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Not Quite Snape Goods Station, Suffolk


justin1985
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Justin,

I use similar homemade TOU's, I use a slightly flexible steel wire (thick single strand guitar string) to move the TOU, the flexibility in the wire caters for any over-run from the (memory wire) actuator.

post-12089-0-42557700-1453122603_thumb.jpg

 

Below is a similar one without the slightly flexible steel wire, although the brass wire being relatively long is flexible enough to prevent damage to the point blades.  This one is from the piece of Baulk Road that I knocked up as a demonstration piece when I was helping to man the 2mm Roadshow stand.

post-12089-0-64199100-1453122817_thumb.jpg

 

Ian

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I was wondering if there needed to be something to 'hold' a wagon on the turntable as it rotated to prevent them rolling off.

 

The simple way to do this is to file a (very) slight rounded depression in the rail head. Temporarily tack the two rails that you are going to fit on the TT alongside each other and then used a fine rounded file to file a slight depression in both rail heads at just the right place for the wheels at one end of the wagon to drop into, 0,1mm should be sufficient. It is best to choose to put the depression in what one might term the "stop" end of the rails, but the system does work either way.

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I made some more progress over the weekend and finished the track laying (of the basic plan anyway).

 

post-3740-0-01744600-1453720327_thumb.jpg

 

I've got the plans for the wagon turntable from the GERS Journal, and ordered some largeish nylon gears, worms, and 4mm loco bearings to try and put together a mechanism for the turntable. The prototype was 12' diameter, which makes sense when most wagons were 9 or 10' wheelbase, but should I be concerned about the potential for the end of the body work, buffers, coupling etc of the wagon being turned fouling anything? I like the idea of filing slight depressions in the rail tops to encourage wagons to stay put!

 

I used the Easitrac lever/cam based TOU and wire droppers again for the final turnout at the front of the plank on the basis it was easier to adjust the throw to match the electrical slide switches I've used for polarity switching and also latching. But I cursed this decision. While it worked at first, somehow by the time I'd finished laying the rest of the track, the blade no longer made tight enough contact with the straight stock rail, and my test wagon routinely derailed. Endless attempts to adjust it made it a little better, but in the end I realised the dropper had got more and more bent in the process - time to replace them. I'd used 0.4mm this time, but upgraded to the 0.5mm nickel silver I used on the first one. Much stronger, if tricky to bend accurately (took a few attempts to get the "shoulder" under the stock rail the right length). The little tufnol jig sold for this job doesn't seem to allow for the slight upward turn of the section of wire soldered to the rail, which is more important in being able to get a good joint when using a heavier wire, so it was bending by eye with a set of smooth pliers. Eventually, it worked!

 

So, what have a learned on track laying?

  • Wire droppers are a monumental pain in the bum  (but most TOUs seem to be designed for wire droppers)
  • Filed down bolt heads are much better in terms of ease of soldering on, rigidity, and reliability (and, in my opinion, no more visible once installed)
  • The Finetrax \ new Easitrack keyed chair turnout kit tiebar looks even better in terms of accurately setting up the correct spacing of switch rails and maintaining a reliable joint - but based on conversations at the 2mm stand at St Albans, would be quite tricky to retrofit to turnouts already built (was it Alan Smith I spoke to)? This would probably be the way I'd go in future
  • Using slide switches as part of the linkage to a TOU is tricky to balance with the required throw of the turnout - microswitches activated by the actual TOU mechanism, rather than the other way around, would probably work better - but in that case how best to provide latching?
  • Tweaking Templot plans by cutting and sticking once printed is not the best idea - it ended up being very tricky to avoid a kink in the track from the fiddle yard entry to the first turnout
  • The cast brass Easitrac sleepers are a great way of providing an electrical feed - I started off avoiding using them because of the cost, but bit the bullet by the end because its so much easier

Another picture with the bufferstop posed in place and a hint of the fiddle yard connection - sections of 20mmx20mm aluminium L section firmly attached and gauged with holes drilled ready to hold a pair of brass strip prongs that will hopefully locate and grip the cassettes.

 

Still some more electrical feeds to connect, then time for full testing (and work on the wagon turntable)

 

post-3740-0-26439000-1453720339_thumb.jpg

 

Justin 

Edited by justin1985
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Hi Justin, great progress. A couple of points;

 

I agree, wire droppers from point blades to the TOU are a complete pain in the bum. I did it once, never again. It was just interminably fiddly, looked prone to damage and not particularly robust. I still like a wire coming up through a hole in the middle of a moving sleeper, it's strong, easy to fit and easy to repair if it breaks though I only ever had to replace one on Highbury in sixteen years and seventy odd shows.

 

The home made TOU I use feature on page eight of my Tucking Mill thread, they are based on Mark Fielders design. They are strong, easy to make and fit and include the micro switch. The ones on Highbury are essentially the same albeit plastic and are now brittle and need replacing.

 

I agree about the usefulness of the cast brass Easitrac sections and I have used them when I have them. An alternative is a PCB sleeper with a chairplate/ sliver of etch waste. When painted ballasted and weathered they are hard to spot.

 

I shall be following the working wagon turntable. There is one at the end of the mill siding on TM which I would like to make work ome day.

 

Jerry

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Wagons standing on the wagon TT will indeed overhang it so you need to keep the immediate surrounding area flat (say everything within a 20mm radius to be on the safe side). A few railways, the GN and Midland come to mind, sometimes placed wagon TTs close to goods platforms and these platforms always had a corresponding cut-out to ensure that wagons being turned didn't foul them.

 

Incidentally, wagon TTs were rarely used to wagons (except some early vans which had doors on only one side), and it is much easier to arrange a model TT that only moves between the various roads that it serves (typically through a right angle). If it only serves two roads (whether these continue both sides of the TT or not), the movement either way can be limited by adjustable stops under the baseboard, for which 14 or 16BA screws, together with lock nuts, are ideal.

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Thanks for the comments. Jerry's TOUs look like a very sensible variation on the sliding sections design of the Association 3D printed one. I'm certainly converted to the moving sleeper and single stout pin approach for future projects.

 

It just occurred to me that a brass pattern makers dowel (of baseboard joint fame) might make an ideal pivot for the table. The ones I have got (from an aborted project) are from Station Road Baseboards and are 25mm in diameter - just 1mm wider than needed for a true scale turntable. So I'd just need a spacer between the TT deck and one face of the dowel, capable of carrying a gear (ones I've ordered have 2mm bore) - perhaps even a short section of 2mm rod with gear anchored between brass or even wooden blocks centred and araldited to the deck and rear face of dowel. I'd imagined this could be rotated using a worm on a simple rod feeding through from the front of the layout - twist the rod around a few times to turn the table. Or, as it will only ever have to rotate roughly 90 degrees, as bécasse says, would I be able to get by with some kind of crank arrangement?

 

Justin

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Thanks for the comments. Jerry's TOUs look like a very sensible variation on the sliding sections design of the Association 3D printed one. I'm certainly converted to the moving sleeper and single stout pin approach for future projects.

 

It just occurred to me that a brass pattern makers dowel (of baseboard joint fame) might make an ideal pivot for the table. The ones I have got (from an aborted project) are from Station Road Baseboards and are 25mm in diameter - just 1mm wider than needed for a true scale turntable. So I'd just need a spacer between the TT deck and one face of the dowel, capable of carrying a gear (ones I've ordered have 2mm bore) - perhaps even a short section of 2mm rod with gear anchored between brass or even wooden blocks centred and araldited to the deck and rear face of dowel. I'd imagined this could be rotated using a worm on a simple rod feeding through from the front of the layout - twist the rod around a few times to turn the table. Or, as it will only ever have to rotate roughly 90 degrees, as bécasse says, would I be able to get by with some kind of crank arrangement?

 

Justin

as a thought a servo either  simply controlled via a tester unit / simple circuit or something more complex would give up to 180 degrees accurately  a servo should manage via direct drive the weight of a wagon  (unless its a white metal monster)  although a bigger servo could handle even that 

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Rather than Servo motors, look at a small stepper motor and an Arduino controller.  Should be possible to build the entire drive and control for well under £10, and I suspect under £5.   If Justin want's a local contact, then Graham who is attached to the Suffolk and Norfolk Scalefour group, as well as MERG, has done quite a bit with steppers and Arduinos, he's based near Bury St Edmunds. (Better contact details available via private messages/emails )

 

 

- Nigel

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I would keep it dead simple. Manual lever activation of a 90 degree rotation. Pivot on telescoping K&S brass tube. Turntable deck made from a 24mm disc of PCB. In fact, if you want one, I have one already made. PM me your postal address.

 

Mark

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Many thanks for the suggestions. I have played with Arduinos for other things - e.g. modern image barrier crossing and lights. However I'd rather keep this layout as simple as possible. As it stands the turnouts are all very deliberately manual, and is operated with a battery controller for now! I'd definitely consider servos etc on a larger project, but this is deliberately lo-tech. By the way, I'm now living in south London rather than Suffolk (despite now working in Colchester ...)

 

Many thanks for the kind offer of the PCB disk Mark - I dont much fancy trying to cut one out by hand!

 

Justin

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How long would the wagon take to turn 90 degrees and look right?  One difficulty with manual operation via cranks might be getting an even movement over the several seconds to half a minute needed. My own choice would be for a stepper or servo which can have their speed controlled.

 

Roger

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On the keeping it simple theme I'd tend to think of just using a worm gear set with the shaft running to the baseboard edge and a small handwheel type rotary lever. I used the setup to work a private siding gate on a previous layout and it worked fine.

 

Izzy

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Hi Justin,

 

Fantastic work so far and I will be following this with interest - I had a spell of working in the area a few years ago and lived just down the road in Campsea Ashe, so know the local area very well. It was a fascinating little branch and will no doubt make a lovely little layout.

 

Keep up the good work,

David

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No progress in the last week because of some looming work deadlines, but Mark kindly offered to post me a spare pre-cut wagon turntable disc of PCB. As I've already laid the track leading up to it (in fact I'll have to remove track to make room for it!) I won't be able to fit the turntable above the trackbed surface, so I'll have to dig out my set of hole saws and hope I have one at 25mm! I'll try the basic gear\worm set up in the first instance just as Izzy describes - seems the simplest way of getting slow rotation without getting into electronics (as I said before looking forward to playing with Arduino on other projects - just trying to keep this one as simple as possible as a first stab at a 2mm layout). 

 

Assuming the turntable goes OK (...), any tips on painting the track? I appreciate the need to prevent the point blades jamming by either masking when spraying the rest, and painting carefully by hand, or moving repeatedly to keep the blades from drying shut with paint and making sure bits don't get missed. But what about the slide chairs - doesn't the switch rail tend to polish the paint off? Is it worth blackening etched slide chairs before painting?

 

Justin

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No progress in the last week because of some looming work deadlines, but Mark kindly offered to post me a spare pre-cut wagon turntable disc of PCB. As I've already laid the track leading up to it (in fact I'll have to remove track to make room for it!) I won't be able to fit the turntable above the trackbed surface, so I'll have to dig out my set of hole saws and hope I have one at 25mm!

 

Should be going in the post tomorrow.

 

You may not have to cut right through. If you score an appropriate diameter circle on the centreline of the track, you should be able to peel off the top ply lamination.

 

Mark

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No progress in the last week because of some looming work deadlines, but Mark kindly offered to post me a spare pre-cut wagon turntable disc of PCB. As I've already laid the track leading up to it (in fact I'll have to remove track to make room for it!) I won't be able to fit the turntable above the trackbed surface, so I'll have to dig out my set of hole saws and hope I have one at 25mm! I'll try the basic gear\worm set up in the first instance just as Izzy describes - seems the simplest way of getting slow rotation without getting into electronics (as I said before looking forward to playing with Arduino on other projects - just trying to keep this one as simple as possible as a first stab at a 2mm layout). 

 

Assuming the turntable goes OK (...), any tips on painting the track? I appreciate the need to prevent the point blades jamming by either masking when spraying the rest, and painting carefully by hand, or moving repeatedly to keep the blades from drying shut with paint and making sure bits don't get missed. But what about the slide chairs - doesn't the switch rail tend to polish the paint off? Is it worth blackening etched slide chairs before painting?

 

Justin

 

Hi Justin. 

 

You could do worse than take a look at this thread for ideas on painting track work. I used some of the paint mixes on page 2 of the thread as a basis for painting the track on Ropley.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76110-moving-coal-a-colliery-layout-in-0-gauge/page-2

 

Tom. 

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  • 7 months later...

So its been nearly 8 months since I've updated this thread, and probably just as long since I've actually done any modelling - primarily because of work, which doesn't show any sign of easing off until Christmas. But, now its autumn, I'm somehow finding time to dig the layout again out again anyway.

 

I've finally made some progress fitting the wagon turntable that Mark kindly turned for me back around Ally Pally time. I've extended its shaft to take one of the plastic gear wheels that Expo sell, and improvised a power feed with a thin wire running through the centre of the tube shaft feeding one track, with the brass tube itself providing the other track feed. Not sure how reliable that will be, but I'll give it a go. The gear will be driven with a matching plastic worm on a simple shaft thorough the front of the layout as Izzy suggested. The next modelling session should get it packed to exactly the right rail level and wired in.

 

post-3740-0-94339500-1475533859_thumb.jpg

 

When I picked up Vobster\future Monks Eleigh from Jerry he totally sold me on the Scalefour society level frames for working turnouts. I'll certainly follow Jerry's advice on replacing the plastic Ratio levers on Vobster with Scalefour ones. But now I'm wondering about also using them to replace the slightly bodged slide switches and piano steel rods on Snape, using wire in tube and microswitches. Is it worth it, or "ain't broke, don't fix it?" (although I suspect its only a matter of time before the current rods and switches will slip out of alignment).

 

post-3740-0-57733400-1475533878_thumb.jpg

 

On a different note, a hiking holiday in the Black Forest this summer inspired me to dig back out my German Z gauge stock (and buy a rather impressive train pack of double-deck stock and Br143 electric, which currently work the Schwartzwaldbahn). I've been working up a plan for Z gauge model that is ending up looking a lot like this excellent TT gauge layout on the Stummi forum ... using code 40 rail and soldered turnouts ... If only I could focus on one thing at a time ... 

 

Justin

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  • 3 months later...

Christmas Progress (and some setbacks ...)

 

Snape finally got some attention over the Christmas break, beginning with fettling the track work when I was testing the Jinty chassis (see post in Etched Chassis thread). Basically the track feeds had given way where I'd tried to make some direct joints to the bottom of the rail (I'd used brass cast sleepers in more prominent locations), and there were some high points where the Easitrack wasn't supporting joints in the rail very well. I suspect the latter was because I'd still been using a stock of coiled bullhead rail, rather than getting in some new straight stock. Because the track is already stuck down I couldn't use the cast Easitrack sleepers, so after slicing out the old ones, I slid in some traditional PCB sleepers with Versaline chairplates on and soldered them in place to support rail joints and where I needed extra track feeds. Once fixed I drilled through the outside of the sleepers and fitted 0.8mm brass wire as a dropper and soldered the electrical wires on underneath - which seems a nice neat way of doing it!

 

I'd spent most of the few moments of modelling time I had in the autumn building a ScaleFour society lever frame. I found this surprisingly challenging, mainly because of the awful instructions. It was only really when I got the chance to poke and prod a completed but unmounted one at Warley that I really "got" how all of the lifting rods, drop boxes etc actually fitted together - remarkably the instructions don't include any drawing or photo of the rear of a completed frame. Picture paints a thousand words etc! There were a few setbacks along the way, like ignoring the "do not tin the layers of the levers" and ending up with one very fat lever, and painting the levers nicely in correct colours as I've seen some painted before, then finding that the tolerances were so tight it no longer fitted together. Finally I managed to finish it just after Christmas. 

 

post-3740-0-60917000-1483882927_thumb.jpg

 

I set about trying out connecting it yesterday, thinking I'd connect the closest turnout with a direct wire (1mm piano wire) and crank linkage, and use wire in tube for the further ones (and the one signal that will eventually feature). However while I got the Easitrac TOU connected nicely to begin with, adjusting the throw brought up a host of problems. I'd been suspicious of the wire droppers from the blades - remarkably these held throughout the whole ordeal, but the little washer that holds together the Easitrac TOU pinged off not once, but twice, meaning I had to remove re-solder and re-thread the droppers each time.

 

Worst of all, I'd foolishly misinterpreted the lever frame instructions and the fact that the holes for the actuating wire were 0.7mm together with 0.7mm brass wire being used for the actuating levers etc., and merrily used this for the actuating wires through the operating shoes. Inevitably, while adjusting the throw and tension etc, these buckled within the frame. Cue much swearing. This morning I tried replacing the brass wire with more of the 1mm piano wire (needed dressing with a file and plenty of flux to solder) on the lever I've been experimenting with - and now it works!

 

post-3740-0-66753600-1483883533_thumb.jpg

 

I've ended up with the crank oriented so that the wires actually cross - not ideal, but I wanted them projecting off the side to make it easier to adjust. Don't know whether to leave it be, on the basis it works, or flip it around when I put things together for real?

 

post-3740-0-09532200-1483884090_thumb.jpg

 

I've ordered a set of GEM Mercontrol tubes and wire to operate the other bits, rather than try and thread through another solid rod. I suspect that the thinner wire will be less problematic to connect, and more forgiving when it comes to tensioning (I don't think the Z fold in the 1mm piano wire does much good, its so stiff). 

 

I am, however, slightly anxious about being able to operate the Association 3D printed TOU I've got fitted to the furthest point using the wire in tube. It seems to both have lots of friction, and have lots of flex. Has anyone done this?

 

Lessons learned (to date):

  • Don't use wire droppers for point blades
  • Do use wire droppers for power feeds
  • Bolt-head point blade droppers work OK, but moving sleeper tie bars are probably the best option (probably new Easitrac\Finetrax version in future)
  • Jerry's brass and PCB TOUs seem a much better idea than the plastic options or the cam based Easitrac one

But, in fact, I'm very tempted to simply use good quality electric point motors in future. I'm much more comfortable with electronics than mechanical linkages etc, so its very tempting to just use Cobalts or similar (but probably still with a lever frame - just activated by the microswitches). I'm actually tempted to do this when i get around to refurbishing Vobster\"Monks Eleigh" as the broads are probably deep enough for a Cobalt (the boards on Snape are not).

 

When using Cobalts, Tortoises etc. with 2mm, is it advisable to drive a tie bar directly, or still run it via an under-board TOU? 

 

Cheers

Justin

 

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Justin, I just use the Tortoise units straight to a moving sleeper tie bar; drill a small hole in the centre of the sleeper to accept the wire. Move the fulcrum right to the top of the unit to minimise the throw and that's it.

 

I've tried the Cobalt units, without much success; they often stutter and fail to stall. They may work better with DCC control, but I've stuck with analogue for points/uncouplers.

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Have you looked at using servos instead of traditional point motors? Using Merg kits for a servo controller and servo mount, and servos from eBay or HobbyKing, it can work out at less that £5 per point. Servos are powerful, can be set to run slowly (and quietly) and the limits of throw can be individually set too.

 

The Merg Servo4 controller module just needs 4 simple SPST switches to be connected to operate 4 servos/points, such as those fitted to your lever frame. The Merg servo mounts can also be fitted with a microswitch to change the frog polarity.

 

Ian Morgan

Hampshire

Merg Member

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Given the nice Scalefour lever frame I would personally stick with mechanical control, which is what I am going back to after going round the houses with electrical point motors - solenoids, cobalts, servos in that order -  and finding differing issues with each, hacked servos being perhaps the best/cheapest/easiest option.

 

Have you considered using the torsion rod design originated with one of the early S4 layouts? ( might have been 'Heck', can't remember now). 1/8" rods running in 'choc' blocks under the boards with cranks soldered where needed to transfer the movement from rotary to push-pull. Another cheap/easy design.

 

Izzy

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