Donnersbachkogel

[Vecchio]

A long brake in my activities - mainly family related - but now I have a little helper for my overhead line build. I am currently in Vienna - well - family again  

And I couldn't resist visiting Kleinbahn to purchase a little permanent way set.

 

And there is my little helper

 

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It is the OBB x534.80, a diesel driven platform car for set-up and maintenance on ohl lines. The pantograph on this car is just for measurement and earthing reasons.

[Alcanman]

What a charming little vehicle. I came across this one at Seefeld in Tirol in 1989.

 

 

 

Mal

[Vecchio]

Thanks for the picture, I know now that I need more earthing poles and a acetylene bottle to make it more realistic...

The one from Kleinbahn is for sure not top of the top - but with a little bit of brass wire and weathering powder I will try to upgrade it. Also it needs lights and a decoder to be allowed to run on Donnersbachkogel...

[Vecchio]

Now I have the little helper and Christmas is over there is no excuse - I have to proceed.

As the 0.5mm wires are quite bendy the whole thing needs to be tensioned. And to do this in stile I need wire tensioners. OK, they will not really work but they look good.

I thought if I ever do a large layout I will make drawings and let them be etched. But as I need something like 6 or 8 on Donnersbachkogel I rather make them scratchbuildt.

How? first make the outer ring on the lathe - and drill six holes into it for the spokes.

 

Drilling the holes for the spokes

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​Outer rings ready milled and parted from the brass tube.

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Now the hub

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If you think it is not totally precise - the hub has a diameter of 4mm and the ring has an inner diameter of 9mm....

I made myself a quick wooden jig for soldering - and here we have the result.

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To fix this to the masts I should use an L profile - but faster is using a wire. Wire is bent - using another jig of course.

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The wire clamps will go into either L or U profiles and will be fixed to the mast. But today I ruined 2 L profiles by drilling into the wrong position so I call it a day and proceed tomorrow.  

Edited December 27, 2016 by Vecchio

[Claude_Dreyfus]

This is very impressive work. I am really enjoying seeing how you are going about this catenary.

[Vecchio]

Nice and fresh this morning (-5degC) - took me 30 min to bring my workshop to 18 degrees.

I decided to use U-profiles to fix the tension wheel to the masts.

 

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And a quick trial on the mast itself

 

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Now a coffee break is deserved...

[Vecchio]

First one almost complete and in position on a mast.

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The only thing missing now is the extra suspension these masts have - in form of a steel rod going to an extra little concrete foundation. And of course some colour has to be applied... 

[shanks522]

Hi Vecchio,

 

 The OHLE your constructing is superb! Looking forward to seeing the layout develop.

 

Graham.

[Vecchio]

thanks - I am not the fastest and I am also not happy with the current mimic board. It is too crammed to solder any additional wires in. So when I have finished the OHL on this board I will rebuild the mimic board. I am really looking forward to do the scenery- but this may be a long way away....

Vecchio

[duff man]

Hi.

Glad to see you are making progress.

The tensioners are just a work of art, I am sure this whole layout will raise the bench mark for catenary.

you are to be congratulated.

Craig.

[Vecchio]

A bit further with the tensioners - 2 are at their final position...

 

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.

 

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[Alan Kettlewell]

Just read through your thread and have to say what great work and attention to detail especially your hand built OHL - as others have said it's a work of art. Keep up the good work - I'll be following with keen interest.

Cheers .. Alan

[Stefan88]

Interesting read and truly excellent OHLE. Always nice to see Austrian layouts from my heavily biased position of being half-Austrian and a big Austrian rail fan. Are the light signals from Alphamodell, Memoba or Mobasi?

[Vecchio]

Now I got the answer - half Austrian. The light signals are from Krois Modell. He has the advantage that he (or whoever makes them for him) can customise them. Means you can order the combination of lights you want and you get exactly that.

 

On my last layout I had Alphamodell signals, have to say also the Alphamodel ones are quite realistic and the price was reasonable.

[PaulRhB]

Beautiful work on the tensioner

The 'functional' catenary on my RhB layout fooled most people until Barrie Kelsall turned up at a show, but he was nice about it

[Vecchio]

Thanks Paul. I would like to build the same speed as you do - unfortunately too many other things to do....

Got a wiring job at the club as well - a 4 module 7mm layout. Not that big but I have to rip out all the track as people before me did a quick job. Means drop wires too visible, frog wires no put through the baseboard...

But in 2019 our club has 50th anniversary - so my target is to be ready with Donnersbachkogel in February 2019....  

[kirley]

Excellent modelling skills in this thread

[Vecchio]

Small sign of life after a long break. The layout is more or less where it was in February, I did a lot of other things in the meantime.

Now I was looking a bit into the rolling stock for Donnersbachkogel. Especially into the H0e part. 

One of the locos I would like to use is a Roco Diesel shunter. These are about 60£ new, and with a bit of luck there is something on the internet for half the price. 

 

Of course I want to have this running at DCC, there is not too much space in the tiny loco. Here is a photo from the internet how this little engine looks. 

Roco Diesel 

 

On the front there is a lens but no light, on the back there is not even a lens but a painted on light. So something to improve.

 

I use a Zimo MX621 for this loco and to save space I shorten the leads for the lights and put SMD resistors on them. These resistors are glued on the decoder with hotmelt glue. 

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I use tiny SMD leds for the lights, and the missing lens I make on the lathe from a piece of scrap plastic. Below see how I turn the lens.

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And now the rear light is glued into position using a drop of superglue and some activator spray. The led is 0.8mm wide!

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Putting all together and closing the loco - have a look from the rear. Of course the decoder is a little bit visible, but normally the people will look at it from above, from there it is invisible. 

 

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Quick function test. 

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All working, so some cosmetics. First a driver. Also the red clips are hidden under some green Humbroll paint.

 

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His tools got a bit of paint and the loco is ready for use. What is missing is some weathering. It is too clean.

 

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I am happy with that little upgrade, the next one will be a steam H0e loco.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Vecchio

[Stefan88]

If you keep your eyes peeled you can pick up a Liliput StLB VL6 diesel shunter for around £50, these are very nicely detailed models with LED lighting and a 6 pin socket off the shelf. Watching the tiny con rods and counter balances moving around adds a lot of visual appeal to these titchy logos.

 

I have several Liliput U class tank locos surplus if that fits the bill for a steam engine.

[Vecchio]

So what is going on at Donnersbachkogel? 

Not much as I was working on Frimingham (club 0 scale layout of Milton Keynes Model Railway Society ) 

But I put track on the second return loop, unfortunately I had to go down to ROCO R2 - radius 358mm. This excludes models like my BBO 16 museum edition as it will not make it around the bends. Stock on boogies doesn't have a problem with this radius, so all my OBB electric locos will make it. 

 

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I also decided to make a new mimic panel as the first one was too crowded. It was almost impossible to solder all the necessary connections. 

 

Here is the new one - a little bit stretched: 

 

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And yes, I forgot one of the industrial sidings. So back to the cad and another print of Staples....

[Vecchio]

After a few less satisfying attempts and a few more prints...

 

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... finally an acceptable one. Now with the switches in place and the holes for the LEDs drilled.

 

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Edited November 18, 2017 by Vecchio

[Alan Kettlewell]

Looking good, very neat work.

 

I made a panel like it once on a previous layout, it was before LEDs became widely used so I used grain of wheat bulbs - it wasn't long before the smell of melting plastic became over powering as the bulbs heated up and began to melt the laminate I'd covered the diagramme with - doh ...

 

Cheers ... Alan

[Vecchio]

Thanks Alan, 

I try my best, problem is the time. Was on business trips the whole last week, followed by a Saturday at Warley, and Monday and Tuesday I will be abroad again. Doesn't leave too much time for the hobby...

 

On the 11th of July I showed the upgrade of the H0e Diesel - and I wrote

"I am happy with that little upgrade, the next one will be a steam H0e loco."

 

Some time passed, so I should do something...

 

Here we have the victim, a Roco tender steam locomotive from a start set, bought relatively cheap on e-bay. 

 

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I have modified the loco already, originally it comes with a Kuehn 6-pin decoder which is sticking in its socket and is visible across the cab...

As it is a steam loco it would be nice to have sound. So I invested into a Zimo MX648 which is small enough to hide easily in the tender. This is why you see cables between loco and tender. And the cab is free now, so if I find a matching crew I will populate it. 

 

See here the speaker and below the decoder in the tender. I removed the weight of the tender, which leaves the bottom of the tender with two large apertures, perfect for the sound. 

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There is a soundfile for a small 2-cylinder engine on the chip, so it matches the loco quite well. 

Now what is missing? yes - working headlights. Lets have a look of what is currently there.

 

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So you can see they are free standing, they have a lens and there is some white paint behind the lens. See them from a different angle.

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The nice thing is that these lamps are removable. 

 

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I drilled through from the back and pushed the lens out. It showed that the white paint is on the lens only. 

 

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See here the Lamps, one from the front, one from the back, with a hole for the future LED light, drill diameter 1.9mm.

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I painted the inside of the lamp white, so they look more or less like before.

Here we have a test fit of the modified lamps. And yes, what is on the right hand side is the motor of this loco. I have taken it out as I look for space to hide the wires for the light. 

 

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That's it for the moment, will see if I can progress a bit further this evening. 

Edited November 26, 2017 by Vecchio

[Vecchio]

OK, just a little bit more. 

 

First the LEDs I will use. The problem with this lamps is that in full scale the driver would just have a coloured glass which he would put over the lamp in case he will push or drive a light engine. How to do that? There is a solution on the market - I found those in a German shop: 

 

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I will need 4 but I purchased of course 6 as I have some experience with SMD leds.... (They are very jumpy  )

 

The whole I drilled before is approximately the diagonal of the led. I fixed them with a tiny bit of superglue and put a drop of 5 min epoxy over that. Finally a bit of flat black paint. 

 

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Now the wires are still not hidden - but minimum the footplate is clear of them. Short function test- first white: 

 

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and now red:

 

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And finally a close up from behind:

 

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I am happy so far, and that's it for this week. Continuation next weekend.

[Vecchio]

I promised to give some update next weekend - here we are. 

 

I had some trouble as one of the led's gave up, and unfortunately the white colour. So the only thing I could do is replace them. This means scratch off the epoxy blob which was on the back of the led, and remove the led from the lamp. It worked without major problems, and I am happy I purchased more led's than needed. As I was not in a perfect mood I didn't take any photo of this repair. 

 

Now it was time to find a path for the wires. I went down the chassis and back then up to the little PCB board where normally the decoder is connected (6 pin NEM 651). Originally the pins for the light are free, so I used them to connect my lights to them. The plus pole (normally blue) I connected to the rail. 

 

This is the PCB with the NEM connector from below. The very thin wires are for the lights. 

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To make the wires between tender and loco less visible I cut all original wires off and used thin black insulated wires. 

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The next picture shows how the light wires are routed on the base of the loco. The orange stuff is bluetack, I tried to hide it a little with the paint.

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The loco is now closed, and from the side you cannot see the wires.

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I made a trial with the tender on it. First white

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and then red. 

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And finally a little video on the test track (which is actually my programming track) Click on the photo to get to the video. 

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That's it for today. Next step will be to prepare the rear lights in the same way as the front ones. But this will happen only on the next weekend.