Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Sorry to read your woes, as for getting underneath for fitting Point Motors, well That's now a no no for me as well, to much like hard work.

 

All the best for the NEW WEEK.

Thanks Andy. It was just one of those days really - the sort where you should really stop and think as soon as things don't go quite right, but instead you just plough on regardless through sheer stubbornness. I'm sure when I come back to it and try again (not next weekend as we are busy for Easter) it will all go more smoothly.

[Barry O]

Remember the old saying..

 

when it all goes t"ts up.. have a pint!

 

 

Baz

[nerron]

The last straw was when my soldering iron, with its stand, fell off the baseboard and landed on the floor. The weight of the stand bent the iron, which damaged the heating element so it stopped working. At that point, having installed three and a half motors out of a planned eight, I gave up.

I thought that only happened to me! It takes such a mishap to bring one to end the stubbornness of continuing when a break is clearly needed.

[Andy R]

A frustrating day today.

 

The first task was to try out a point motor on DCC using the accessory bus I installed last week. That went very well, with the decoder being an absolute piece of cake to program. Operating the motor through the decoder using the accessory address also went well and I have now mapped the frog switching contacts to the solenoid outputs on the decoder terminal block.

 

The next task didn't go so well and the afternoon turned into one of those sessions when almost anything that could go wrong did. The plan was to fit point motors to the Paddington Down end points. However, the shorter throw of the H&Ms compared to the SEEPs I have used recently meant that I needed a smaller loop on the tiebar, so I changed all those. As I was doing this, on a couple of the tiebars (on the old recycled points) the copper delaminated from the substrate. This meant making up new tiebars - not a hard job but time wasted.

 

Getting the points motors to stay centralised while marking out and fitting them was not easy. I tried using Blu-Tak to hold the armature in place but this didn't really do the job so some of the points didn't throw cleanly both ways on first fitting, leading to some faffing about with the motor position. Before fitting any more motors I need to find a better way. I might make up some wedges or spacers to go between the main operating pin and the armature cheeks to hold the pin central. Alternatively, I might make a jig to simplify the marking out without actually needing to use the motor itself at all. That will occupy this week's airport and hotel thinking time I reckon.

 

This is also the first time for many years (since the loft layout in fact) that I have had to install point motors from underneath the baseboards without being able to turn them over. I had forgotten how awkward that can be - or perhaps it's just age catching up with me.

 

The last straw was when my soldering iron, with its stand, fell off the baseboard and landed on the floor. The weight of the stand bent the iron, which damaged the heating element so it stopped working. At that point, having installed three and a half motors out of a planned eight, I gave up.

 

Hi

I have just been through this exact scenario in my exercise to retrofit Hawkinsfield Junction storage yard point motors and I have absolute sympathy with your sentiments here...it s bu...er of a job, getting tangled underneath the layout and trying to fix them into position to get good results I found very hard, hot work.

 

regards, Andy R

[St Enodoc]

Remember the old saying..

 

when it all goes t"ts up.. have a pint!

 

 

Baz

Or the other old saying "Cheer up - things could be worse" so I cheered up and they were.

[St Enodoc]

I thought that only happened to me! It takes such a mishap to bring one to end the stubbornness of continuing when a break is clearly needed.

Indeed it does Ron. Fortunately I can get the exact same model (Antex 25W) from Element 14 (formerly Farnell) - usual disclaimer - so all should be well again soon.

[Michael Edge]

I made a drilling jig for Seep point motors, a brass plate with two holes for the screw positions and a wire to fit in the tiebar. Sit this on the track and drill pilot holes from the top, then fit the motor first time from below. Beware of the asymmetic position of the screw holes in the Seep base though.

[St Enodoc]

I made a drilling jig for Seep point motors, a brass plate with two holes for the screw positions and a wire to fit in the tiebar. Sit this on the track and drill pilot holes from the top, then fit the motor first time from below. Beware of the asymmetic position of the screw holes in the Seep base though.

Thanks Mike, that's a great idea. I can see now (light bulb moment) that I had been too focussed on the idea of marking out from below, which is what made it so difficult. I will go ahead with the jig I was thinking about yesterday but using it from above, which will be a darned sight easier and therefore less likely to go t"ts up as Barry said. As you will have seen I'm now using good old H&Ms not SEEPs so the hole positions shouldn't be a problem.

 

Another thing I've just thought of is that it will be much easier to make sure the motor armature is parallel with the tiebar.

 

Thanks again - I will report progress in a couple of weeks.

 

(Actually, I might not even need the jig. I could mark out and drill direct through the motor mounting holes from above...).

Edited March 21, 2016 by St Enodoc

[Andrew P]

You'll need the Motor up side down, the holes are not central.

[Barry O]

A jig seems a good idea - Mike Edge has one for tortoises which makes fitting them a far easier task when sitting on the floor looking up at the baseboard with Varifocal on! Oh the joys of getting older!

 

Edited - crossed posts with Mike!

Edited March 21, 2016 by Barry O

[Andrew P]

A jig seems a good idea - Mike Edge has one for tortoises which makes fitting them a far easier task when sitting on the floor looking up at the baseboard with Varifocal on! Oh teh joys of getting older!

Barry, You'll need to do a Dennis Taylor, (the Snooker Player) and wear your Glasses up side down, I don't though, I just give up.

[Barry O]

Andy

 

I got a set of plain reading glasses which are Ok for working under the baseboards but no good for walking around in!

[Michael Edge]

Thanks Mike, that's a great idea. I can see now (light bulb moment) that I had been too focussed on the idea of marking out from below, which is what made it so difficult. I will go ahead with the jig I was thinking about yesterday but using it from above, which will be a darned sight easier and therefore less likely to go t"ts up as Barry said. As you will have seen I'm now using good old H&Ms not SEEPs so the hole positions shouldn't be a problem.

 

Another thing I've just thought of is that it will be much easier to make sure the motor armature is parallel with the tiebar.

 

Thanks again - I will report progress in a couple of weeks.

 

(Actually, I might not even need the jig. I could mark out and drill direct through the motor mounting holes from above...).

With 400+ point motors to fit on Carlisle I had to come up with the easiest way to do it.

[St Enodoc]

You'll need the Motor up side down, the holes are not central.

Andy, I will check next time I'm in the railway room but I think the holes on the H&Ms, unlike those on SEEPs, are symmetrical.

 

Andy

 

I got a set of plain reading glasses which are Ok for working under the baseboards but no good for walking around in!

You shouldn't read while you're walking around anyway.

 

With 400+ point motors to fit on Carlisle I had to come up with the easiest way to do it.

Definitely - although from what you've told me about Carlisle a lot of people could walk round under the baseboards without bending.

[St Enodoc]

The new soldering iron arrived today so with luck I should make better progress this weekend. For the jig, I'm going to use an offcut of thick copperclad left over from making floors for BSL coach kits - it's ideal for soldering truss rods and underframe parts to, but that's another story.

[St Enodoc]

Today I undid all the abortive work from two weeks ago and realigned the switch blades and tiebars using the new soldering iron. I then made the Mike Edge-inspired point motor drilling jig.

 

The copperclad goes underneath so that I can if necessary (in the event of future repairs or replacement) use it while the track power is switched on. I made the pilot holes with a no 52 drill which will give a good start for the No 4 screws that I use to mount the motors. The dummy operating wire is 1/32" piano wire, the same as the ones actually fitted to the motors.

 

I bent the wire over and soldered it to the copperclad and marked the jig so that I will be able to remember what on earth it is for. The reason that the wire is fitted to a "tongue" is so that I can wedge the switch blades in the central position before drilling.

 

This is what the jig looks like when ready to use. The wire is poking through the squashed paper clip operating loop and the position of the jig adjusted so that the motor armature will move parallel with the tiebar. I forgot to wedge the points before taking this photo.

Edited July 22, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Andrew P]

Excellent piece of tooling, I need to make something like that for NEXT TIME, well done.

[St Enodoc]

Excellent piece of tooling, I need to make something like that for NEXT TIME, well done.

Thanks Andy, but your compliments should really go to Mike Edge, who suggested the jig.

 

By the way, I haven't used it in anger yet - that should happen tomorrow. If I still can't get the motors to work I will have to have a rethink, which might mean going back to SEEPs. If that happens look out for a lot of H&M SM3s on eBay.

[St Enodoc]

Well sorry folks, the H&Ms won't be going on the market after all.

 

Today I fitted the motors (mechanically - the wiring up will come later) to all the eight points that are currently laid at the Down end of Paddington. This took just over two hours in total - thanks again to Mike Edge for suggesting the jig.

 

Here is the jig in place for drilling, with the switch blades wedged by a copperclad sleeper on each side. The sleepers are 1.2 mm thick so the overall opening is somewhat over scale but this eliminates any possibility of wheels with a slightly substandard back-to-back taking the wrong road. I can live with the visual impact.

 

The jig is held down with Blu-Tak for drilling. If I had a drill stand for the mini drill I would have used it, but drilling carefully by eye was good enough.

 

I drilled all four holes, although at the moment I have only used two screws per motor. I might well go round and put the other two in before long for extra security.

 

Once the motor was screwed into place I threw the point by hand to make sure that the blades fitted up properly. This is the point leading from the Up Main into the loops in the normal direction...

 

...and reversed.

 

Although the points are not wired up, I was able to test them by running the Warship, which has 8-wheel pick up and so bridges the dead frogs, up and down over each point in both normal and reverse.

 

All went well with that, so next I shall fit the motors to the four points at the Up end of Paddington before moving on to electrics and connecting up the ADS-8fx decoders.

 

After a slow few weeks it was good to get some real progress under my belt and I hope that it won't be long now until the trains standing in Paddington loops 1, 2 and 3 can get out on to the main line for a run.

Edited July 22, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Stubby47]

Why do you place the motors directly under the points ?

 

If they were off-set, you cound use a wire bent to shape with an Omega loop, which would allow for adjustment.

[St Enodoc]

Why do you place the motors directly under the points ?

 

If they were off-set, you cound use a wire bent to shape with an Omega loop, which would allow for adjustment.

Stu, probably because I've always done it that way. If I were to rationalise that, one reason is to minimise the visual intrusion of the operating mechanism (doesn't matter for the storage loops but is important in the scenic areas). Another is that where the tracks converge at the ends of the loops space between the points and adjacent tracks is very limited.

 

That's not to say yours is a bad idea, but over the years I've found it easier to use a direct drive. Once they are set up there is rarely a need for adjustment - usually only if a soldered joint fails or a tiebar breaks. The throw of the wire (approx 4.5 mm) is more than the throw of the point (approx 2.4 mm), the extra being taken up by the springiness of the 1/32" or 0.8 mm wire.

[Stubby47]

Sorry, I meant still have the motors & wire under the board, just not directly related under the point.

 

However, thinking more, I realise I've always used self sprung points, which of course your's aren't, which makes the remote motor idea more workable.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Stubby47

[St Enodoc]

Sorry, I meant still have the motors & wire under the board, just not directly related under the point.

Stu, that's how I understood your post. I took it that you meant a drive through the baseboard with a crank or similar and an omega loop on top? That was the context of my thoughts above.

[Stubby47]

No, eveything underneath, with the wire pokng up directly into the tiebar loop.

 

Extending the idea further, wire-in-tube could be routed under the board to each point, with the motors sitting in a bank next to the baseboard edge ( for easier access for electical connections).

[St Enodoc]

No, eveything underneath, with the wire pokng up directly into the tiebar loop.

 

Extending the idea further, wire-in-tube could be routed under the board to each point, with the motors sitting in a bank next to the baseboard edge ( for easier access for electical connections).

Understood Stu. I've never tried either of those methods. They sound as though they would involve more under-baseboard work (the boards are permanently fixed and can't be inverted), which I try to minimise. The motors are all pre-wired with plaited harnesses running to choc blocks, from which they will be connected to the decoders. When I've got the wiring done I'll post a description and some photos of that.