smallman28 Posted June 23, 2020 Author Share Posted June 23, 2020 Ordered a load of the Woodland Scenics lighting stuff. Put the 3 lights in the depot area, got some nano lights that will light 3 buildings in the town area as well as a few others. The wires on the lamposts are so dam fiddly and you can barely see them They connect into an adapter that then allows them to be plugged into a "hub", each hub has 4 ports and cause the 3 lights are connected together they only take up one port, leaving 3 free. Each port also has it's own brightness control as well. Got some stick on LEDs, might use one of them to light the fuelling point but they are a bit bulky looking so we will see. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted June 26, 2020 Author Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) Well I know I am late to the party but got my Dapol class 68 today. All I can saw is wow, presentation beats Bachmann hands down and the loco feels so heavy compared to the Bachmann class 37 I already have. The sound was deafening loud and I have turned it down a lot and it still drowns out the 37, I think the 37 needs a much better speaker though, pretty sure that is what is holding it back. Was also surprised by the length of the 68, for some reason I had it in my head that it was shorter then the 37, don't why I thought that though as I never checked the measurements, perhaps it was the BO-BO wheel arrangement that made me think that. Edited June 26, 2020 by smallman28 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted June 26, 2020 Author Share Posted June 26, 2020 Wiring them up properly will have to wait for another day, just too hot at the minute to do anything other than sit in front of the fan 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted June 27, 2020 Author Share Posted June 27, 2020 Spent the day "tidying" the wiring for the lights, if you can call it tidy Power goes into an expansion hub first...... ......and from there out into two light hubs, this is where the lights plug directly into. Each port has it's own brightness control and if you plug a switch into the CTRL port you can switch the entire group of lights on/off. The light hub for the depot area is underneath the board, this one is for the town area. Lots of hot glue to hold the wires in place, useful but messy! The spare port on the town hub will be for some street lights that are to follow. I might put another hub in as well yet as the middle of the board might get a couple of lights purely cause it is so dark compared to each end. The whole system is pretty good but some wires are too fiddly and some are waaaaaayyyyyyy to long! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted July 4, 2020 Author Share Posted July 4, 2020 (edited) Ordered a 12v 2amp power supply that I was hoping would be man enough to switch the points as well as power the one signal. All the points work fine except the one with the signal associated with it, there is a PL-13 switch mounted to the point motor to switch the signal but the extra "drag" from it is stopping the point firing reliably Therefore I have also ordered a big CDU, 18800uf, that I am hoping will overcome the problem, just have to wait and see now when it arrives. Took the top off the class 37 the other week and proceeded to rip the speaker wires off the circuit board at the same time, took the opportunity to fit a slightly better speaker but as a result I have had to remove the exhaust fan assembly to get the top back on. On the plus side between the new speaker and removing the fan assembly the volume has gone up by about 25-30% and now it can complete with the class 68 although the volume is set on maximum compared to just under half for the class 68 Edited July 4, 2020 by smallman28 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted August 2, 2020 Author Share Posted August 2, 2020 Had to replace a point that if i am honest was always a problem that I should have dealt with sooner. Originally it was glued down but when I ballasted around it the PVA mix softened the glue enough that it lifted off the board, I did fix it back down but as a result it was slightly "humped" in the middle where the ballast had got under it. This had the effect of causing the class 37 to stall on the point over the insulated section and the class 68 to short on it, I solved the short by snipping out a section just before the point to remove the power to the V section although it then left a little bit of track "loose" as there was no fishplate holding the join together anymore. I got fed up with it and trying to bodge around it so in a fit of rage (sometimes the best way) I ripped it out along with a couple of other bits of track. I also removed the 3 loco storage sidings under the town area, now there is just a single straight track, again due to issues I had just been living with. Of the 3 original sidings I could only use 2 and only 1 of those correctly as the points were directly after the tunnel mouth and both locos clipped the edge of the inner tunnel walls while negotiating them. When I first built it the town area wasn't there so it wasn't a problem but in building support for the town section at the tunnel end I created the problem myself, also it didn't help by having no locos or rolling stock to check clearances with when it was built. Anyway, changed it over and need to re-ballast it now, but it has improved the reliability of the layout no end and now I can actually enjoy it rather than getting frustrated by it. On a different note I have also built a 4ft x 4ft layout, nothing fancy, just a basic circle with a couple of points on. Only reason was cause I couldn't actually run the trains round as it were, just backwards and forwards. It is surprising how differently the locos behave in terms of the sounds they make when they get a good run, totally different to just going slowly backwards and forwards. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew liszka Posted August 2, 2020 Share Posted August 2, 2020 Hi smallman 28 the circle of track is a good idear to keep the locos running smooth it's one of the reason I didnt want to build a end to end in the garden room and I'm going to build a two part roundy roundy I did buy a rolling road but isn't the same as a good thrash round a circuit of track , glad you sorted your track problems . 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted August 10, 2020 Author Share Posted August 10, 2020 New point bedded in quite nicely, think it was a good idea to paint the board black first, helps hide any gaps in the ballasting Also a bit of sun on the layout makes it look totally different, under artificial direct light you can see every little bit "wrong" little gaps in the ballast, slight bit of grass missing, for some reason in natural light it looks different, it all seems to blend together so much better. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted August 12, 2020 Author Share Posted August 12, 2020 Some new to me wagons today, wanted some of these for a long time, remember when I first saw them I was still doing N gauge. Would like at least one more weathered one and perhaps one pristine 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JackB95 Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 Lovely little layout! Just caught up with the work you've done. That 68 looks brilliant on it too. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 Tidy layout you have there . nice one 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted August 16, 2020 Author Share Posted August 16, 2020 Few more little steps forward Phone box now added to the town scene, was looking at lighting this but it was way to see-through even with the LED on the lowest setting I could get, also not helped by the fact that it was virtually impossible to paint it on the inside to reduce it's transparency. Need some street lights still as the lighting is very unbalanced with the majority of illumination being towards the depot end. Got another 4 Accurascale bufferstops so now all the sidings are lit. Also got a Gaugemaster PSU to power the points, I had previously been using an old rechargeable battery I had left over from my days of building RC cars but that was never a long term solution, mostly cause I had no way of recharging it! Still need a fence of some sort between the town and the drop onto the tracks, might get a couple more trees for this area as well as possibly some billboards. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman28 Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 Newest addition No sound on this one just yet, just got the bare loco and decoder, Bachmann 66065 in EWS re-branded to DB, got it cause it was pre-weathered and relatively cheap at just over £100. Will go with Legomanbiffo sound when the time comes. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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