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Hinksey Yard (c.2010)


Dave Searle
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We have now got hold of some more 2" square aluminium tube for the support beams. These are cut into six 80" lengths to make up two 20' rails to support the boards.

 

Two basic lengths:

 

post-203-0-80210900-1316503595.jpg

 

To join the beams together we have used some wooden "tongues" make from some 2" inch square oak that our tame carpenter had lying around in his workshop. These have been planed down to be a good sliding fit inside the aluminium tube and one end fixed to one tube with screws:

 

post-203-0-06145300-1316503597.jpg

 

post-203-0-95959000-1316503597.jpg

 

We were then able to place the beams on the trestles. In the longer term we will need to create mounting points or brackets on the trestles to maintain consistency and allow clearance to tighten up the bolts that join the boards together.

 

In the club room the floor is fairly level, but we will also need to introduce some means of ensuring that the beams are kept level before putting the baseboards on top, possibly by some screw adjusters or a set of shims.

 

post-203-0-20246000-1316503599.jpg

 

post-203-0-46529500-1316503600_thumb.jpg

 

And place the baseboards on top:

 

post-203-0-59996600-1316503601.jpg

 

One great advantage is that the beams make aligning the board ends much easier as they just slide into place. We haven't added anything (yet) to prevent the boards moving along or across the beams as the weight of the boards seems to be enough to keep things in place. We will probably review this later.

 

Finally a photo of my new toy (from Dapol).

 

post-203-0-97011300-1316503594.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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  • 4 weeks later...
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A quiet few weeks. We had a working Saturday recently which gave Phil the chance to make progress with the wiring. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for him, real life ("paid work") has taken precedence for the last few months so he hasn't been able to make as much progress as he would like with the mammoth task of wiring.

 

He focused on getting the remaining point motors in place and wired up. In particular the scissor crossovers at each end of the fiddle yard. These proved to be tricky as the point motors needed to be offset from each other so that they would fit. This meant that the operating wire had to be joggled so that it was offset and came up under the right part of the tie bar. This can be just seen on the left hand point motor here.

 

post-203-0-04600200-1318923023.jpg

 

Then the crossover had to be wired up - quite a lot of wires and I'm not sure it's finished yet.

 

post-203-0-00537900-1318923025.jpg

 

Here is a view of most of the wiring for one of the end boards. The other end board will be almost a mirror image.

 

post-203-0-28481100-1318923029.jpg

 

This is what the top of the same board looks like

 

post-203-0-66317900-1318924683.jpg

 

Meanwhile I have been doing some experiments with ballast, using Chinchilla dust as this is both fine enough and cheap in bulk. I've been using Johnson's Klear diluted with water and a drop of washing up liquid and sprayed on as a fine mist. I've also tried adding some watercolour paint to see if I can get some different colours. It is quite a slow process, as even using a commercial ballast spreader leaves quite a lot of tamping into place and tidying up with a dry paint brush before fixing can take place.

 

post-203-0-66949600-1318923021.jpg

 

Following a visit to a club member's house to inspect his outside lighting, we are now looking into the possibility of a LED strip for lighting the layout. These have around 300 high intensity LEDs in a 5 metre length and would only need a lightweight support structure. Given that they need to be at least 3 feet above the layout we hope they will provide adequate illumination.

 

We would love to hear from anyone who has used such lighting and whether it was effective, before we commit ourselves.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Following a visit to a club member's house to inspect his outside lighting, we are now looking into the possibility of a LED strip for lighting the layout. These have around 300 high intensity LEDs in a 5 metre length and would only need a lightweight support structure. Given that they need to be at least 3 feet above the layout we hope they will provide adequate illumination.

Marginal at best, I would say. Mine turned up from Honkers this morning, complete with French-style transformer plug (they obviously supply the right fitting for the destination without being asked). I have draped it over the battens about 32" above rail level, then turned off the 50w GU10 spots that are in the same location, and which I currently enjoy. The result is a lot less light, and you might find the Chris Nevards of this world sucking their teeth and having to use their own lighting-rig. Just as I find the 2.2w LED GU10 is clearly dimmer than the 50w version, so the LED strip is a step down again. Even doubling it over a section of layout doesn't bring it up to the level of the 50w GU10s, nor of the ordinary 36w fluorescent tubes I use elsewhere.

 

As a light for operating, it probably does nearly ok, but for construction, soldering etc, no way, and if the house lights at your venue or clubroom are nothing special, you will not find your layout being a beacon compared to others nearby. All that said, for £15 including postage, this is by no means a rip-off, being 5m long.

 

EDIT For anyone who feels the need for sub-baseboard lighting, this might be just the thing - well worth looking at, perhaps.

Edited by Oldddudders
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Hi Oldddudders,

 

Many thanks for that report of your experience.

 

I had noticed that there are different output levels from different LED light strips, but it does sound as if we need more light than these would provide. We may need to look at wire track systems, as I'm not keen on having to support the weight of fluorescent tubes.

 

Some more thinking needed.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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People are like moths at shows (scruffy smelly ones mostly) so lots of even light is best to attract. It also controls how the layout looks rather than how the designers of public buildings (who for some reason like high pressure sodium lighting like at Warley or Woking) want your layout to look.

 

I personally hate spotlights because they don't illuminate evenly creating pools of light and multiple shadows (and why do people frequently light from the rear? It puts the viewers view into shadow), they always look like an after thought clamped on here and there. Flu is the way (think County Gate and such), though what sort/colour of bulb is always a bit of a lottery but understand your limitations.

 

Maybe get a strip of the LEDs try try out, they could always find use in the fiddle yard if no good for the main layout? I've seen your workmanship with second best never being an option, so will be looking forward to seeing what you decide on!

 

<<edited to take note of extra post appearing whilst typing this one>>

Edited by Chris Nevard
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Thanks Chris, I am beginning to think that fluorescents are probably the way forward.

 

After looking at the Lighting Pelmet thread (http://www.rmweb.co....g-pelmet-design), I now have a 30W Halolite T4 tube and this looks quite promising - we'll probably need about 6 of these.

 

At the Tolworth show on Sunday, I had a good look at the lighting on the Crawley club's West Tilgate (which is a similar sized N gauge layout to Hinksey) to see what they had done. The pelmet controls where the light lands and splits into two part (which each then fold in half) for ease of transport and to protect the tubes. They have used standard sized tubes.

 

post-203-0-98647200-1321347557.jpg

 

This gives us some useful ideas.

 

In other news, David is making progress on the Carillion autoballasters. The transfer is just held on with bluetac at the moment to see how it looks.

 

post-203-0-95623600-1321347543.jpg

 

And Phil came along with the plan for the control panel.

 

post-203-0-86501900-1321347552.jpg

 

So some quiet progress is being made.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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Following the Carillion autoballaster last week, and spurred on by seeing the sample Farish JJAs at Warley, David has been pressing on with the transfers on the first of the Network Rail HQAs:

 

post-203-0-38700300-1322035930.jpg

 

These N Gauge Society kits are making up into some superb models. From this batch we will end up with 5 Carillion, 10 ex-Railtrack and 10 Network Rail versions. 25 wagon sounds like quite a lot, but we will probably need at twice that number eventually. When I mentioned that to David - he muttered something about having to get on with building his own layout :scratchhead:

 

I've made a start on plans for the site office/mess room, estimating sizes from Google Earth, Bing and photographs. The main building is some 55' x 10' with a secondary one 20' x 8'. The smaller one looks like a ribbed container, so that may provide a starting point for the model. The larger one will need to be built up with larger sides, windows and doors.

 

These are discretely tucked away behind a lattice fence about 130' long and about 9' high:

 

post-203-0-66459200-1322036704.jpg

 

I was thinking that plastic strip would be easiest for the lattice fence, but someone else suggested brass etches. Does anyone know of an existing range that has something suitable? Many thanks.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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Following the Carillion autoballaster last week, and spurred on by seeing the sample Farish JJAs at Warley, David has been pressing on with the transfers on the first of the Network Rail HQAs:

 

 

Nice looking HQA. Do the transfers come with the kit, or have they been specially obtained? (Interested from a 4mm point of view..................)

 

Cheers,

Mick

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These are discretely tucked away behind a lattice fence about 130' long and about 9' high:

post-203-0-66459200-1322036704.jpg

I was thinking that plastic strip would be easiest for the lattice fence, but someone else suggested brass etches. Does anyone know of an existing range that has something suitable? Many thanks.

Cheers,

Dave

Might be worth looking at the Scalelink range, perhaps some of the coarser meshes normally used for larger scales.

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Hi Mick,

 

The autoballaster kit is No.35 in the N Gauge Society range, and comes in four variants:

 

35a - Original KPA with two styles of Tiphook branding.

35b - JJA with Railtrack branding

35c - HQA with Railtrack branding

35d - HQA with Network Rail branding.

 

The decals are produced for the N Gauge Society by Microscale to artwork I drew up, and are included in the kit. The decal sheets include all markings required and numerous complete TOPS panels. Liveries, such as GTRM or Carillion, are not featured on the decal sheets.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

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Might be worth looking at the Scalelink range, perhaps some of the coarser meshes normally used for larger scales.

 

Hi Bernard, it looks as if there is a 2mm mesh that might be suitable.

 

Many thanks,

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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  • 1 month later...
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We've been quiet for a while.

 

Phil is is making progress on the electrics, but few of us realized the sheer volume of work going into it - the inter-baseboard connectors alone took 1000 soldered joints. A lot of the wiring we put in just to get the layout running for our show last April has either been stripped out and replaced or moved. For example, the inter-baseboard connectors are now under the scenic side of the layout rather than the fiddle yard.

 

He has now finished the basic wiring:

- the droppers from the rails to tag strips,

- the 60 point motors to tag strips

- most of the main control panel.

There is still the linking together of the tag strips, the fiddle yard controls and the LEDs for the main control panel.

 

I spent a day helping him over the Christmas break and we managed to do the droppers for the scenic side of one of the baseboards - here are before & after shots, above and below the board:

 

post-203-0-39126300-1325664696.jpg

 

The wires are added - blue (feed), black (common return) and green for switching the frogs:

 

post-203-0-77801900-1325664853.jpg

 

Then soldered up:

 

post-203-0-66302300-1325664862.jpg

 

post-203-0-34732000-1325664706.jpg

 

Each of the 60 point motors needs to be connected to its tag strip:

 

post-203-0-02505300-1325665788.jpg

 

The main control panel is coming along, the switches are wired up. Still to do are the LEDs to indicate the point settings (black dots in the first picture, white in the second) and some switches for uncoupling electromagnets.

 

post-203-0-16205400-1325665061.jpg

 

The control panel is designed to be mounted on the centre baseboard above the tracks. It is hinged to allow it to be lifted up to access any stock below. It controls the scenic side of the layout - the fiddle yard is controlled from two dedicated controller at each end of the yard.

 

There are 6 "zones":

- Red and black for the up and down main lines, controlled by the fiddle yard operators

- 4 zones for Hinksey yard itself (orange, purple, blue and green) which are switchable between any of the controllers: C & D for the scenic side & the 2 fiddle yard ones A & B.

 

Phil is a very neat wirer:

 

post-203-0-14265700-1325665070.jpg

 

He reckons that the control panel alone has taken over 50 hours so far.

 

Meanwhile, I've made a start on the site office trellising using Scalelink 2mm etches with 1mm square and 1mm x 0.5mm brass strip to create the framework.

 

post-203-0-10289500-1325666133.jpg

 

post-203-0-47200000-1325666142.jpg

 

So some progress, albeit quite slowly.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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I just read the thread from the top because I could not place the photos.

 

On the subject of LEDs - the power of the lighting you choose will be influenced by the inverse square law so if you decide to have the lighting rig around one metre above the layout, then you will need something really bright.

 

Here is a link to high power flexible LED strips similar to what I am using on my layout - http://www.ledlightsworld.com/high-density-smd-3528-flexible-led-strips-600-leds-p-157.html

 

This strip is still only 48W over five metres so more conventional lighting will still be more powerful. I used LEDs because my linked dioramas put the lighting at a height of under 500mm above the layout in a closed box. Enough light to take photos hand held and bright enough under normal room lighting (4 x 36W daylight fluoros). Clean white light because that is what I ordered. From memory I paid around $105 shipped out of HK into Australia. Not cheap but not hot either. Hot is the real enemy here when the summer temps get over 35 degrees C and 100% humidity the last thing you want to be doing is concentrating under heat lamps!

 

All my layouts will now get LEDs because the power is increasing all the time and they are tiny enough and light enough to be tucked away on lightweight pelmets. Doubling the strip will always help of course.

 

Do you have access to a colour temperature meter or the info from the manufacturers on actual light output in lumens or something so you are not just comparing the wattage. I always thought wattage was the drain from the plug - not the actual light power.

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Hi Ian,

 

Thanks for your suggestion, I've been doing some estimates for the light output required.

 

One a previous layout we had four 150W floodlights over a layout length of about about 3.25 meters. Each bulb was rated at 2100 lumens and gave a good, bright, lighting effect.

 

Making some assumptions:

- that the light was spread fairly evenly

- we will be putting the lighting on this layout at about the same distance from the track level.

I estimate that we need a lighting level of about 2.5 lumens/mm to get the same level of lighting (a total near 13,500 lumens for the 5.4 meters of visible layout).

 

Looking at some figures from the Screwfix catalogue for some T4 and T5 fluorescent tube fittings, this could be nearly achieved with six 849mm 21W Sylvania T5 tubes (2,100 lumen each giving 12,600 in total) or six 747mm 30W T4 Halolite tubes (1,800 lumens each giving 10,800 in total). These would cost around £90-100.

 

I am trying to work out what the light output actually is for the LED strips that your link pointed at - there is a figure of 505 lumens for 6.54W, but the strip is rated at 48W. so is that 3,700 lumens (0.74 lumens/mm)? I've seen some other 5m LED strips that give a lighting level of around 1.2 lumens/mm. Unfortunately these cost around £250 each and we would need 2 to get near the 2.5 lumens/mm level.

 

So the jury is still out :)

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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This is from hero-ledstore.com -

 

  • 5 Metre Long 8mm Wide 2mm High


  • Can be dimmed with part number CT110RF or DIALDIM


  • 1800 Lumen per 5 meter


  • 300 Leds per strip


  • CE & RoSH Certified


  • Much more brighter than Standard SMT Light strips
  • When purchased - strips are packed in 5 meter per tape


  • (Maximum supplied Joined strips is 5 Metres)


  • 5M self Adhesive tape on reverse, non-waterproof


  • Can be trimmed and joined every three leds 50 mm


  • 120' Viewing Angle


  • Colors Available : Cool White / Warm White / Red / Green / Blue / Yellow


  • 2amp Power consumption (2000ma) 24 Watts


  • 12 Volts DC


  • Upto 5 metres can be joined together


  • 1 Year Warranty


It appears that you would need three strips (a total of 72W) to gain 5400 lumens output over five metres or six strips to come up to the lighting levels you are trying to achieve. Each strip costs $35 US so still not the cheapest option then. But the benefits are much smaller and lighter pelmet rigs, almost no heat, much less susceptible to damage in transit, and probably slightly better colour temperature output. The strips I purchased had a light output of 36W per five metres using 5050 LEDs but cost $76 US plus postage.

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Hi Ian,

 

Many thanks for that information. I've found a place (Flexfireleds.com) offering 5m strips outputting 5,200 lumens (600 LEDs per strip), so two of those would work, However, they are £128 each.

 

I agree that they will be much easier to support over the length we need.

 

I'll do some more searching and see what our budget is for lighting.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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  • 3 months later...

Your diving loco wasn't a 66 perchance? I find, with the Farish ones at least, that the lifeguards that project downwards ahead of the wheels will catch on the slightest upward step in the rail and stop the train dead (amazingly not snapping the lifeguard!).

 

Regarding wobbles on points, these seem to be unavoidable for current British N gauge stock on Peco pointwork - something to do with the points having to accommodate older and coarser wheels I think. I've had interesting events where the front of a train being propelled catches in a point but the loco carries on by compressing all the coupling springs, until the resistance is overcome and the front end suddenly jumps forward.

 

I did notice the other day on my own layout using code 80 points that wheels dip at the frog as if they were going into a pot-hole, will be looking at filling that slightly

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Hi Dave

 

How's it going?

 

NESCOT was being discussed on another thread, and it reminded me that I saw this layout at the same show last year and was very impressed as you know!

 

Any more updates?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

 

Hi Ben,

 

I need a slightly embarrassed/sheepish grin smiley :blush: After all the activity earlier, we've rather ground to a halt.

 

We're waiting for the Phil to finish the wiring. He got a full-time contract job in January and work on the wiring stopped, The contract has now finished and he has restarted the wiring. Visitors to the Alexandra Palace may have seen the control panel on the club's demo stand there.

 

In the interim we've done a few small things, but not really worth reporting. I've started on the site office and we're looking into the two northern footbridges. Bill's started making some trees. David's nearly finished the autoballasters.

 

Hopefully Phil will get the wiring finished soon and we can then start some scenic work.

 

Co-incidentally, I received today a large parcel from the excellent NGS shop containing 10 Osprey, 10 Salmon and 5 Mullet kits, so the project is still alive, if not very active.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

About to head off to help the NESCOT setup.

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Hi Dave

 

No probs - the wiring is a major undertaking and needs doing properly.

 

I hope you enjoy the Ospreys, Salmons and Mullets! I have a few to do too... really must pull my own finger out!

 

I look forward to your next posting whenever it comes!

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

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  • 3 months later...
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Hi,

 

After a long period of relative quiet, things have begun to move again on the layout.

 

At a recent working Saturday we built the main span of the lighting fascia. This is a single span of 20 ft built out of three sections firmly bolted together. The fascia is 4mm birch ply on a framework of timber. This will probably be supported on a pair of timber supported fixed to each end of the layout. When we built this, the layout itself was unavailable, as it was still at Phil's house being wired.

 

The basic parts and a rear view:

post-203-0-07245100-1344497187.jpgpost-203-0-77969100-1344497198_thumb.jpg

 

The front being ably supported by the team:

post-203-0-25265600-1344497206.jpg

 

The rear showing minimal sag when only supported at the ends:

post-203-0-36263000-1344497218.jpg

 

This Monday Phil returned the boards with the wiring complete and just needing some final testing in a fully assembled configuration.

 

The control panel mounted above the fiddle yard (it hinges up for access):

post-203-0-25688300-1344498742.jpg

 

The rear of the panel:

post-203-0-03572300-1344498665.jpg

 

The undersides of the boards, somehow I managed to photograph some boards the opposite way round to others.

 

Board 1

post-203-0-13055200-1344498803.jpg

 

Board 2

post-203-0-14899700-1344498822.jpg

 

Board 3 - the central one, which is underneath the control panel:

post-203-0-44998900-1344498813.jpg

 

Board 4:

post-203-0-51976600-1344498837.jpg

 

Board 5:

post-203-0-01718400-1344498830.jpg

 

As you can see a lot of wire and wiring has gone into this (& I forgot to photograph the fiddle yard control panels). So many thanks to Phil for all his hard work. There are still some LEDs to be added to the panel and another power supply to be built.

 

We've got some acceptance testing to do and then we can make some more progress.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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