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Faller roadway - HELP needed, I mean really - HELP NEEDED!


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Hello

 

As some of you may know I have a 26ft x 10ft Chinese HO exhibition layout with a 20ft scenic section.

 

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Since day 1 of the concept there has been a Faller roadway running the whole length of the scenic section. I/we have installed a level crossing and various loops and points. I have invested in three vehicles and DCC and computer control and yet in my layout's first four exhibitions we have never really run the Faller system to any extent. We have just returned from Warley and we never even took the vehicles out of the boxes!

 

After Warley I posted on RMweb and asked for genuine feedback from visitors who had seen the layout and in particular suggestions for improvements. Ironically one of them was 'Have a Faller roadway along the front of the layout to amuse visitors when there are no trains'.  

 

The trouble is that none of my 'team' are Faller roadway enthusiasts. Nobody has any experience, nobody uses it on their own layout. What we need more than anyting is someone with loads of experience of running Faller for 8 hours a day at exhibitions, someone who can say what is and isn't practical. 

 

The railway has always given problems at exhibitions - partly because the layout is so big that we can only set it up at shows. We cannot easily set the whole layout up and test, test test as you can with a small home layout. So with the railway needing a minimum of 4 operators at a show we just haven't had the resources we need to monitor/improve the roadway.

 

A layout like mine will only get a finite number of exhibition invites - we have already used up four of them!! Our next show is at Aly Paly in March and we MUST get the Faller working properly by then. So, may I ask is there anyone living in/near Watford who would be prepared to make a site visit and help with this. I will admit that I have joined the Faller users' Facebook group but I feel that whilst forums are good/useful up to a point I think we need a physical visit to really appreciate the various (often conflicting) issues.

 

Let me make it clear that I am not necessarily asking for physical help (although I wouldn't turn down an offer of physical help!) it's more someone with experience of what we are trying to achieve coming to visit so that we can have a discussion of all the issues involved. Let's face it - I think we are trying to achieve something VERY ambitious considering our lack of experience with Faller. We need advice more than physical help but I feel that anyone can only appreciate all the conflicting issues when we can discuss them on site.

 

Please PM me or email me on teamyakima@hotmail.com or phone 01923 461941 or 07799728863 if you feel you would be able/prepared to help - Many thanks for reading all of this.

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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May be a long shot here. http://www.modelroadsandtramways.co.uk/faller-car-system.html is the website of Ron Boxall + ANother who specialise in the Faller system. Ron is Blackpool based but I believe his business partner is in Bedford. Not sure if they would do this for free, but Ron is one of the experts on the system.

 

 

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As I have said I am not technologically minded - DCC is a dark art to me!

 

Some years ago I/we bought this system but have never installed it. I have little idea how to exploit its potential. TBH I only bought it because I was told it would make the vehicles run at a slower, more realistic speed.

 

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The main issue on the roadway  is that it is 25ft long and 80% of it is a single lane track with dumbells at each end, So in practice we can only have one vehicle on the road at any given time. It goes out turns around and comes back.

 

But we have 4 vehicles and so we need a system which stacks the four vehicles in the dumbell at one end and releases the first one. When that one returns it releases the next one and so on and so on. That sounds very advanced to me, Is there such a system?

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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i use that system ans can run multiple vehicles at the same time,it is PC controlled via, i train.

You will need to do some work to the road way to make it work, as it uses induction for communicating with the vehicles. but when you have it set up it works great.

John.

 

 

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I have looked at that Dinamo system, and it is very clever, and can do exactly what you want. However, it does require more wires to be embedded in your roadways in addition to the magnetic wire used for steering. A control wire needs to run down each side of the road way, and it needs to form a continuous loop, so planning its installation is important (and may be too late for your layout).

 

Another alternative is DCCar. This involves fitting a DCCar decoder into each vehicle (about £60 each) and wiring in the lights and sirens, etc. At its most basic, a vehicle catching up another one will automatically slow down (illuminating brake lights) and follow at a safe distance. You can then add fixed transmitter LEDs that instruct vehicles to do things like start their turn indicators or illuminate headlights. Then you can add DCC transmitter LEDs that allow your existing DCC Command Station to send individual instructions to control speed, lights, etc. For basic operation, no further infrastructure changes are required. Adding LED beacons for further functionality should not be too destructive.

 

Then, there is Faller Digital. This uses overhead devices (disguised as orbiting satellites) that can work out the position of the vehicles, and send them instructions as required to avoid collisions.

 

 

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