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Whats on your 2mm Work bench


nick_bastable
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On 05/08/2020 at 17:20, queensquare said:

Well it was on my 2mm bench a few weeks ago but out now and in your local newsagent soon is MRJ 279, the 2mm special edition featuring a fascinating article by the Prof on over thirty years working on CF - get on with it chaps!!

Lots of other 2mm content as well.

 

Jerry

 

20200805_170513.jpg.90a28b94d21450f0c509752c8cd14b6c.jpg

20200805_170558.jpg.3a4ffcb3c0bef7fb159586ce65966f7c.jpg

 

 

 

 

Very pleased to find my copy in the letterbox today. Only time for a flick through but looks good. Now that will keep me away from the workbench for a bit.

 

Don

 

 

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14 hours ago, Donw said:

 

 

Now that will keep me away from the workbench for a bit.

 

Don

 

 

 

Hi Don.

 

I thought for a moment that as you were posting in the workbench thread you were posting something about your modelling!

 

Please show me what you are upto? I would love to see.

 

Julia.

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At the moment I have some 4mm trackwork for someone else to complete. For my self I have been building DCC systems and also trying someone electronic frog polarity switch design. I have built the base station using some open source code,  an Arduino and a motor shield for about £13. If you want to drive it fom a laptop just download JMRI (free) and plug it into the serial port and bingo  the JMRI comes with throttles and panels built in you can add a phone throttle over wifi too.

However I want to have a physical throttle so I am building some. I have gathered some bits a ketpad an LCD  or a OlED display (I will try both) with an Arduino pro micro or something similar. I am currently writing the code using whatever library functions I can find to speed things up. Once I get the basic one working I plan to insert a 433Mhz link to make it cordless. Wifi would work exceppt that at exhibitions wifi has been a failure. I think it is due to the hundreds of people wandering round with smartphones in their pocket. No doubt all have the wifi switched on so the phone is trying to find any wifi access point it can just jamming up the 2.4Ghz wavebands.

Of course with the long light nights and plenty to get done outside time at the workbench has been limited   

I am hoping it may be possible to squeeze sound into a 2mm loco. I have an idea that a nice sene with some suitable background sounds. Then a loco comes through pulling a train stops in the station  etc. could really create the atmosphere of long ago when I cycled out to various lines.

Thank you for your interest Julia

 

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On 07/08/2020 at 13:10, Lacathedrale said:

Finally getting around to building the Masterclass models 24' GWR brake as an AA13:

 

5RQHPEa.png

 

To be honest, I doubt this looks ike much to most of you,but for me it feels like a bit of a watershed - all of the lessons learned and advice proffered over the last while seem to have come together to make this such a pleasure to build - @Caley Jim's suggestion of using solder paint, Nick Mitchell's suggestion for attaching the axle boxes and THEN filing off the connective joint, @queensquare's advice to file down the bearing cups to fit into the Masterclass solebar overlays and the list just goes on.  When I first bought it, I looked at the etched sheets and felt like running a mile!

 

I don't think the axle boxes are perfect - without any positive register it was a challenge - but they 'feel' right. I think this is also the first wagon I've built with solebar overlays that went on with them aligned in all three dimensions without spreading out too.

 

An thus hubris rightly strikes me down - I didn't think to check a photograph and have soldered the solebars underneath and behind the axleboxes, instead of infront of them:

 

image.png.38afee637825a9b7f9a3007a57625ff6.png

 

The correct position is shown below:

 

image.png.ff143cf5eefc24f99edade8b34b4b2ef.png

 

The angle irons are just to hold the footboard in place while I drill and mount wire/rod supports - but i am a little nervous of the entire axlebox floating off particularly now I've removed the connecting tabs. Entirely my fault and I have nobody to blame but myself! Is there any particular technique I should consider?

 

 

Edited by Lacathedrale
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23 hours ago, Donw said:

At the moment I have some 4mm trackwork for someone else to complete. For my self I have been building DCC systems and also trying someone electronic frog polarity switch design. I have built the base station using some open source code,  an Arduino and a motor shield for about £13. If you want to drive it fom a laptop just download JMRI (free) and plug it into the serial port and bingo  the JMRI comes with throttles and panels built in you can add a phone throttle over wifi too.

However I want to have a physical throttle so I am building some. I have gathered some bits a ketpad an LCD  or a OlED display (I will try both) with an Arduino pro micro or something similar. I am currently writing the code using whatever library functions I can find to speed things up. Once I get the basic one working I plan to insert a 433Mhz link to make it cordless. Wifi would work exceppt that at exhibitions wifi has been a failure. I think it is due to the hundreds of people wandering round with smartphones in their pocket. No doubt all have the wifi switched on so the phone is trying to find any wifi access point it can just jamming up the 2.4Ghz wavebands.

 

 

This sounds super interesting Don - I'd love to see how you get on with the throttle. 

 

I put together a DCC++ base station using the Ardunio Uno and original code, plus a RaspberryPi running a headless setup of JMRI to use WiFi throttles over the house Wifi, but that seems like a bit of an inefficient solution! So I recently got a Uno format ESP-32 board and another motor shield to use the forked ESP-32 DCC++ code by "Atani", to try and aim for a neater setup.

 

It looks like the team who are now developing the DCC++ code base are also looking at a throttle solution: https://dcc-ex.com 

 

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Suffice it to say Jery that if you are interested you can get as good if not better results than using commercial systems if you build your own. I didn't mean to clutter up the 2mm workbench topic. I will probably start a thread on my own to cover the topic as people seem interested. I will just put a link in here when I do. 

 

Don

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3 hours ago, queensquare said:

Sometimes you read a post and you can count the words you understand on one hand!! :scratch_one-s_head_mini:

From his comment, I suspect that Jerry, like me, is 'a bear of little brain' when it comes to matters electronic and digital!

 

Jerry, forgive me if I misjudge you!

 

Jim

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8 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

The angle irons are just to hold the footboard in place while I drill and mount wire/rod supports - but i am a little nervous of the entire axlebox floating off particularly now I've removed the connecting tabs. Entirely my fault and I have nobody to blame but myself! Is there any particular technique I should consider?

Have you soldered the footsteps to the W-irons?  If so, I would suggest fitting a wooden clothes peg, of the sprung variety, over the axlebox and W-iron to hold them together while apply the soldering iron to the step and ease it off the W-iron with the point of a knife.  I haven't tried it, but it would be what I would try if I was in that position.  just watch you don't disturb the peg before you take away the soldering iron and let things cool.

 

HTH

 

Jim

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1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

From his comment, I suspect that Jerry, like me, is 'a bear of little brain' when it comes to matters electronic and digital!

 

Jerry, forgive me if I misjudge you!

 

Jim

 

Nope, I'd say that's about spot on Jim!

 

jerry

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OMWB right now is the as yet unnamed layout. This is a card sandwich base and a cut and paste track plan, regarding which I’d welcome any comments. The layout is based roughly on Templefields, a 4mm terminus layout that greatly appealed to me, and happens to fit (in 2mil) into the tiny space I have available at the moment, which is on a bookshelf unit shelf. I’m thinking of some kind of cassette system to handle the fiddling. The 37 just fits between the crossover and the buffers, and will be the longest loco I will have here. There will be an island platform, a warehouse loading bay on the back line, which also has a turnout to an offstage something. The other line on the platform is parcels and stabling line. The turnouts are all B6, one of which is half built. 
 

if all goes to plan there will be at least one trick in the tail of this layout, but that can wait.

 

The paper templates are from a previous templot plan, but the pc has given up, and everything else we have is Apple, so this will have to do.


Thanks for looking

 

John

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DEB955EC-7268-4742-88D7-8E47289A70C9.jpeg

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“The paper templates are from a previous templot plan, but the pc has given up, and everything else we have is Apple, so this will have to do.“

 

If you have a Mac of some kind - and not iPad/iPhone - then Templot will run on it via Wine as with other Win progs/apps. I use the free WineBottler version on an older Mac Pro I have when using it.

 

Izzy

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5 hours ago, Donw said:

Suffice it to say Jery that if you are interested you can get as good if not better results than using commercial systems if you build your own. I didn't mean to clutter up the 2mm workbench topic. I will probably start a thread on my own to cover the topic as people seem interested. I will just put a link in here when I do. 

 

Don

It's not just a question of interest Don - skill and knowledge comes into it as well, and I have never been able to get my head around electronics (despite the best efforts of my A-level Physics teacher many years ago) so I have a lot of respect for anyone who can design and build their own controller and it would be good if you do post a link here to your topic.

 

Andy

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2 hours ago, Izzy said:

“The paper templates are from a previous templot plan, but the pc has given up, and everything else we have is Apple, so this will have to do.“

 

If you have a Mac of some kind - and not iPad/iPhone - then Templot will run on it via Wine as with other Win progs/apps. I use the free WineBottler version on an older Mac Pro I have when using it.

 

Izzy

Thanks Izzy, I only have an iPad at the mo. It does almost everything I need.

 

i don’t think this really needs Templot, it’s mostly straights and Easitrac pegged turnouts. I am rather inspired by your Priory Road articles though, thanks.

 

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15 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Have you soldered the footsteps to the W-irons?  If so, I would suggest fitting a wooden clothes peg, of the sprung variety, over the axlebox and W-iron to hold them together while apply the soldering iron to the step and ease it off the W-iron with the point of a knife.  I haven't tried it, but it would be what I would try if I was in that position.  just watch you don't disturb the peg before you take away the soldering iron and let things cool.

 

HTH

 

Jim

 

Hi Jim, I managed to get it moved only dislodging one of the axleboxes. I think I must have used the wrong axlebox covers though (there are two designs on the etched sheet) as the footboards required filing to fit over them. Overall I'm fairly happy - it does require a good clean-up now though:

 

dOGqpFO.png

 

One thing I've come to realise is how sensitive the human eye is to parallel lines!

Edited by Lacathedrale
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22 hours ago, 2mm Andy said:

It's not just a question of interest Don - skill and knowledge comes into it as well, and I have never been able to get my head around electronics (despite the best efforts of my A-level Physics teacher many years ago) so I have a lot of respect for anyone who can design and build their own controller and it would be good if you do post a link here to your topic.

 

Andy

 

It is much less about knowing how components work these days the clever stuff is usually inside Integrated Circuits. A big part of it these days is programming microprocessors. 

Don

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On 10/08/2020 at 23:59, John57sharp said:

Thanks Izzy, I only have an iPad at the mo. It does almost everything I need.

 

i don’t think this really needs Templot, it’s mostly straights and Easitrac pegged turnouts. I am rather inspired by your Priory Road articles though, thanks.

 

 

A bendy strip to get a smooth alignment from turnout to turnout can be a help. Thin strip wood that can be held down with drawing pins is useful.  Get the wood aligned with the turnouts at the ends avoiding any kinks and it will take up a sooth curve between them.

Don

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28 minutes ago, Donw said:

 

A bendy strip to get a smooth alignment from turnout to turnout can be a help. Thin strip wood that can be held down with drawing pins is useful.  Get the wood aligned with the turnouts at the ends avoiding any kinks and it will take up a sooth curve between them.

Don

Thanks Don, good tip.

 

John

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Hi well ......... It's certainly been a while but I've got the Beames out again .Long story really .l started it ages ago but I just could not get it to work try as I might .In the end I asked Keith Glousester if he could have a look at it for me I'd given up .It seems that the hole in the middle of the gear wheel wasn't square to the gear .Keith very kindly took the chassis apart and also re drilled the gear and put an insert into it .It now moves really nicely .The only problem is that the motor has stopped working .So I'll get a new one .I did do a short video of it being moved by the jinty but I can't seem to load it on here .

It would be nice to be able to get thr 0-8-2 version

john

image.jpeg

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Hi Coal Tank,

 

Adding buffers to a model always seem to bring it to life.

I do have to question the buffers though, they look distinctly like Webb buffers? 

The 0-8-4 Beames tanks were outshopped just before grouping so would have had the later Whale type buffers which look considerably different.

 

The Whale buffers are available from the association shop:-

 

image.png.8114b7d0cb7467bc3ef6b291febf8cd0.png

 

Then again checking images on line I'm wrong!

 

e8gs_1.jpg

 

So what do I know!

Edited by Argos
To correct my first assumption.
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A bit of a virtual workbench update from me. A few weeks ago, I visited Hadley Wood station with my father to measure up what remained of the original station. The amounted to the bridge piers and stairways, the original station building and waiting rooms having long been demolished. However some very useful things were discovered during the visit, the most surprising of which were the remains of the original canopy supports still being in place along the stairwells. From these, I could work out the original length of the waiting rooms.

 

I've still got several things to identify and work out, along with a couple of revisions to make. However, I'm pleased with just how much I've been able to piece together for the visit and several photographs taken prior to the rebuilding works (not by me, I wasn't about then!).

 

P1010402.JPG.66a33cac5c6a9655375635b886fbc593.JPG

 

261056965_HadleyWoodStationFrontElevation.jpg.1436b81a90e1dd625e69314b2730bbfe.jpg

 

2046322910_HadleyWoodStationSideElevation.jpg.98a03e5c49c22b4f8c32f34e819ab0f8.jpg

 

718318569_WaitingRooms.jpg.da4c5f92eeb1de2ccaba30b2b97656e4.jpg

 

Hopefully, I'll be able to think about building the model in the not to distant future.

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I've also had a look at the Princes, I am determined to make a success of this engine although the valve gear is a little daunting .ive just tak soldered the roof on for the moment and put the cab side wings in place .I seem to have lost a few bits which might be a problem so we will see what happens .Meanwhile back to the Beames 0-8-4 tank 

john

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