Castle Aching

[Donw]

I find it hard to know why people find electricity so confusing. It is true that quite how a motor works or a generator generates may be a little harder to grasp but if you just accept these things as objects that the electricity flows through which has some effect it simplifies it. A bulb is something that can glow when suitable electricity flows through it. A TV uses electricity to be able to show the pictures.A battery stores electricity waiting for a circuit  and there is only enough energy for so many goes. In order for electricity to flow there needs to be a circuit.

A school we had to do cross country runs they were always a circuit if you started from school to ran round in a wobbly circle back to school. I presume most of you did this if you didn't understand the principal of a circuit you presumably never got back to school went home in your running gear and got a mouthful and possibly earache from you mother. While running round the circuit you may have climbed or opened gates just like passing through devices.

The fact that some of us were crafty took a short cut and had a fag while walking before joining back in near the finish is rather like a short circuit where you find another route and avoid all the work although with electricity it would all take the short cut avoiding the useful devices.

Is that not a fairly simple thing to follow?

 

If all my stuff wasn't still packed until the house is ready I would make a simple tester for you. I will see what is accessible. 

 

Don

Don

[St Enodoc]

It strikes me that, by 1905, we are comfortably within the range of standardised styles and materials for industrial and civic buildings. While the vernacular style will predominate, anyone building a town hall, or a school, or a railway station, etc, will likely be importing bricks, stones and, particularly, slates for roofing.

 

So, positing some new buildings in the district from time to time, a lone Cambrian Rys wagon with a slate load could legitimately turn up every so often.  Or thus have I reasoned.

 

 

 

I have, I think with success, tried to keep the tip clean.  There is no heat in the whole length of the iron.

 

 

 

Let us say that Life is p*ssing me off, and frustrations and fears associated with creating a working layout are not helping!

 

This weekend is written off, now, so far as modelling is concerned, as we have to go out for the rest of the day shortly. 

 

I know normal people will be unable to understand this, but I fundamentally do not understanding wiring.

 

If I read DonW's patient explanations I can understand them, but only for so long as I am actually reading them, it seems.  Much like any book or guide I've ever read on wiring layouts, though these tend to lose me completely a few pages or paragraphs in.  The bits I thought I followed just float out of my brain to be replaced by a blurred version that I cannot understand.

 

Now, I have a wiring diagram, so I know what the wiring needs to be in schematic form.  But what does than mean?  It has wires joining, going to switches and, somehow, beyond these must be wires to a controller. 

 

I don't understand how any of this is achieved physically.  What goes where and how?

 

I don't have a meter.  I'm afraid I don't understand the suggestion for making one (you might as well tell me I could split the atom on my kitchen table with a mallet and a knitting needle and then expect me to do so).

 

On the plus side:

 

- I do have some suitable wires, in two colours, black and red (though I begin to doubt I have enough length), and;

 

- I have acquired the switches that I am kindly told I need. 

 

- I just tested my childhood H&M 'Duette' and it works perfectly.  I'm afraid there will be no fancy modern replacement for the foreseeable, and certainly not until sometime after I have the track laid and rendered it operational (assuming that I ever do).

 

- I have just ordered another iron, which might get here by next weekend.   

 

What, I find, I haven't got is a F-king Clue!

 

Just thinking about it is making me twitch again.  Perhaps I will find some other modelling to do first.  Perhaps I will resume once I have the new iron.

 

When I do come to it, there will be cries for help!

Hard to offer hands-on help from down here but try this for starters.

 

1. Forget about the layout and switches for a while and use just a short piece of plain track. Make sure the Duette is unplugged and the control knobs are Off.

 

2. Cut a piece of red wire and a piece of black wire and strip about half an inch of insulation from both ends of each wire..

 

3. On the back of the Duette are two pairs of terminals marked "12 V DC controlled", one for each control knob. Connect one end of the red wire to one of the terminals and one end of the black wire to the other terminal in the same pair.

 

4. Connect the other end of the red wire to one rail on your piece of track and connect the other end of the black wire to the second rail. As your soldering iron is kaput just use bulldog clips or similar to hold the wires and the rails together.

 

5. Put a loco on the track and plug in the Duette.

 

6. Turn the control knob that corresponds to the pair of terminals you have used and watch the loco move. Turn the knob the other way and watch the loco move back.

 

What you will have done here is to create a "circuit". The electricity flows from the controller down the red wire, into one rail, through the motor in the loco to the other rail, into the black wire and back to the controller. After that, everything is just more of the same. Later, you will be able to use switches to decide which bits of track you want the electricity to go to.

[petrovich]

It strikes me that, by 1905, we are comfortably within the range of standardised styles and materials for industrial and civic buildings. While the vernacular style will predominate, anyone building a town hall, or a school, or a railway station, etc, will likely be importing bricks, stones and, particularly, slates for roofing.

 

So, positing some new buildings in the district from time to time, a lone Cambrian Rys wagon with a slate load could legitimately turn up every so often.  Or thus have I reasoned.

 

 

 

I have, I think with success, tried to keep the tip clean.  There is no heat in the whole length of the iron.

 

 

 

Let us say that Life is p*ssing me off, and frustrations and fears associated with creating a working layout are not helping!

 

This weekend is written off, now, so far as modelling is concerned, as we have to go out for the rest of the day shortly. 

 

I know normal people will be unable to understand this, but I fundamentally do not understanding wiring.

 

If I read DonW's patient explanations I can understand them, but only for so long as I am actually reading them, it seems.  Much like any book or guide I've ever read on wiring layouts, though these tend to lose me completely a few pages or paragraphs in.  The bits I thought I followed just float out of my brain to be replaced by a blurred version that I cannot understand.

 

Now, I have a wiring diagram, so I know what the wiring needs to be in schematic form.  But what does than mean?  It has wires joining, going to switches and, somehow, beyond these must be wires to a controller. 

 

I don't understand how any of this is achieved physically.  What goes where and how?

 

I don't have a meter.  I'm afraid I don't understand the suggestion for making one (you might as well tell me I could split the atom on my kitchen table with a mallet and a knitting needle and then expect me to do so).

 

On the plus side:

 

- I do have some suitable wires, in two colours, black and red (though I begin to doubt I have enough length), and;

 

- I have acquired the switches that I am kindly told I need. 

 

- I just tested my childhood H&M 'Duette' and it works perfectly.  I'm afraid there will be no fancy modern replacement for the foreseeable, and certainly not until sometime after I have the track laid and rendered it operational (assuming that I ever do).

 

- I have just ordered another iron, which might get here by next weekend.   

 

What, I find, I haven't got is a F-king Clue!

 

Just thinking about it is making me twitch again.  Perhaps I will find some other modelling to do first.  Perhaps I will resume once I have the new iron.

 

When I do come to it, there will be cries for help!

Excuse my ignorance but your avatar text explains "Land of the Prince Bishops" which to me is the area of Durham, and although I live on the South Coast I am always available to talk or text re electrical / electronics issues, it has been my trade for twenty plus years so i might be able to help.

 

Do not hesitate to private message me if stuck, I am sure there are others on here only to happy to help as well.

 

Regards

 

Peter

[Edwardian]

Sounds like an excuse to fire up the Mondeo and motor over the moors down from Addison to your Rokeby estate paradise in Teesdale now it is nearly spring (and the Curlews might have returned). I'll bring my soldering station and my meter and we will 'do continuity' stuff with red and black wire thru those posh hand made points

Life hasn't been brilliant here either; I shall be 80 by the time I arrive (and attended by not a few new irritating peripheral dilapidations). 

 

I was well into my thirties before I got taken in hand by a bunch of West Coast Peace Corps aid workers - during 5 years of non stop West African 'paying for sex parties' (I wish)

"You Brits all sound so intelligent until we discover you can't fix a single funking thing" They brought me 'How to keep your Beetle alive for the compleat Idiot' and how to mend sewing machines, washing machines and all sorts of stuff just using araldyte. I've never looked back. 

dd

 

Well, you have an open invitation, Hour of Need, or no.  So please just come along when you want to. It would be good to see you.

 

 

I have had two attempts at answering how to wire the layout and both have been binned.

 

I seem to have relatively little difficulty in following the basics and yet had a talented friend who had no idea whatsoever.   Fortunately his co-modeller had it all in hand for their layouts.

 

The fact that two attempts at showing how simple it is have failed totally shows that it really isn't as easy as some of us find.

 

the best advice I can now give, is that electricity needs to be fed to a motor (loco or point switch) and then taken away.  If that does not happen - by accident or because you deliberately put in a switch - no power will (should) flow.   It really is as simple as that - feed in, return out.  Switches to stop feed in when you don't need it are the way to control the layout.

 

Your controller will supply a power in, and a power out for controlling locos.  It may well do the same for point motors.  All you need is switches between the controller and the tracks to determine what gets controlled and when.

 

And I seem to remember they made perfect sense while I was reading them.

 

Then, of course, there is the gap between that and actually wiring a layout, exemplified by you adding "All you need is switches between the controller and the tracks to determine what gets controlled and when", which I wouldn't have the first clue how to implement.

 

I fear that I am trying everyone's patience, mine included, and I should just stop, because I think I've bucked myself up for another go, and then I became instantly confused and depressed just posting on the subject.

 

Have a break from the bit that hacks you off, and return for a while to the bit that is your forte.

 

If wiring really is a mountain to climb, I’m sure we can guide you through it at a better moment.

 

Didn't know you'd produced a wiring diagram.  When l said l didn't do 'complicated' l meant slips, etc.  Yes, l would agree that isolating sections, and points, are included in my abilities!

 

I find it hard to know why people find electricity so confusing. It is true that quite how a motor works or a generator generates may be a little harder to grasp but if you just accept these things as objects that the electricity flows through which has some effect it simplifies it. A bulb is something that can glow when suitable electricity flows through it. A TV uses electricity to be able to show the pictures.A battery stores electricity waiting for a circuit  and there is only enough energy for so many goes. In order for electricity to flow there needs to be a circuit.

A school we had to do cross country runs they were always a circuit if you started from school to ran round in a wobbly circle back to school. I presume most of you did this if you didn't understand the principal of a circuit you presumably never got back to school went home in your running gear and got a mouthful and possibly earache from you mother. While running round the circuit you may have climbed or opened gates just like passing through devices.

The fact that some of us were crafty took a short cut and had a fag while walking before joining back in near the finish is rather like a short circuit where you find another route and avoid all the work although with electricity it would all take the short cut avoiding the useful devices.

Is that not a fairly simple thing to follow?

 

If all my stuff wasn't still packed until the house is ready I would make a simple tester for you. I will see what is accessible. 

 

Don

Don

 

So, here goes.

 

Track I was just about coping with, except that you have to have planned for the wring, which I have not, and for point operation, which I haven't.

 

So, I ripped up the plain track and drilled holes through the boards and then found the iron was kaput.

 

I don't think I want to do anything else until I know where I am going with the wiring.

 

So, here is Don's wiring diagram, which seems very sensible and, on some level, I actually understand it.  I am not sure everyone here is understanding what I don't understand.  It's a diagram, a schematic.  It doesn't make sense at the level where I have to make the real thing out of physical components.

 

Now, just to make things worse, I've looked at the point operation, and concluded that I will never be able to rig them up to work reliably manually. So I looked at point motors.  And, me being me, and brassic, obviously I started looking at the most expensive I could find, Tortoise.  They looked technically the best; long-lasting and guaranteed to keep those blades pressed against the stock rails. I watched a couple of videos and thought "hey, actually I reckon I could install those".  All was going well until the guy, with a few throw away remarks about what the battery of contacts were for, attached a rainbow of different wires, each with some essential but impenetrable function, before being gathered in a 'wring loom' that led to  the Sweet Lord knows where.  At that point my head unscrewed and clattered to the floor. 

Edited February 19, 2018 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

Hard to offer hands-on help from down here but try this for starters.

 

1. Forget about the layout and switches for a while and use just a short piece of plain track. Make sure the Duette is unplugged and the control knobs are Off.

 

2. Cut a piece of red wire and a piece of black wire and strip about half an inch of insulation from both ends of each wire..

 

3. On the back of the Duette are two pairs of terminals marked "12 V DC controlled", one for each control knob. Connect one end of the red wire to one of the terminals and one end of the black wire to the other terminal in the same pair.

 

4. Connect the other end of the red wire to one rail on your piece of track and connect the other end of the black wire to the second rail. As your soldering iron is kaput just use bulldog clips or similar to hold the wires and the rails together.

 

5. Put a loco on the track and plug in the Duette.

 

6. Turn the control knob that corresponds to the pair of terminals you have used and watch the loco move. Turn the knob the other way and watch the loco move back.

 

What you will have done here is to create a "circuit". The electricity flows from the controller down the red wire, into one rail, through the motor in the loco to the other rail, into the black wire and back to the controller. After that, everything is just more of the same. Later, you will be able to use switches to decide which bits of track you want the electricity to go to.

 

I did that, and derived a lot of satisfaction from testing, for the first time ever, a number of locos.

 

That M&L 517 Class is a beautiful runner, and will be well-worth the effort of back-dating the livery and lining out.

 

Trouble is, I cannot run anything further than a single length of flexi-track this way.

 

Thinking I could start at least some wiring, I've now ripped up that track, so cannot even reproduce my futile little to and from now.

[Compound2632]

This is the moment at which you should go build a wagon.

[Edwardian]

This is the moment at which you should go build a wagon.

 

You are right, of course, but until I believe it will ever have somewhere to run ...?

[uax6]

That's not too difficult to understand, at least Don hasn't gone for the preferred GPO detached contact way of drawing it out...

 

Seriously it will be quite easy to follow as you wire. If required before you ballast get a black and a red felt tip and draw on the cork exactly what Don has drawn against where the rails will be. I suggest that you then chose a different colour pen for each of the broken lines that Don has put on for the left hand end. Put the same colour against the plan. Then use the same colour wire and attach to the rail (if you replace one sleeper on each length of flexi with a copper clad one, you can then solder to the sleeper rather than the rail, it's easier). For the minute, miss out the selection switches above the controller, if you are running one loco at a time you don't need them...

 

As for point control, I would use something like wire in tube, it's easy. But you will need a switch to control the 'frog' polarity, but that can be driven off the wire in tube wire. A damn sight cheaper than any sort of motor. http://lytchettmanor.co.uk.websitebuilder.prositehosting.co.uk/lytchett-manor/mercontrol---point-control

 

Andy

Who happened to be the youngest bloke on a BT power plant course in the late 90's, and the only one of the ten students that could read detached contact diagrams... The curse of having had strowger at home since I was 16....

Edited February 19, 2018 by uax6

[Compound2632]

You are right, of course, but until I believe it will ever have somewhere to run ...?

 

It provides time to re-set and see your frustrations in proportion. Of course it will have somewhere to run.

[Edwardian]

That's not too difficult to understand, at least Don hasn't gone for the preferred GPO detached contact way of drawing it out...

 

Seriously it will be quite easy to follow as you wire. If required before you ballast get a black and a red felt tip and draw on the cork exactly what Don has drawn against where the rails will be. I suggest that you then chose a different colour pen for each of the broken lines that Don has put on for the left hand end. Put the same colour against the plan. Then use the same colour wire and attach to the rail (if you replace one sleeper on each length of flexi with a copper clad one, you can then solder to the sleeper rather than the rail, it's easier). For the minute, miss out the selection switches above the controller, if you are running one loco at a time you don't need them...

 

As for point control, I would use something like wire in tube, it's easy. But you will need a switch to control the 'frog' polarity, but that can be driven off the wire in tube wire. A damn sight cheaper than any sort of motor. http://lytchettmanor.co.uk.websitebuilder.prositehosting.co.uk/lytchett-manor/mercontrol---point-control

 

Andy

Who happened to be the youngest bloke on a BT power plant course in the late 90's, and the only one of the ten students that could read detached contact diagrams... The curse of having had strowger at home since I was 16....

 

Ok, thanks, but I don't understand how to make the diagram, so having a bigger drawing of it won't change that.

 

I don't know how to explain what I don't understand.

 

It's lines and symbols, but I won't be installing lines and symbols.

 

I'll be, somehow, joining up wires and switches and things.

 

And I'll even go so far as to say that, without the explanations of Don and Andy Hayter and others fresh in my mind, I don't think that I understand even the diagram as a diagram any more. I've just been staring at it , and, no, it no longer conveys any meaning to me.

 

I like the idea of wire in tube manual operation for points. It seems more fitting.  But It would probably need to be sub-baseboard in the case of CA, and I'd struggle to understand the mechanics.  

[uax6]

Draw a red line on the board under where that rail will be. Using red wire connect that rail to the switch as in the drawing. Then from the switch to the controller. The other side of the controller goes to the other rail. That's it for the plain track, the points are a little bit more complex, but we can do them after we have the straight bits done.....

 

Don't fear it, you can do this....

 

Andy g

[Nearholmer]

Edwardian

 

Does this make sense to you?

 

Cos, if it does, one of us can draw it like this, physically, instead of using any form of electrical abstraction.

 

Kevin

Edited February 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

So, here is Don's wiring diagram, which seems very sensible and, on some level, I actually understand it.  I am not sure everyone here is understanding what I don't understand.  It's a diagram, a schematic.  It doesn't make sense at the level where I have to make the real thing out of physical components.

 

Imagine that the controller on Don's diagram is your Duette and that the coloured arrows are the two ends of the wires as we discussed above. Ignore all the points at this stage.

 

I did that, and derived a lot of satisfaction from testing, for the first time ever, a number of locos.

 

Excellent. Nothing like driving a train to rekindle the flame.

 

For the minute, miss out the selection switches above the controller, if you are running one loco at a time you don't need them...

 

Sound advice. Just forget the switches are there on Don's diagram.

 

Now, here we go.

 

For the time being, also ignore the dotted lines on Don's diagram. All you need to think about is that the rails nearest to you are red and those furthest away from you are black. Do what you did on the plain track for each section of ordinary track on the layout:

 

1. Connect a red wire to the near rail of each separate piece of track.

 

2. Connect a black wire to the far rail of each separate piece of track.

 

3. Gather all the loose ends of the red wires together and connect them to one terminal on the Duette.

 

4. Gather all the loose ends of the black wires together and connect them to the other terminal on the Duette.

 

5. Put your favourite loco on a piece of plain track and turn on the Duette. One of two things will happen:

 

a) the loco will move (but will stop when it gets to a point) or

 

b) the loco won't move but the Duette will buzz a little. Don't panic or rip anything out - this probably just means that you haven't got all your rails isolated from each other in the points. I can't help you with this from the other side of the world but I'm sure that closer at hand will be able to do so.

 

Again, good luck!

[Edwardian]

Thank you all.  Once the new iron arrives, I shall have to give this a go.  

[Hroth]

The main thing is to get yourself familiar with wiring Castle Aching by removing most of the variables.

 

You've mentioned your experiment with the piece of flexitrack and your Duette, why not take it a step further and, if you can lay your hands on some cheap Peco/Hornby points, set up a simple layout with a siding on a piece of plywood.  You can then experiment with wiring the controller to the track, connecting isolated sections through a switch to the controller and so on, and see how it goes together without making a mess of the track on Castle Aching.  It doesn't have to look pretty, its just a case of getting your hand in with the electricity.

[Hroth]

Edwardian

 

Does this make sense to you?

 

Cos, if it does, one of us can draw it like this, physically, instead of using any form of electrical abstraction.

 

Kevin

Its a rather similar concept to the Fritzing diagrams used by the Maker community to illustrate how Arduino controller projects are put together.  For a relatively simple example, a diagram showing the wiring of an ultrasonic rangefinder....

 

 

Don't be frightened, its just an illustration of how something that is "complicated" can be demystified.  It shows recognisable objects, not their diagrammatic representations, and how the physical wires connect them, the red and black wires of the power supply to the component for example.

[Edwardian]

I have been in touch with David Eveleigh, at Eveleigh Creations, in response to a post here pointing out his 2mm Scale GER etched coach kits. As I earlier reported, he cannot simply re-size these, but, as he has the measurements, he is happy to re-design for 4mm if there is sufficient interest. 

 

The 2mm versions are pictured below. 

 

I have also raised the question of producing some GER Holden 6-wheelers, with the idea that these could be produced once the 4-wheelers are done.

 

The coaches will only be produced if there is sufficient interest to justify the minimum volume, and David has asked me to post the following announcement:

 

I have been in correspondence about the possibility of providing etched kits for sides, ends and roofs for Great Eastern Railway four and six wheeled coaches in 4 mm scale.   I have already produced kits in 2 mm scale for the diagram 401 five compartment four wheeled third, the diagram 501 two compartment brake third and the diagram 101 four compartment first, measuring from extant coach bodies.   I am thinking of making available in 4 mm scale  kits for the coach bodies comprising sides, ends with integral head-stocks, roofs, sole-bar overlays, drop-lights, ventilators and end footsteps.    They would be to the correct dimensions and with the idea of using the longer wheelbase Ratio injection moulded GWR coach kit to provide the under-frame.   I would be able to do the four wheeled coaches for £25 each and would need firm orders with a deposit for at least 14 coach body kits in order to proceed.

 

I need to gauge demand and so would invite you to contact me via my website: 

http://eveleighcreations.com/

 

Depending on how many people contact me I would initially offer the first and third class coaches, following on if there were sufficient sales with the brake third.

 

If the demand is there I would also like to do the four Holden six wheeled coaches:  34'6" Brake Third (Dia.514);  34'6" 6-Compartment Thirds (Dia. 404);  32' Centre Luggage Compartment 4-Compartment Composite (D219);  and 32' Full Brakes (Dias.513 or 516).   The cost of having masks and initial etches for new sheets is considerable, however, so these later items will depend on sufficient sales of the former to finance them.

 

Please have a look at my website for examples of my work

 

4-Wheelers

 

The 4-wheelers date from the 1870s and I would think that they were built for suburban work. However, Holden renewed the suburban 4-wheel stock with large numbers of new coaches towards the end of  the Nineteenth Century.  I believe that older 4-wheelers then found there way on to branch lines and a considerable number were sold off in the 1900-1904.  Purchasers of GE stock included minor independent railways, colliery lines and Light Railways of the Colonel Stephens ilk, so these are ideal for freelance Light Railway or industrial projects.

 

Another use for them would be to replicate the large number of grounded coach bodies used by the GER to provide platform shelters and ancillary buildings at many rural locations on its system.  Many bodies are preserved because many became homes during the Edwardian period. 

 

The kits would comprise sides, ends roof and a fascia representing the wooden solebars, and he intends to reproduce the brake Third, 5-Compt. Third and 4-Compt. First.

 

The body style features characteristic GER round tops to the window lights and panels, and features raised beading on the waists.  This is a very 1860s-1870s style, which the Great Eastern perpetuated into the 1880s. Originally varnished teak, when they became to shabby to retain the varnished finish, they were painted in GE coach brown, which appears to have been a slightly reddish brown. A preserved example of a coach finished in this way is the  GER First Class Smoking Carriage of 1863 on the Mid-Suffolk (http://www.rmweb.co....heme/?p=2726273).

 

When built these would probably have been oil lit (the first Pintsch gas lit suburban stock was built from 1877), but I understand that they were later converted to gas.

 

Guy Rixon of this Parish has very kindly responded to requests for GER coach fittings by producing 3D printed accessories, so GER buffer shanks (https://www.shapeway...tionId=61554189) and Pintsch gas lamp tops (https://www.shapeway...tionId=61657147) are available from his Shapeways shop.

 

6-Wheelers

 

These are Holden type 5 coaches, built in the 1886-1896 period (the types are these defined by John Watling in a series of excellent articles available on the GERS website: https://www.gersocie...iages/types-5-8).

 

Holden Type 5s were built to standardised lengths.  By this period, the beaded waist panels had been replaced by rounded ended recessed waist panels.  The window lights and vertical panels have large radius top corners. I believe that D&S at one stage produced the 6-Compt. Third, but generally the old D&S range of GE 6-wheelers featured the next generation of Holden types, Type 7A, built from 1896-1898.  The Type 7A were "square lights", i.e. the windows have right-angled, non-radial corners.  Whereas the Square Light 6-wheelers had Lavatory Composites and 5-Compt. Lav. Thirds, the Type 5s had Luggage Composites and 6-Compt. Thirds.  

 

Built as mainline general service coaches, photographic evidence suggests that the Type 5s were in service in large numbers for a prolonged period, though my interest/research is confined to the pre-Grouping era, so I don't know now long they lasted. 

 

Bill King of the GERS has very kindly directed me to the Stratford Works drawings for the following:

 

34'6" Brake Third (Dia.514);  

 

34'6" 6-Compartment Third (Dia. 404);  

 

32' Centre Luggage Compartment 4-Compartment Composite (D219);  

 

32' Full Brake (Dia.516)

 

These would be the intended kits.

 

Guy Rixon already produces a 3D-print accessory sprue for GER 6-wheel coaches that would be suitable.  Included are springs (with the centre springs on 'J' hangers), axle boxes, buffer shanks and Pintsch gas lamp tops: https://www.shapeway...tionId=64070109. 

 

Please can any one interested in the production of these models please get in touch with David Eveleigh, and please let me know.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Edwardian

[Donw]

An excellent opportunity but the wrong size for me.

 

Don

[Adams442T]

Sent an expression of interest to David, for 4 of the initial coaches, so here's hoping!

[Nearholmer]

Hroth

 

Your wiring diagram reminds me of an occasion when I went to make “type acceptance” inspection of a new design of HV switchboard from a very well known and reputable manufacturer in Sweden, probably c30 years ago.

 

They had had the protection relay panels wired by new recruits, mostly women who worked ‘school hours’, who had been given basic training in wiring, and “easy diagrams” like yours to follow. And follow them they had, very literally indeed. Every wire went from A to B, irrespective of what it passed over along the way, so instead of a typical wiring loom, they’d created something more like a real loom, with banjo-string-tight wires, going in a mesh in all directions, even between terminals on the opening door of the cabinet and gear inside.

 

How on Earth the supervisors and managers had stood by and watched the operatives do it, and what on Earth was in their heads when they declared it fit for client inspection, I couldn’t fathom ....... they were seriously embarrassed, and must have spent a lot of money to put it right.

 

So, it’s not only British industry that sometimes does very odd things!

 

Kevin

 

PS: Edwardian, we’ll make sure we help you to not make The Swedish Error.

[TheQ]

Marconi (1979) Chelmsford, had a wiring frame, which lit up with LEDs showing from point to point where the loom was be laid out. Once it was assembled, loomed and laced, then it was taken to the equipment and fitted.

 

 The LEDs and programme were run on a UK101 computer....

 

I must admit my rewiring to the Tiree layout to make it work, it would definately not pass my old workshop practices  instructor, Derek Shaw. Sadly I doubt he's still with us as that was 40 years ago, and he'd already retired from the RAF then..

Edited February 20, 2018 by TheQ

[Guy Rixon]

Something to remember with wiring is that it doesn't hurt to get it wrong and correct it a few time provided firstly that you don't hurt your locos and secondly that you don't mess up your track in the redoing of the wires. 12v DC wiring is quite biddable, there's just a bit more of it than with DCC systems.

 

Not messing up the track basically means thinking out where to put the dropper wires and not resoldering these many times.

 

Plenty of people here can guide you through testing the putatively-wired layout to see if it's safe for locokind. Your Duette has its own protections against short circuits and the like and should be quite safe.

[Guy Rixon]

A thought about the old H&M Duette: from memory, it has several sets of terminals at the back and not all are good for connecting to the track.

 

On each side there should be a pair of terminals labeled "controlled DC" or similar. These are the ones that drive the trains in response to the settings of the control-knob settings. Each pair of terminals relates to the controller on that side of the unit and the two pairs should not be connected together.

 

There are also, IIRC, two pairs of terminals in the centre, one labeled "uncontrolled DC" and one "uncontrolled AC". Neither of these should be connected to the track: both were intended for feeding other kinds of controller that lacked the ability to consume mains electricity. The uncontrolled DC terminals give a constant ~12V and the others I think give alternating current at ~16V. The constant 12V will, of course, make the trains go very fast and ignore the control knobs. The AC output would wreck the motors fairly quickly. Neither of these outputs are likely to be of use at CA.

 

(This is ovosuction 101 for mature students, of course. I write this only to dispel doubt for beginners in electrics.)

[Edwardian]

A thought about the old H&M Duette: from memory, it has several sets of terminals at the back and not all are good for connecting to the track.

 

On each side there should be a pair of terminals labeled "controlled DC" or similar. These are the ones that drive the trains in response to the settings of the control-knob settings. Each pair of terminals relates to the controller on that side of the unit and the two pairs should not be connected together.

 

There are also, IIRC, two pairs of terminals in the centre, one labeled "uncontrolled DC" and one "uncontrolled AC". Neither of these should be connected to the track: both were intended for feeding other kinds of controller that lacked the ability to consume mains electricity. The uncontrolled DC terminals give a constant ~12V and the others I think give alternating current at ~16V. The constant 12V will, of course, make the trains go very fast and ignore the control knobs. The AC output would wreck the motors fairly quickly. Neither of these outputs are likely to be of use at CA.

 

(This is ovosuction 101 for mature students, of course. I write this only to dispel doubt for beginners in electrics.)

 

You have Amazed Me; I wasn't aware of any of this.

 

I'll go and have a look ...

[Hroth]

I'd have to go and root in the attic to check, but I have the feeling that the Duettes terminals were fairly clearly labelled, but its always worth flagging up the uses of the various connections and the effect that some of them would have on a model railway!