Modern Depot Building Effects

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

I'm working through the design of a new small depot layout and I want a couple of things to feature on my Depot building:

 

1) Opening Doors - I would preferably like bi-folding doors, I can think of a concept of making the doors, but how to make them move is stumping me a bit.

2) Strobe Warning Lights - Once the doors are open and a loco ready to move, I would like some warning lights to activate, however, modern depots use strobe lighting rather than a simple flashing LED, are is there a 'scale' source of these?

 

Simon

[cliff park]

For the bi-folding doors think of a screw threadrunning along underneath the doors with a motor/gearbox  at one end. A nut on the thread is fixed to a spigot sticking down from the bottom edge of the door. As the motor turns the nut travels along the thread and pulls the door open. I will try and do a sketch.

[Tricky Dicky]

For a simple single bifold door probably the simplest way to drive it is to use a small DC motor with a gearbox driving a threaded bar. A simple nut on the threaded bar fixed so it cannot rotate will move along the bar in either direction depending on direction of rotation. Limit switches at either end can be used to prevent overruns. Servos can be used where small movements are required but a larger movement will need to be amplified through the linkages.

 

Your strobe effect can be achieved using an astable circuit, ones based on 555 timers are plentiful on the Internet, a bit of experimentation with a couple of components will get you the strobe effect you want.

 

Richard

[cliff park]

How's this