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Pete the Elaner

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Everything posted by Pete the Elaner

  1. I agree, not because anyone is being fussy but because it makes it impossible to find the thread in future....for anyone. I did hit the 'report' button but the message there says it should only be used for 'objectionable' content. Anyway, back to topic... Don't be too put off by the complex panels. Try to colour code things as much as possible. If you need to re-use colours then try to find a way of identifying them. I decided to band them together with different coloured insulating tape: black wire in the black tape does something different to black wire in the green tape. I keep all this recorded in spreadsheet. Make it as simple as you can. Connect it up one point at a time if necessary. You will soon have a control panel which looks more complex than you remember when you built it.
  2. I am puzzled by that statement. I do not know the Gaugemaster system very well but the PowerCab can be fully upgraded to a PowerPro at very little extra cost to buying the bigger system in the first place & if you subsequently choose to buy a PowerPro, you can use the PowerCab as a second throttle. You are limited to other NCE products/throttles + JMRI though, so you would need to make sure you are comfortable with the ergonomics first.
  3. There are the exceptions when it is never necessary to split locos/units. Using the same address will work fine for these. Advanced consisting does have other advantages though. When using sound, things like driver's door & horn only sound from the leading loco. As mentioned earlier though, the Select & some decoders do not support advanced consisting so you may want to plan ahead.
  4. Hi, It sounds like you've read about & got carried away with talk of bus & droppers. 2 wires will work for a small layout for any DCC system. Put simply, you need a clean, low-resistance connection to all parts of the layout. Nickel silver is not the best conductor. It is used for rails for a combination of its appearance, cost & resistance to oxidation. Expecting current to pass along many yards of rail & across several joins with paint & glue trying to separate them is when you may experience problems. Ensuring all connections are clean & low-resistance is also good practice for DC but, instead or erratic control, you would see the problem as a drop in speed.
  5. Your setup must be different to my PowerPro then. Both layout & programming track are connected. It automatically switches when the programming track is required. I assumed the Prodigy would also do this?
  6. Something I forgot about JMRI...You can back up your decoder settings. So when you try an auto-tune with your LokSounds decoder, back it up first so if it goes wrong, you can easily restore the original settings.
  7. It may be a false economy for them. I will not be buying any sound-fitted locos which I may be unable to have re-blown. I am sure not to be alone with this.
  8. I can understand our differences here. I have a bit of an IT-geeky setup. I have a PC & a Raspberry PI set up in the layout room. Both have JMRI installed & I think the PI is currently connected to the layout. So it is much easier for me to turn on JMRI.
  9. So RTR manufacturers are now supplying full price sound chips which cannot be reblown? I don't like the sound of that.
  10. Depending on how they have tooled the 87, an 86 may be a relatively cheap modification. Body sides are the same. An 86/1 just needs a different front end & roof components, 86/2,4,5,6 also need a different underframe & new bogies. Older versions would need a few more changes.
  11. Unfortunately some models are only available as sound-fitted. I am hesitant to buy these because I don't know what I am getting. Maybe a Loksound v3.5 with a sound project I don't really like? I would far prefer to buy the items separately so I know exactly what I am getting.
  12. You make that sound more complicated than it really is. You only need the 1 connection from PC to Prodigy. This will be the Gaugemaster DCC55, which is on Gaugemaster's website at £65. So much for your 'free' software. You can either use Gaugemaster's own software with it, or JMRI. Assuming you use JMRI, then it should work the same as it does for my PowerPro, which is: When starting JMRI, you choose your connection & system. This is easier than it sounds. You can save this choice & just choose this whenever you run it. You can add locos either manually or from the programming track (assuming you have one). You don't need to touch a handset to use the programming track. JMRI does this for you. You get a nice graphical representation of all the CVs in plain English. You don't have to remember what each CV does. This is a much nicer way to adjust CVs than from the throttle. Some decoders are far more adjustable than others & you will see this from the table & options available. Once you have saved these to your roster, you can select each to run them. You can also change any CV settings on the fly very easily (even when the loco you are programming is being operated by another throttle) but you can only read them from the programming track. If you ensure you only ever change them from JMRI, then the displayed settings should stay in sync with those applied to the decoders. You can also activate Wi throttle & use an Android or Apple iOS device as a throttle via your wifi. I don't find this as user-friendly as the proper throttle though. I also found than Windows firewall will block connections from throttles next time you start the program, so you'll have to sort this. That is all I have really done with it, although I am aware it can control pointwork & I believe you can design your own control panel to take this a stage further. I rarely use Wi Throttle, even less often use JMRI's own throttle. I find programming so much easier with JMRI. I rarely use the throttle for this now.
  13. WR never had proper locos because they are only just getting OLE now.
  14. Thank you for not being one of the many who tell us that DCC is evil, rubbish, over-complicated or a waste of time. It is a preference. That is all.
  15. I stopped using points for isolation long before I started using DCC. I found that using point blades for conductivity was a bad idea & I also did not trust rail joiners to provide a good. Track paint, ballast & weathering are all enemies of conductivity. The result is a layout with all sections switchable. If you then want to run DCC, all you have to do is replace the DC controller with a DCC system & close all the section switches. The frogs will not be permanently live but it is common practice not to park a loco on a point anyway.
  16. Won't reduce the noise issue because it is a resin. I like the idea of a powder glue which you can mix in with the ballast & activate with a misting spray because there is absolutely no risk of blocking your applicator up with glue. I am about to experiment with dry wallpaper adhesive. It comes in flakes but can easily be crushed into a powder.
  17. I have used Copydex for ballasting & prefer it to PVA. It was the discolouring of ballast which turned me away from using PVA. You may paint it anyway but if you can keep it the right colour to start with, you don't have to go too OTT with weathering. Definiftely try it on a test track first. This is probably the most important thing you can do. All the above comments apply regarding washing up liquid to remove surface tension & 50/50 dilution & spraying the track first. I place the glue with a dropper pipette. You can get these from a pharmacy for a few pence. Be careful because the ballast has a tendency to swim around a little. It dries a lot quicker than PVA. Once it has started to go off, you can completely flood the track. If you need to remove any from sleepers, or you need to trim the track edge to fit a platform, you can simply make a cut with a sharp knife & peel the unwanted stuff away. If you knock a layout with PVA'd ballast, pieces of it flake away due to its brittleness. If you knock a layout with Copydex'd ballast, its rubber-ish texture holds it in place a little better. If you have to drill a hole through a ballasted bit, you can get the glue wrapped all around the drill bit. This can be a bit of a drawback but for me, the advantages are worth it.
  18. Are you measuring the track voltage with the motor running? I get the feeling you are. The voltage is shared proportionally across all resistances: The load (chip/motor), wires & the power supply. When the load resistance is fairly low, the internal resistance of the power supply becomes significant. You may have 16v in the circuit but 6v of this is being used to push the current through the supply & the wiring, which leaves 10 across the motor. When you are just measuring the voltage with no load, the voltmeter's internal resistance is very high so virtually all the supply's voltage is applied across the meter. This may sound strange at first but it explains why just testing all parts of a layout for voltage is a poor test of conductivity/reliability.
  19. I had to read that twice. The first time invoked images of running an 86 or 87 on the layout. I hope the shed is well insulated. It would be heartbreaking to have your hard work compromised by damp.
  20. I had missed this until now & since I am modelling South Hampstead, also in 00, I am very interested.
  21. You have talked me into it. My layout thread
  22. For a long time it has been a desire of mine to build a layout based closely on a real prototype. My 2 interests are AC electrics in the 1990s when going to Euston was an outing & also late 30s & 40s LMS. The WCML is the only place I could model where these could look at home but the space required would be too much. Then one day I went to photograph 6233 Duchess of Sutherland on a run out of Euston. I went there with a friend & chose to shoot it from the first station out, as it accelerated out of the tunnel. We took a sprinter round from somewhere on the NLL, passing through the closed Primrose Hill & as we got out at South Hampstead we both looked at the tunnels, then round at the bridge which carries Loudoun Road over the station. At the same time, we said to each other 'this would make a great layout'. That was around 2001 & it took me over 10 years to get started. 2014-01-19 05.57.11 by rip, on Flickr The scenic section looking south east. The 'northbound' WCML is actually heading slightly south at this point, but mainly west. The 2 locos are on the fast lines. I was working a lot from Google Maps at this point. The DC lines were under exposed near the tunnels & appeared to diverge. I later found out that they should be dead straight & further apart. I eventually re-laid the far end of the down DC & all of the up DC. The black line across the bottom of the nearest board marks roughly where Loudoun Road is. 2014-01-19 05.55.52 by rip, on Flickr One of my biggest problems was building a fiddle yard big enough to run a decent WCML service. A bigger problem was getting 6 tracks all round into it. I have 4 storage lines & 2 through lines each for fast & slow, then the DC lines merge as soon as they get off-scene before splitting into 2 storage lines. This photo was taken about 2 years after the previous one. 20161130_155050 by rip, on Flickr This is the London end of the station. The tunnel mouths for the fast & slow lines are a lot narrower & taller than any thing I have found commercially available so I am going to have to scratch build them. I may be able to get the portals etched. The DC line tunnels are small too. The real ones look way to small to cope with a standard train but they seem to fit. The DC lines are now straight & set further apart than they were in the first photo. I feel that Peco track looks a lot better with the sleepers spaced out & I have also narrowed the 6' by 5mm from standard streamline. The line across it is the Great Central with Marylebone to the right. I have no space to run the tracks off to anywhere so I will not be able to run anything across. These should also run into tunnels at both ends which should be set back off the layout. Bringing these inwards is one of the few compromises I have to make. 20161129_212400 by rip, on Flickr The view to the country end, showing the Loudoun Road bridge. The track should re-appear at the other side of this bridge but I need to get all lines into the fiddle yard so I will distort the surrounding area a little. 3 out of those 5 platform faces have been disused since around 1916. I can't remember the actual date. I don't like seeing a huge space between train & platform but I think these are just a bit too close. The AC electric era scenic boards are still sheets of ply which I had cut at the same time as the steam era scenic boards. It will be some time before I start on those. One of my friends frequently complains about the lack of pointwork. If it had points, it wouldn't be South Hampstead would it? & here is the real location in 2015: P1180068 by rip, on Flickr
  23. 1930s/40s, which I am working on now. I have a 2nd set of boards for the scenic section so I can model it in early 1990s too. I always intended to do both. I was going to do this one first but took the easy path by doing LMS first because there is no OLE. If it was not for the scale difference, it really would be ideal to link the 2 layouts together. We would just need someone to do Primrose Hill shortly before closure.
  24. I am certain you will find it well worth the effort. Watford Junction in 4mm? Nice, but I don't have the space. I am modelling South Hampstead. I don't have a layout thread but maybe I should start one.
  25. Nice work. Big, ambitious projects like this are always hard work. You don't reach milestones very frequently but when you do, they are hugely rewarding. I doubt you will ever do something quite like this again. My project has similarities...It is based on the next station along the line, but in 00. Enjoy sending time with your young family. Don't be afraid to put this project on hold. You will come back to it with more enthusiasm.
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