Beggarwood Lane - a 00 third rail Southern Region layout (DCC)

[NIK]

Some pictures and info on a 00 third rail Southern Region layout being built by the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society. Future posts will show the progress made/ things added to the layout.

 

 

Beggarwood Lane prior to the last of the track being laid. A two track mainline with sidings, three branches and goods yard.

The fictional location is vaguely South London. The original plan was to allow stock from the 1960's to the nineties to run.

 

 

Layout track plan. Size roughly 28 feet by 12. Three EMU carriage sidings at left end of scenic layout. All the track is now laid as is most of the wiring. Its a DCC layout with MERG DCC accessory decoders and MERG Servo drivers. The baseboard tops are 9mm Birch Ply. The ends are 2 layers of 9mm birch ply. The rest of the woodwork is mainly 6mm standard ply. There are full vertical supports at least once a foot both sideways and across. Track is code 75 throughout.

 

 

A 3D model of one of the scenic boards based on the baseboards as constructed.

 

 

Start of making the scenery (after the last of the track was laid and most of the wiring was done). The track was spray painted before the scenery was started. Expanded polystyrene blocks were cut to shape, glued in and small pieces of net curtain pasted on with a flexible plaster/brown poster paint/water mix.

 

All of the diamonds and slips use DCC Autoreverser units to set the polarity of the crossings. The layout is controlled by an NCE Power Pro 5 Amp system with Power Pro and Power Cab throttles. All points are operated by servos with MERG mounts.

 

Nick Murphy on behalf of all the builders of Beggarwood Lane.

 

[NIK]

Its budget time again for our club (Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society http://www.basingstokemrs.org).

 

Once a year we have to estimate how much we are going to spend over the next calendar year.

 

I'm in charge of the electrics and signalling is planned to go in this year along with work on a sound effects unit, a working cinema and third rail flash units.

 

I've gone back to old pictures of the layout to check there's room for Infra-Red detectors on the same boards as the signals.

 

 

On this board there are two signals on embankments and the bases of those signals are marked. There seems to be enough room for infra red-detectors to the left. If there had not been room the outputs from the detectors would have be sent from one baseboard to the next. In such a situation we might use MERG CBUS modules for the inter-board communication as extra features might get added to the layout later that would benefit from such a bidirectional bus. Our clubs 2mm Layout already has CBUS for points etc.

 

The picture above also shows the DCC concepts Powerbase plates fitted to the incline. The slope is 1 in 40 and the Powerbase might help 2 wheel drive power units up the hill. There is a curve on the incline that also increases the drag and I don't think that was tested before the layout was built. I did some drag tests round the bends of my DCC test track and the drag was higher than a published equation based on tests using HO RP25 shod stock. I didn't read the instructions with the Powerbase and the plates were glued touching one another. The chunky wires we used for droppers touched the plates and the incline short circuited. The incline track had to be ripped up and the short circuits eliminated before relaying.

 

Going back to the signalling the drivers of trains on the mainline might like confirmation that the relevant signals are set without walking over to the front of the layout so we should allow some spare outputs from the signalling electronics to allow future connection to a feedback bus. We are hoping to have mini mimic panels for the Newbury show in February to show the drivers the routes that have been set using the NCE Macro feature. If a suitable feedback bus is added later the signals could be displayed on the same mimic panels.

 

Nick Murphy (part of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

Edited January 3, 2017 by NIK

[d winpenny]

Looks like a great layout

 

David

[NIK]

As Beggarwood Lane is on the way to completion maybe now is a good time to show some of the work under the surface.

 

 

Appropriately this is picture of board A, the first scenic board when it was being wired.

 

Amongst the spaghetti are the three DCC track busses that go back to Power District Cutouts near the NCE Power Pro 5 Amp command station.

 

There is also a DCC accessory bus connected back directly to the Power Pro 5. The orange and grey wires are the 19 Volt DC  accessory (auxiliary) bus.

 

The board has a couple of points for the double track junction that leads to the incline.

 

Top left is a MERG DCC steady state point decoder, a MERG servo driver and a home made twin 19V to 12V regulator.

 

The MERG software has been experimentally modified so that servos connected to different DCC point decoders do their initial power up at different times in order to restrict the total current drawn from the auxiliary power supply.

 

There is also a Digitrax auto-reverser that switches the diamond crossing on the junction.

 

The roll of papers trapped in one of the holes in the vertical supports are the generic wiring diagrams relevant to that type of board.

 

Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

Edited January 10, 2017 by NIK

[chriscleveland]

photos of the start of beggarwood lanes town scene can be found on the link below

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/99616-ropley-in-oo/page-1

 

chris

[NIK]

I've missed two working sessions this week but Rob who is part of the crew working on the layout scenics sent me some photos taken today. The layout is going out to the Newbury exhibition on the 11th Feb as a running but not finished layout so we are trying to make it as presentable as possible.

 

 

 

The first paint has been applied to the backscene, the brick retaining wall is going in and the ballasting taking place on the non goods yard tracks.

 

The ballast is not obvious at this stages as the overall colour we have chosen is similar to the colour of the plywood baseboard top.

 

A lot of research went into the ballast including measuring real ballast and for everything bar the goods yard we have ended up using 2mm scale ballast from Woodland Scenics of three different  brown/buff colours in a 2:2:1 ratio.

 

 

This photo shows an experiment with 00 ballast in the ratio we thought was worth trying after looking at photos of the prototype. Various glues were also tried as well as ballast stains. We found the lightest coloured ballast although matching the real thing caused perception of the mix to be too light (the overscale grains of ballast drawing the eye?). When we found that 2mm scale ballast was more realistic for 1:76 scale we kept the colour mix as per historic photos (~1970's Southern Region).

 

 

Back to the layout the painted track had ballast applied by hand or by ballast dispensers. After very gently moving the ballast into position it was wetted with a very fine mist of water with a drop of washing up liquid. Dilute PVA with that drop of washing up liquid was then dropped from <10mm using flexible pipettes. Extra care is taken around point blades and crossings. Bits of ballast will be removed later to tidy up flangeways and generally try to make it like real railway track.

 

Nick Murphy on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew.

Edited January 21, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

We had been busy working on Beggarwood Lane as it was due go to the Newbury model railway exhibition on the Saturday 11th February.

 

This was our first exhibition away from our home club (Basingstoke) and due to various challenges the layout has not been put up and run since we finished laying the track and wiring it up.

 

 

We made it to the show in time, in fact we had the layout set up by 9pm on the Friday night (we left Basingstoke about 7pm). Amongst the gremlins was one we hadn't seen before but that had to be left until the Saturday morning.

 

 

This picture shows the incline, high level mainlines, a spur line and three carriage sidings behind. The DCC side of things worked well but the servo operating one of the crossovers on the mainline was found to have been reversed causing problems setting routes and one head on crash. Mimic panels to tell the mainline operators what state the mainline points were in weren't finished in time. This was important as the junction and incline was being used for the first time and the junction points are obscured by a road overbridge.

 

We were told the Newbury club were after a layout which might not be finished but with lots of things running so we tried our best. This put emphasis on pressing any stock in any livery already DCC'd into service. The Hornby 4 VEP EMUs were the only disappointment running poorly again - it looks as though the 'pizza cutter' wheel flanges fitted by Hornby to the VEPs were running on the sleepers causing poor pickup and traction.

 

Sound fitted Class 33 and Lima 73 with heavily modified Bachmann class 25 chassis prepare trains to go out to Southern region destinations and others to go north of the Thames.

 

Another picture taken from the low level interregional exchange sidings. A class 37 from another region is parked under the bridge that accesses the industrial branch. All the slips in the sidings had some electrical problems restricting which routes could be used making shunting very challenging. The goods yard was being operated from the front at this show for which having the points controlled from the NCE DCC handset was very useful.

 

Nick Murphy on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew.

Edited February 13, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi, one thing that might have been handy but wasn't ready for the Newbury show was an easy way for the fiddle yard operators to check the status of the relevant points on the front of the layout (mainly high level tracks and the spur on the incline).

 

 

This week with Newbury 2017 over work has restarted on two mini mimic panels to address the requirement mentioned above.

 

Two £50 Windows 7" tablets are being tried as part of two mini displays. Above is a picture of one tablet showing two routes set. The dotted lines are where the tracks continue to the goods yards or hidden sidings.

 

I've used JMRI, free model railway control/assistance software and one of its three editors to produce this remote control panel.

 

The tablet is mainly for display of the points/routes but points can also be changed individually by touching on the circles.

 

 

This picture shows most of the components involved/linked. The tablet is sitting on the NCE command station with no cables connected. No keyboard or mouse should be needed as the software automatically starts when the tablets and Pi3 are switched on.

 

The NCE command station is connected to a Raspberry Pi3 B single board computer (inside the Blue box). The Raspberry Pi also runs JMRI but with just one common element - a list of points which is the same as the list on the tablet. The Pi and the tablet are linked wirelessly via a Wifi wireless access point running on the Pi (doesn't need a router to run away from home such as at an exhibition). A few tricks have had to be done to keep the tablet listening for data from the Pi. 

 

One feature of JMRI that could be useful for future use is that for each Mac/Windows/Linux computer connected to the central computer the displays can be different in size and in what tracks/points are displayed. It might be nice to add a big screen at the front of the layout with a mimic panel showing the whole layout (the layout has 50+ points).

 

Beggarwood Lane may be running for the public at possible extra club open day in April so hopefully the mimic panels and their holders will be finished before that. Next extra routes will be added to the DCC system and that will allow more testing of the mimic system.

 

Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

Edited February 18, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Beggarwood Lane is one of the layouts of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway and with the society gearing up for its own exhibition on the 11th and 12th of March there is less work occurring directly on the layout.

 

 

One thing I have got is a photo of how the editing of the routes for the NCE DCC command station is being done.

 

The Newbury exhibition showed that a few routes of the seventy odd routes created so far had errors in them and that with the layout track plan complete more routes would be needed to allow quick operation of trains. Our club may have an extra open day in April so there is not a lot of time for corrections and additions to the routes.

 

As I had a couple of Raspberry Pi 3B computers and the loan of a couple of monitors I made the above setup.

 

The Raspberry Pi computers are off-scene and connected to the left and high level monitors. On the left is the JMRI NCE macro editing screen, the high level shows a JMRI mimic panel of all the layout bar the goods yard. The left Raspberry Pi is connected to the NCE command station and the other Raspberry Pi displays the state of the points on the layout (using Wifi link and JMRI Simple Server protocol).

 

On the laptop is the spreadsheet where I've got the existing routes numbered and colour coded. Each colour refers to a group of track operations. Red refers to routes from the anticlockwise fiddle yard along the mainline and back into the FY. Magenta is the same but with trains going via the loop on the scenic boards.

 

 

On the NCE PowerHouse Pro DCC system 256 routes can be set (from number 0 through 9, 10 to  99, 100 to 199 and 200 to 255).

 

Its just a matter of preference but at present routes 0 to 9 are reserved for the ten most popular routes in the goods yard.

Routes 10 to 99 are for fiddle yard to fiddle yard moves via the mainline but not the loop.

Routes 100 to 199 are for routes that involve the loop and 200 to 255 are for less used routes such as from the branches and the goods yard onto the mainline.

 

So for this set up once the state of the points for a particular route have been decided they are recorded on the PC's spreadsheet (hopefully using mostly cutting and pasting). The point numbers and their positions are then typed into the route (macro) editor on the left and the Save button clicked.

 

The route is then tested by picking up an NCE throttle and typing the number of the route and checking the appropriate points are set and set correctly. If there are more points in a route than the ten allowed on this NCE system then routes can be linked and the points common to a number of routes (setting the loop for example) can be put in a spare route and a link set. So to go from FY track 5 to FY track 1 via the loop might involve ten points in the fiddle yard plus a link to a route that sets the two crossovers for the loop (one DCC address for each pair of crossover point motors). Regular backups of the set routes to computer can be done by clicking on the JMRI backup option. 

 

No computers are essential to edit routes on this particular NCE system but if using a PC then a big screen might be handy.

 

Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

Edited September 19, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Beggarwood Lane is in storage until after our clubs show this weekend http://www.basingstokemrs.org/exhibition.html.

 

 

Hornby have surprised us in a nice way by having a display model of the new IEP 800 at the show.

 

The Reading to Newbury line is being electrified so the IEP 800 should be running just 10miles from Basingstoke.

 

If the Southampton to Reading line is converted to 25kV overhead could we see IEPs through Basingstoke?.

 

I understand the Hornby IEP 800 is their first express multiple unit model to have a modern mechanism.

 

So if you wanted an extra excuse for going to the Basingstoke show this weekend maybe having a look at the new IEP 800 might tip the balance in favour.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society).

Edited March 9, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

We've been so intent on restarting work on Beggarwood Lane after taking it to the Newbury show there's not been a lot of time for taking photos.

 

 

The road overbridge at the left hand end of the layout is being repositioned to make it easier to get a soldering iron in to repair the solder joints on the two junction points. The third rail is going in and being painted before the bridge is fixed down. The ballast may have to be patched before the bridge is fixed for good.

 

 

Some testing has been going on painting the third rail with the photos of Southern Region track in the past consulted again. A colour similar to the track is going to be tried. I've seen some of the third rail in the carriage sidings pulled up to aid in painting.

 

The nearest track is the electrified branch/spur - having it third rail will give more flexibility in using this line.

 

 

The autoreverser/microswitches on the single slips failed at Newbury so they have been replaced for now with two mono Tam Valley frog juicers per slip. So far they are working well. Their circuit boards have no holes for screws so they have been taped to the board upright supports for now.

 

 

There were lots of derailments in the goods yard at the show so as soon as the slips were fixed test running started.  A class 33 was used at first and then another Heljan with various short and light goods wagons. After two evenings we think we've found all the tight spots that were causing wagon wheels to ride up although the rails have not been resoldered so with changes in temperature the tight spots might start to come back.

 

The goods yard is now ready for ballasting although we still have to decide what size and colour the ballast should be.

 

The retaining wall for the embankment seems nearly complete with concrete capping stones to be added. Wills brick mouldings have been used where possible. The bridge under the mainline for the industrial branch is very tight so thin plasticard may have to be used. Still managed to squeeze a Schools Class loco through on a test run but it was designed for the Hastings line.

 

The mini mimic panel testing is going well including operating the mainline points 30 feet away from one of the Windows tablets whilst having a tea break which confused the chairman's dad's dogs as whirring noises came from the layout.

 

Regards

 

Nick Murphy (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew)

Edited April 21, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

No photos of Beggarwood Lane as I was still recovering from my trip to Donegal in Ireland when I was working down the club this week.

 

Instead here's a photo of the track of the Fintown railway in Donegal next to Lough Fin. Its a 3 mile tourist line but still uses the 3 foot gauge used extensively in Donegal.

 

 

The old track bed can be seen from the road continuing if travelling towards Glenties where this original line finished.

 

Hopefully the next photo won't annoy too many people who had bad bank holiday weather but here was the view from the kitchen window of the house I was staying in:

 

 

Talking of sunny welcomes our club (which covers Basingstoke and North Hampshire) is looking for new members including operator/builders for Beggarwood Lane.

 

The link to the club is http://www.basingstokemrs.org/

 

Just a reminder of the track plan of Beggarwood Lane:

 

There's lots of scenic and buildings to do as well as fitting signalling, sound effects and a working cinema later in the year. The layout makes extensive use of MERG electronic kits.

 

There's a chance that if we can make enough progress on the layout and get enough operators we might get to go to the exhibition of our twin town Euskirchen near Cologne. More likely to be next December than this. The same applies to getting the layout back on the exhibition circuit - get enough operators and we might be able to go to our own show in the future and hopefully other shows.

 

Regards, Nick (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society).

Edited May 7, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

 

After researching the potential damage to electronics fitted to layouts when electrostatic grassing occurs we've decided to fit the electronics boards on scenic baseboards before grassing starts. Having the electronics quickly removable will also help with diagnosing and repairs.

 

I selected these 6 amp (continuous) connectors as they were the cheapest of their type I could find (£2.90 per pair). We've experience of using the 10 amp version for the inter-board connectors. Although large they have the advantage that a loose wire is less likely to short to an adjacent contact than on a D type connector. They can also be wired and rewired easily including when a baseboard is powered up.

 

 

A scenic baseboard with MERG DCC decoder, twin output voltage regulator and two MERG Servo4 servo driver boards.

Infra red detectors, signal controllers and special effects boards have yet to be fitted. When static grassing the servo leads will probably be left dangling down or we may wrap the servo and leads in aluminium foil to minimise the charge differences.

 

Some circuit boards will only need half or a third or a quarter of the 12 contacts and the connectors can be split with a Stanley knife.

 

Hopefully the extra resistance will be low enough to not affect operation of the system. Most circuit boards have largish local capacitors - big sparks occur from the 300W continuous 50,000uF fed auxiliary bus if baseboards are connected live.

 

Regards Nick (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

Edited May 13, 2017 by NIK

[chriscleveland]

Looking good nick nearly all third rail is down on board a

[NIK]

Sorry if the text is not clear but I couldn't attach a BMP file.

 

With the optional mini mimic panels almost finished work is starting to move onto the other electronics for the layout.

 

The 7" LCD monitor for the cinema has arrived and after a few glitches seems to work well displaying video from a Raspberry Pi computer. No buttons need to be pressed to get the monitor to start and in the correct mode which is good as the monitor will be buried in the back of the cinema.

 

The signalling modules are being looked at which will operate a series of 4 aspect, 3 aspect and shunt signals including one mechanical ground signal. Provision will be included for approach control to be added at a later date to one particular signal.

 

The plan is to have one type of circuit board with a microcontroller (possibly a PIC) and have the connections to the signal coded so the circuit board gives the appropriate functionality depending on what signal is connected to it.

 

This should save on spares and simplify replacing a board.

 

Infra-red units will set the signals back to Red. We have five Heathcote Electronics units from our previous layout and we will add MERG Hector2 units to make up the number.

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew).

[NIK]

Hi,

 

I haven't done an update on Beggarwood Lane for a while but others have been working away on stuff for the six scenic boards.

 

 

Concrete cap stones and trunking being painted while the chalk cuttings are being rendered on Board A using angled ridges in polyfilla.

 

 

Before the chalk cutting and bridge were installed the ballasting was extended, and the third rail and the carriage sidings walkways went in.

 

The nearest track is for the high level spur and has been fitted with third rail which will give more flexibility in train operations.

 

 

Rob has fitted the DC sub-station he built a while ago. The third rail is being fitted with dummy feed cables.

 

 

Our last layout SE28 included the shell of a former rotary substation but this time a more compact substation as been squeezed in between the mainline and spur line.

 

 

Brick sheeting, mainly Wills has been fitted to most of the retaining walls and the cap stone strips added. The lower track is on the incline where ballasting has now commenced.

 

 

Trunking has started to be laid, with cables showing where appropriate. The ballasting of the industrial branch leading to the top of the photo may be changed as it was started before the ballast colour of the goods yard area was considered. It will be tricky to re-ballast under the bridge just beyond the top right of the photo.

 

 

The parcels shed that covered part of a traverser on our last layout SE28 was drastically narrowed to be a low relief building but was too high to fit on the high level so we are going to try and fit it on the low level further along the backscene. As its got a loading bay the industrial branch may be modified to provide a siding to that bay.

 

I will try to get back to more regular updates from now on.

 

Lastly we are still after builder/operators so if you live in the Basingstoke area we can be contacted via the BNHMRS website.

 

Regards, Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society).

 

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Stuart and John S. have ballasted most of the goods yard:

 

 

A lot of the ballasting was done the day before this photo was taken when there were still white marks on some sleepers from the PVA glue.

 

As our clubs open day is on the 21st October probably next week we'll have to plug a DCC controller in and start checking/making the point blades move fully again.

 

 

Rob and John C. have been working on the chalk cutting including dirtying the chalk and adding debris at the bottom of the cutting. Vegetation is to be added on the top later.

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society)

[tjf4375]

This is looking really good, very nice trackwork and third rail - following with interest!

[NIK]

Hi,

 

No photos today but the layout is being prepared for our club's open day this Saturday 21st October.

 

http://www.basingstokemrs.org/open-day.html

 

 

As of the Thursday before last all the points bar two in the goods yard were working again after ballasting of the goods yard.

 

Hopefully adjusting the end stops using the MERG Servo4/Servoset will sort those two points that aren't throwing enough.

 

Otherwise we might have to resort to looking for ballast glue to remove.

 

Depending on Kernow deliveries we may have up to three 4-TC units running on Saturday. I've been told a 4-TC and Class 33/1 will fit in the off-scene interregional branch so might do for a Kensington Belle.

 

Hopefully the mainline operators will have Windows tablets providing JMRI touch screen displays of the state of the points out of sight on the high level tracks at the front of the layout.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society)

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Some photos of Beggarwood Lane from our societies open day on Saturday 21^st October.

 

 

Stuart and Chris standing by the fiddle yard running trains on the mainline.

 

One of the new Kernow 4-TCs made an appearance coupled to a Heljan Class 33/1 diesel (second track from back. The 4-TC had the latest version of the Bachmann 36-577 DCC decoder with 6 function outputs (from Alton Model Centre).

 

Some of the routes for sending a train back in to the same fiddle yard siding were missing which caused some problems.

 

One of the Windows tablets is just visible which shows the state of the points at the front of the layout. The tablets shut down early before the end of the open day so that will have to be looked at.

 

It may not be obvious from the above shot but I think we may have enough stock to fill the layout.

 

 

John S. operating the goods yard from the front of the layout. The ballast is John's own creation from a secret location in the Midlands. Routes were set up for the goods yard (all using single digit numbers to speed things up).

 

In the foreground are Chris's houses under construction.

 

 

Stuart investigating a fault. We had a problem with a connector to a point decoder and a point frog, and we found a few track feeds come unsoldered on the scenic boards.

 

However we did have a mystery short circuit when running 4-CEPs – including a boat train with 13 coaches which after the short circuit those DCC decoders with advanced consisting wouldn't respond despite the fact that I thought I'd used normal consisting.

 

The layout ran surprisingly well considering there had been no opportunity to test it before the open day and the layout had been rushed across to the scout hut before the bad weather arrived.

 

Some of the points that had been ballasted did not throw fully so will need further work.

 

We have about a page worth of observations written down so far so we will have to fix the problems when the relevant boards are accesible.

 

Finally the club is still looking for members and Beggarwood Lane could do with more builder/operators to get the layout finished and out on the exhibition circuit.

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway society)

 

Edited October 26, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Some more photos and video have turned up of the open day.

 

It looks as though they were taken when the goods yard operator was on his lunch break.

 

A Class 33/1 / 4-TC combo leaves the site of the station.

 

A VSOE special runs on the mainline.

 

Yes, the goods yard operator and NCE cab throttle normally located at the front of the layout are not in view.

 

A Class 33/1 / 4-TC combo leaves the fan of clockwise fiddle yard sidings. To the right of the loco is a loop that is currently used for stock but may have a programming track and Radio Frequency ID reader as part of  an auto staging fiddle yard.

 

Video (1).MOV

It may not be prototypical but a young guest operator shows that two trains can definitely run on the same track - not so easy as the cab throttle has only one set of speed controls.

 

The NCE Power Pro 5 can provide DCC @ 5 amps which is largely for the trains - which should be just enough to cope with 5 thirsty Heljan locos running at full speed. It copes fine with a couple of trains plus a boat train with four Bachmann motor bogies.

A spreadsheet was made to see that it was practicable to have a 5 amp DCC system with three 3 amp District Cutouts. The power districts were wired to the layout tracks in an arrangement to try and balance the current draw between the different districts and not exceed the 3 amp limit.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the BNHMRS Beggarwood Lane crew - still looking for builder/operators/club members).

[NIK]

Hi,

 

 

The retaining wall has been going in the first scenic board (board A).

 

The joints in the Wills moulded sheets have been smoothed with filler and plastic solvent.

 

 

Insulators and painted third rail are being added to Board B.

 

A jig is used to drill the holes in the sleeper ends at fixed spacings.

 

 

There was a discussion the other week about where the five third rail sparks flash units should go and in one case a third rail sparks flash unit could share its infra red detection with a signal. The position for the dual use infra red detector and the end of the third rail is marked with a D. The signal base is to the right.

 

Apologies for the darkness of the photos of the underside on one of the baseboards but imagine what it would have looked like if hadn't been painted white.

 

This show a recess to access the high level tracks on the embankment and is where signal infra red detector or third rail sparks flash unit/infra red detector will go.

 

 

And just to finish off this posting a picture of a prototype signal controller using the design of a proposed CBUS input/output kit from MERG.

 

With a bit of luck we may only need six of these for nine signals (eleven signals if you count the shunt signals on signal posts).

If the signals had been positioned differently we might have got away with less.

 

The design has a MERG CBUS interface so at a later date it may be possible to exchange send/feedback infra red detector and signal information with other parts of the layout. The MERG software is still being improved to give greater flexibility so a simple software configuration for the one prototype may be used initially.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the BNHMRS (Basingstoke area) including Beggarwood Lane crew - still looking for builder/operators).

Edited November 11, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

There's not been an update on Beggarwood Lane for a while not because there's not been a lot going on but its been more of the same working along the scenic boards one at a time doing the fiddly stuff that cant be done once static grass and buildings have been put on the front of the layout.

 

I can however show some videos of bench demos of electronics for Beggarwood Lane:

 

THIRD RAIL FLASH C 1.wmv

 

This shows a DIY third rail flash using a small and thin surface mount LED:

 

 

LED soldered to 2mm pitch connector. LED surround and connector are yet to be painted.

The LED is pluggable so it can be removed for upgrades and when electrostatic grassing is going on.

 

The LED is a white (5700K) SMD LED - its nothing like as blue as the video shows.

 

SIGNAL CONTROLLER A 3.wmv

 

Sorry  for the darkness and fuzzy nature of this next video but I had to turn off the room lights to emphasise the LEDs representing two Aspect signal.

 

The demo uses two boards of a MERG design that is going to be a kit (CANMIO) one takes the inputs from a MERG DCC accessory decoder and the other input from a MERG HECTOR2 Infra Red train position detector. The other board drives a Red and a Green LED for the signal.

 

The two boards are talking via MERG CBUS.

 

A range of MERG software for the CANMIO is still being developed and eventually I hope I can use just one board for inputs and outputs and doing more sophisticated signals.

 

CINEMA AND STATION SOUNDS B 1.wmv

This is the biggy and it goes up to 11.

 

This is a demo of a cinema screen and a station sound effects unit. The little white box contains a Raspberry Pi hobbyist computer.

 

When the power is turned on a video starts playing on a loop and when an appropriate address is selected on the layout DCC system the appropriate sound effect is played. In the demo the DCC info comes in wirelessly but there will be a wired option later.

 

The video clip shows a video of clouds playing, then one sound effect followed by another superimposed.

 

The speakers were recycled, the HDMI screen was £35 from china, the 270 degree HDMI adapter was a couple of quid and the short HDMI lead a quid.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the BNHMRS (Basingstoke & surrounds)  - still looking for new members)

Edited December 10, 2017 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

Its been a month since my last post on the club layout I help with.

 

Thats because we've been busy for three weeks running, testing and building with the whole layout up together thanks to the very kind use of a nearby big building.

 

 

We found a few wires had slipped out of terminal blocks after the move from the cold clubroom to a warm building.

 

There were also a few solder joints to the underside of rails had failed, possibly triggered by the cold in our clubroom (its not heated except for working sessions).

 

We also had some microswitches and piano wire go out of alignment on some points in the goods yard (the last points to be motorised).

 

After that the layout behaved itself.

 

The mimic panels and prototype sound effects/cinema player also behaved themselves and the newly laid third rail just needed a few tweaks.

 

I found out one reason why my boat train misbehaves – the 3x4-Ceps + MLV run at very different speeds. I will try adjusting the Vmax, Vmid and Vmin CVs to get the parts of the train running in unison otherwise I may have to use JMRI Decoder Pro's speed table editor in earnest.

 

There was time to do a few tests of the 1  in 40 gradient with 36” minimum curve – the three trains used all had no problems going up even a Lima 47 with shiny Ultrascale wheels (no traction tyres, no added weight) hauling 7 Bachmann Mk1 Bogie parcels vans. Haven't added magnets to any stock yet to take advantage of the DCC Concepts Powerbase installed under the gradient and onto the summit.

 

A mystery short circuit when some trains ran through the mainline junction on the clockwise circuit that appeared at the Open Day couldn't be identified and fixed. May need to improve the short circuit indicators to help diagnose very intermittent and elusive shorts.

 

Found a weird thing where one point wouldnt move depending on where it was in a route macro list. Did a bodge by moving the point to near the end of the macro route list and that seemed to fix it – but didn't have time to check if there were any knock on problems.

 

All in all lots of time for running stock including Christmas pressies to ourselves.

We may have removed some faults from the layout and confirmed it can come straight out of store and only need a few fault fixing sessions to get back to exhibition running standard.

 

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of the Beggarwood Lane crew (still looking for builder/operators) in BNHMRS (always looking for new members)).

Edited January 13, 2018 by NIK

[NIK]

Hi,

 

I haven't any photos to show but the third rail is almost all in place. Its a long winded task but hopefully it should be worth it.

 

Now the placement of the third rail flash units can be firmed up.

 

It was pointed out that the big flashes from the third rail occur when the electric train leaves the ramp at the end of a section of third rail and the train is under load (accelerating or going uphill).

 

This has led to the positions of some third rail flash units moving to less advantageous positions as regards viewing by exhibition visitors.

 

We've ended up with two flash units adjacent to one another. Although they might be able to use the same pair of MERG Hector2 Infra red detectors.

 

Also as the flash is when the train leaves the off ramp the standard Hector2 operation may not be possible - its output goes active when the train arrives and there seems to be a second delay after the train leaves the detector.

 

We might have to alter the Hector2, but as we also use them for setting signals back to Red and want to keep only one type of spare we may have to alter the alternative output of the Hector2.

 

In my last post I mentioned testing the gradient and 36" curve with a Lima 47 and 7 Bachmann Mk1 Parcels vans.

I've plugged some data for the train and track into an experimental gradient and curve calculator I've been working on.

This predicts the loco would need the gradient raised to 1 in 28 before it failed to haul the train up.

This is despite the loco now having no traction tyres, smooth Ultrascale wheels and only driving on two axles.

 

Experiments have been done interfacing the signal controllers so that JMRI can display the state of the signals on the mimic panels in addition to the points.

GIF Video

 

With help from MERG and the JMRI users group the aspects set by the signal controllers are displayed on the mimic panel. Usually people use JMRI to control signals directly so this is something a bit different.

 

We are using a MERG CBUS CANMIO board and Universal CANMIO firmware (still under development).

The CANMIO produces a CBUS event whenever an output changes and its these events that some JMRI Logix detect and set Virtual Signal Masts aspects.

 

Its our clubs own exhibition the weekend after next.

 

Regards

 

Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society)

 

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by NIK