Heath Town and other signalling diversions

[5BarVT]

ADVANCE NOTICE: STAFFORD EXHIBITION

I will be with WFRM and Newhaven Harbour on Saturday (and possibly Sunday afternoon).  Do say hello if you’re passing.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

What I really need is an engineering solution that does not require unsoldering and resoldering droppers.

 

IKEA PYSSLA to the rescue.

 

Paul.

So all your droppers will be red and black or black and red? Interesting...

[5BarVT]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

So all your droppers will be red and black or black and red? Interesting...

Bead colour trumps sheath colour.  It’s a system used by WFRM on one of their layouts, admittedly one using white wire for everything and coloured beads at each end to identify.

Paul.

[5BarVT]

On 15/09/2023 at 11:43, 5BarVT said:

DRIVE BAR v1

Didn’t cut this out yesterday.  When I mentioned what it was for, the box of Tortoise mounts with a sliding bar beneath came out.  I think they might have been original C&L and designed for hand built track with a peg up to each switch rail.  I came away with a mount and a sliding bar with a single peg in it.  10s with a fine toothed saw and the peg was close enough to the end to go through the centre of the point drive hole with 1/8” clearance to the bracing.

Job done! 
“That’s what your subs pays for.” I was told.

Photos when fully installed.

Paul.

[Nick C]

On 17/09/2023 at 08:40, 5BarVT said:

Bead colour trumps sheath colour.  It’s a system used by WFRM on one of their layouts, admittedly one using white wire for everything and coloured beads at each end to identify.

Paul.

Not really that much different to the real thing, that tends to use black-sheathed wire for everything with little numbered tags crimped onto each wire.

[5BarVT]

BOX BUILDING

Nearly a month has passed; but I have been busy.  I have a really useful box containing most of the stuff I need to run in and fit a decoder to a new loco.  It looks like this

Whats missing is my DC control box as it’s too tall to fit.

 

Every time I have used it recently I have been frustrated by having to fit all the bits together and how much desk space it all takes because they are separate parts.

 

So I have designed and built a box to keep it all together.  This is the DC controller (plus) all in a low enough box to fit.

 

D.C. control, plus SPROG for programming, plus RRAmp for measuring the characteristics of the loco (all currents measured at 12V d.c. Cold Start, Warm Run, Slip, and Stall.).  An improvement over the previous arrangement is that I can measure d.c. current in both directions as the direction change switch has been wired after the RRAmp.  (A disadvantage of said V/A readout is that it only measures +ve d.c.). Unfortunately, despite all my checking, I made a mistake with the controller stripboard.

So todays task was transfer the components to a revised circuit board.

And here it is, corrected and fitted into the larger test box which holds the PSU, test track, clips on the right for the rolling road and a decoder tester.  Only two cables to the outside world - power and USB for Decoder Pro.

 

Anyone worked out what was wrong?

 

Paul.

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by 5BarVT
Extra info.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

And here it is, corrected and fitted into the larger test box which holds the PSU, test track, clips on the right for the rolling road and a decoder tester.  Only two cables to the outside world - power and USB for Decoder Pro.

Nice.

 

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Anyone worked out what was wrong?

No.

[Andy Keane]

That is a great idea. It makes me wonder why nobody makes one commercially as I can see quite a market.

[5BarVT]

14 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Anyone worked out what was wrong?

 

12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

No.

Note the voltage on the display and the alleged voltage produced by the controller.

I’d made an effort to understand which way I wanted the pot connected, including marking the 0 ohms position on the underside of the pot . . .

My logic converting that to which pin was my zero pin on the stripboard was flawed.

 

All sorted now!

Paul.

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Paul

15 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

 

 

Anyone worked out what was wrong?

 

Paul.

 

I didn't work out what went wrong but I was glad to see you were prepared with your solder sucker at the ready.

[5BarVT]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Paul

I didn't work out what went wrong but I was glad to see you were prepared with your solder sucker at the ready.

And it’s a ‘safe one’.  Do you remember the ‘sucker punch’ type where you could be concentrating so hard on what the iron was doing that you forgot to allow room for the plunger to spring back?

Paul.

[Clive Mortimore]

18 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

And it’s a ‘safe one’.  Do you remember the ‘sucker punch’ type where you could be concentrating so hard on what the iron was doing that you forgot to allow room for the plunger to spring back?

Paul.

Thankfully I have never had that happen, my be due to me not concentrating enough. 🙃

[5BarVT]

BACK TO TRACK LAYING - AT LAST

 

I’m back laying track - very much out of practice, but motivated to push on as I want to get some running back asap.  On another thread there was an encouragement to fit droppers to the switch blades so as not to rely on moving contacts that might get painted up.  As I hadn’t done that before I’d mentally made it into an ‘above my pay grade’ issue.  Today was the day to challenge that idea.  Before at the bottom, after at the top.

It’s a lot easier than I’d made it out to be!

And, yes, the droppers are the opposite way round to the rest on that point.  (See earlier treatise for why I’m not changing them.)

Paul.

[Andy Keane]

9 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

It’s a lot easier than I’d made it out to be!

I have done this on all my pointwork where I am using the hinged Peco blades, but I did manage to destroy one point when I put the dropper too close to the little hinge and managed to flood it with solder - absolutely locked it solid with no obvious means of recovery. I am told one way to ensure against this is to put a small drop of 3 in 1 oil on the hinges before you solder the dropper.

Andy

[5BarVT]

Thanks for the warning and suggestion Andy.  Two Six  successfully done thus far.

Paul.

Edited October 22, 2023 by 5BarVT
Update

[61656]

23 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

BACK TO TRACK LAYING - AT LAST

 

I’m back laying track - very much out of practice, but motivated to push on as I want to get some running back asap.  On another thread there was an encouragement to fit droppers to the switch blades so as not to rely on moving contacts that might get painted up.  As I hadn’t done that before I’d mentally made it into an ‘above my pay grade’ issue.  Today was the day to challenge that idea.  Before at the bottom, after at the top.

It’s a lot easier than I’d made it out to be!

And, yes, the droppers are the opposite way round to the rest on that point.  (See earlier treatise for why I’m not changing them.)

Paul.

This sounds like a good suggestion for when I get around to properly wiring the fiddle yard, as well as properly wiring the electrofrogs. 

[5BarVT]

52 minutes ago, 61656 said:

This sounds like a good suggestion for when I get around to properly wiring the fiddle yard, as well as properly wiring the electrofrogs. 

I work on the basis that FY points don’t get painted and can be got back out for repairs more easily so they don’t get doubled up droppers or switch blade droppers.

Paul.

[5BarVT]

(Some) TRACK LAID

 

Station throat has been laid on the corner board including droppers.  All the remaining track on that board goes across board joints so will wait until this is glued down, has motors added and wiring completed below.  Almost appropriate wagon for track testing (SATLINK LM, should be SATLINK Western).

 

A bit (actually a lot) of tidying will be needed to get this board on its back for wiring.  All the straight boards will upend in little more thsn their length: this one needs another board taken out to make space, which in turn requires that board to be free of stored items.

 

Paul.

[5BarVT]

GLUE

 

The three points nearest the front (see above) are weighted down in position with glue drying.  I set out to do all the track in one go but decided that the risk of something not sitting quite right and becoming firmly fixed ‘wrong’ over ruled my desire to have it all glued by tomorrow.  I’ll get the rest of the glue done tomorrow night then it should be ready for upending on Wed.

I don’t do photos of glue drying - it’s like paint but not as interesting!

 

Tomorrow is a round trip to collect a granddaughter from Stockport and deliver to Guildford.

LIV (MCV?) MAN SPT EUS WAT GLD WAT EUS.CRE CTR and home. 10 hours if I do well, 11 more likely and 12 if things go badly.

Paul.

Edited October 24, 2023 by 5BarVT
Missed out Euston on the return.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

GLUE

 

The three points nearest the front (see above) are weighted down in position with glue drying.  I set out to do all the track in one go but decided that the risk of something not sitting quite right and becoming firmly fixed ‘wrong’ over ruled my desire to have it all glued by tomorrow.  I’ll get the rest of the glue done tomorrow night then it should be ready for upending on Wed.

I don’t do photos of glue drying - it’s like paint but not as interesting!

 

Tomorrow is a round trip to collect a granddaughter from Stockport and deliver to Guildford.

LIV (MCV?) MAN SPT EUS WAT GLD WAT CRE CTR and home. 10 hours if I do well, 11 more likely and 12 if things go badly.

Paul.

How do you do WAT GLD WAT?

[Nick C]

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

How do you do WAT GLD WAT?

By train, one would assume? There's about 6 an hour between the two (Waterloo and Guildford, for those unfamilar with Network Rail three-letter-codes)

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Nick C said:

By train, one would assume? There's about 6 an hour between the two (Waterloo and Guildford, for those unfamilar with Network Rail three-letter-codes)

I am indeed unfamiliar with those codes - I guessed that WAT was Watford! Looking again, it's obvious now that you wouldn't go to EUS and then back to Watford...

 

What a silly bunt.

[Nick C]

27 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I am indeed unfamiliar with those codes - I guessed that WAT was Watford! Looking again, it's obvious now that you wouldn't go to EUS and then back to Watford...

 

What a silly bunt.

Some of them are more obvious than others - there's three stations in Watford so they're WFH, WFJ and WFN (High Street, Junction and North, respectively)

[ISW]

19 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

I don’t do photos of glue drying - it’s like paint but not as interesting!

Paul,

 

But the objects / weights used to hold the track/turnouts in position are often 'interesting'. There's also the question of how said objects are 'balanced' on the track.

 

Ian

[5BarVT]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I am indeed unfamiliar with those codes - I guessed that WAT was Watford! Looking again, it's obvious now that you wouldn't go to EUS and then back to Watford...

I wondered if that was the thought behind the question. I’ve only just had time to look after a busy day replanning things.
I’ve done similar things in the past to save the cost of an underground ticket.  Short arms, long pockets (but only when I’ve got time to kill).

8 hours ago, Nick C said:

By train, one would assume? There's about 6 an hour between the two (Waterloo and Guildford, for those unfamilar with Network Rail three-letter-codes)

That was indeed the plan.  However, being with a less familiar train traveller (though at only 5 she’s learning fast) I hadn’t checked the forward route so we arrived at Waterloo at 1255 for a quick dash onto the 1300 to find everything at a stand.  Fatality at Wimbledon about 1205.  SWT announced GWR accepting tickets so across to Paddington.  GWR didn’t know that!  Chat with the guard to explain my dilemma and he was happy. Before Reading he mentioned that acceptance had been messaged out.  We had moved so fast we beat the communication!

So WAT GLD WAT ended up as PAD RDG BSK and the same in reverse.  2 hours later than I might have been had everything run like clockwork, which isn’t bad for bypassing a fatality twice. (My normal reckoning is 1 1/2 to 2 hrs one way.)

Paul.