that you want clean, consistent runs of similar looking fittings.
And I don't think corner curves necessarily intrude much into the central space, even at decent OO radii. Here's a 2ft radius curve joining tracks placed centrally on modest-width 18in boards:
A tiny diagonal fillet would help to move the front of the scene away from the curve without significantly affecting the room space and, of course, it's often possible to move the track further back.
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On iPad, using Safari, I was getting the consent prompt even when simply refreshing the page. Cleared cookies and browsing data as suggested.
After logging back in, I noted that there were two prompts - the simple “accept cookies” bar along the bottom and the new full screen consent prompt. Once accepted, browsing the site was back to normal and even refreshing the page simply did that without any further prompting.
But a few hours later and the consent prompt is back again...
No problem using Chrome.
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Hi Richard,
Since the design seems settled and is being implemented perhaps you'd like to create a topic in the Layout Topics area where people with more general interests can follow your build?
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Windows 10 is beautiful and a vast improvement on earlier versions, IF it's setup with a normal desktop (task bar, icons, start menu, etc.) and not that stupid tiled touch-screen interface...
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12 hours ago, chuffinghell said:
It’s just bugging me because I’m not a fan of technology at the best of times so anything different than normal worries me (because I don’t understand it
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Hi Chris,
I had that RMWeb consent warning too once recently - but only once. I'm not sure what changed.
It's shown because of the cookies that RMWeb stores in your browser, or tries to store at least. A Cookie is just a little bit of info about you that the website can pick up whenever you visit it.
In this case I think RMWeb is trying to store a cookie on your Safari browser, to remember that you've said it's OK to store cookies (and so not ask you again) but Safari is refusing to store the cookie...
Confused?
Whether Safari blocks cookies is a setting you can change and there's another related setting called "Do not track me", I think. I'll have a dig around and tell you more later.
Later: In the IOS settings app scroll to Safari and then scroll to "Privacy and Security". If "Block All Cookies" is on you could try turning it off. If "Prevent Cross-Site Tracking" is on you could try turning that off too (but it's ON for me on my iPad and I'm not prompted every visit). If Block all cookies was already off then the problem is more complicated...
Edit: Thinking about it, it might be more complicated - but it's still worth checking the "Block all cookies" setting first.
Edit2: Andy has more info:
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1 hour ago, gordon s said:
Just going back to the OP, I’m still not sure if there is any insulation between the ceiling joists in the loft. Apologies if I missed it.
I cannot believe in these days of climate change and demands for top quality insulation in houses that a one year old property has such condensation issues. Whether the design is hot or cold, surely there must be an insulation barrier somewhere in the design.
29 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:I think it's generally called the loft hatch.
Mike.
I think Gordon means an insulation layer somewhere between the warm habitable rooms and the outside.
I think you can see rockwool between the "joists" in the OP's first photo - so the expected insulation layer is present.
We can't really know why the OP has that level of condensation because we don't have all the info. He needs to get professional advice from someone who can perform a site visit.
And talking of climate change: When I said above that heating or dehumidifying (or cooling) an uninsulated space is unsustainable I could have said, irresponsible...!
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More photos (two sides of the same lamp) can be found here: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/gwr-illuminated-stop-board-limit-273548555
GWR Signalling Practice says Stop lamps were used for unmanned crossings (no mention of them being used in yards) and that the front face was 8in by 24in.
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I like it!
There is very much an implied backscene. Are you going actually build one in the traditional way? If so, remember to leave room to round the corners to avoid "corners in the sky". And maybe think about how the roads exit the scene at the back - you've nearly got them all covered already so it would only take a bit of tweaking to hide them, I think. (Assuming you don't want to try to paint perspective roads disappearing into the distance...)
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9 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:
Because getting a dremmel absolutely square on when cutting quite deeply is difficult when there is a limit on the diameter of cutting disc you can use, the nano blade looked interesting because it can go deeper and easier to keep square with obstructions around.
I have a dremmel and tried a sample cut and certain areas will be nigh on impossible to get a deep square cut because of the relatively large motor/handle that lays flat across the layout with your hands wrapped around it.
I am not saying the dremmel is crap, I was looking for a better alternative
https://www.dremel.com/gb/en/p/dremel-right-angle-attachment-575-v224
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Confused?
Coalorsdale - signalling help / advice wanted.
in Permanent Way, Signalling & Infrastructure
Posted
I think you should relay the crossover. I know it’s painful to take what might seem to be a backwards step but in the long run but it might be better to fix the fundamental problem now and avoid years and years of niggles and questions. In fact if you lifted more of the track you could fix one or two other issues such as the kinks that can be seen in your curves and the large gaps in the rails that appear to be visible in several places.