Llamberg Railway

[Andymsa]

1 hour ago, WIMorrison said:

Andy
 

Can you not bend the trusses to match the curve of the track by heating them gently and placing them over a former? Then you just cut the base to fit the curves. I think that would look better then having a curve on the straight deck of the bridge?

yes I did think about doing that, but I decided against it for two reasons. The first was that these bridges are out of stock most places, as it was I had to get them from two different sources. The other was certain pieces of the bridge would not fit together anymore and felt it was not worth the risk.

[Andymsa]

Tonight I have started the station throat pointwork. The outside double slip has been modified so It’s not reliant on power being routed by blade contact. This was done by removing the strip under the frog as shown in last photo. Then I soldered a copper wire to the rails in 3 places as shown in the photo. As this protrudes under the point a recess was cut into the base board. This is different to how I normally would bond the blades as under the point there will be 4 point motors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Andymsa

[Andymsa]

Double slip update, the mod is absolutely fine but on initial testing I am not getting reliable throw. It appears to stick on throw, after 2 hours I have made a strategic retreat, these particular points are problematic I have found in the past. I think the issue is the blade bends slightly and catches where it passes over the sleeper.

[RobinofLoxley]

Could that soldering activity under the point cause a bit of stress to develop? Bonded when hot, then cools down, contraction?

[Andymsa]

13 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Could that soldering activity under the point cause a bit of stress to develop? Bonded when hot, then cools down, contraction?

no the soldering was not the cause, the issue is clearly at the tie bar end. With tillig points sometimes the tie bar is a bit lose and allows the blade to twist this will scrape of the sleeper causing it to jerk and not fully throw. I got a couple of ideas to try aswell as two more of this specific point to replace it.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Andymsa

[Andymsa]

Progress to date, I have now laid all the track for the new station, point motors are installed and working. Then wiring the track was done no major faults, but did have a minor one where I put the feeds for the frog on one point the wrong way round. The double slip which is the Basel type from tillig is certainly a challenge for wiring and bonding the blades of it was heart stopping, but was very happy how it turned out. The rail joiners are yet to be soldered but once I have tested the new track for awhile it will be soldered on the rail joiners. The base board that leads to the other station has been rebuilt but track yet to be done. The prep work for the new helix has now been done which took longer than expected. The helix is from dcc automation and is slightly wider than the original helix I had in this location, but I have managed to make adjustments to make it fit. The building of the helix will be next on the list. I’m wondering if to keep posting progress as I’m not sure if any one gains from them.

[St Enodoc]

49 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

I’m wondering if to keep posting progress as I’m not sure if any one gains from them.

I do!

[gordon s]

Just stumbled across your thread, but all the pics are missing, so it’s hard to follow without visual clues.

 

Is it just me or have they been removed?

[5BarVT]

5 hours ago, gordon s said:

Just stumbled across your thread, but all the pics are missing, so it’s hard to follow without visual clues.

 

Is it just me or have they been removed?

It’s not you Gordon, pictures I know were there have gone AWOL.

Paul.

[gordon s]

Thanks for letting me know, Paul.
 

What a shame as my interest lies in woodwork, baseboard construction and track laying, all of which were getting great reviews......

[Andymsa]

Thank you for the encouragement, I shall re upload some of the photos.

[gordon s]

Thanks Andy, much appreciated. Sounds like a great work in progress and 32 x 32 is a space to die for.......

[Andymsa]

The new station track, platforms yet to be added 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Andymsa

[Andymsa]

The new helix area, the first pic was how it used to be and the new one is how it now looks. To the right of the second pic you can see the cross spans for a board I have temporarily removed.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Andymsa

[Andymsa]

As previously mentioned the base for the old helix is not wide enough so I have added small extensions where the supports go.

 

 

[WIMorrison]

34 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Thanks Andy, much appreciated. Sounds like a great work in progress and 32 x 32 is a space to die for.......

I guess that is what everyone aspires to having but that brings a whole new set of problems that when you have a 8x4 layout you don't perceive until you start the large layout - a major one is the Bank Manager and a second is that time is precious and cannot be extended  

[Andymsa]

2 hours ago, WIMorrison said:

I guess that is what everyone aspires to having but that brings a whole new set of problems that when you have a 8x4 layout you don't perceive until you start the large layout - a major one is the Bank Manager and a second is that time is precious and cannot be extended  

very true indeed, you need the budget of a small nation. As to time well early retirement beckons 

[Andymsa]

I know many are not interested in computer control but these are the main set of monitors that are used. There are two supplementary monitors but not in use at the moment due to the new works. The first pic shows it over the layout this was how I first mounted them, it seemed a good idea but quite a bit of the layout view was blocked from certain vantage points and it was a mess of wiring because I had duplicate displays so I could view from both sides of the layout. So I moved them to my work bench area as the shelving there was not ideal, I did away with the duplicate displays and used 4 main monitors. New cabinets for mounting the monitors were made so a slight angle could be made between the horizontal view to aid viewing.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Andymsa

[WIMorrison]

Andy, You can never have too many monitors

 

[5BarVT]

But how do you drive them?  Laptops rarely come with drivers for more than one external monitor.  Does that force you down the bespoke desktop route or are there other solutions out there?

(Boot me off onto the Computer Control section if you don’t want OT thread clog!)

Paul.

[RobinofLoxley]

30 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

But how do you drive them?  Laptops rarely come with drivers for more than one external monitor.  Does that force you down the bespoke desktop route or are there other solutions out there?

(Boot me off onto the Computer Control section if you don’t want OT thread clog!)

Paul.

Im interested in the answer to this as well...

 

And where have all the levels gone? Was it something I said??

Edited March 18, 2021 by RobinofLoxley
addition

[WIMorrison]

1 minute ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Im interested in the answer to this as well...

You use a computer - I drive 4 monitors from mine and when I am pushed I can also use an iPad as an extra monitor.

 

simples

 

[Andymsa]

56 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

But how do you drive them?  Laptops rarely come with drivers for more than one external monitor.  Does that force you down the bespoke desktop route or are there other solutions out there?

(Boot me off onto the Computer Control section if you don’t want OT thread clog!)

Paul.

paul,

 

no issue at all to answer the question that’s the point of the thread. The computer was custom built by me a few years ago, by today’s standards is rather old as it still runs with Win7, I know I know but I hate Win10. There are three dual output graphics cards that can run 6 monitors in total. With the old setup I also had splitters so could have up to 12 monitors but that’s overkill. The computer is mounted under the lay out and is connected to the monitors by very high quality cables which are 10 meters in length as they go into the roof void so are out of the way. The computer is only used to run the layout. There will be a second computer to control lighting effects but is a future project at this time.

[WIMorrison]

On my laptop I often have 3 monitors, laptop screen plus another 2x24" , and again if needed I can use 1 or 2 iPads as additional screens - useful for when demoing something

 

I should also say that I am running Win10 on all my machines. 

Edited March 18, 2021 by WIMorrison

[KingEdwardII]

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

But how do you drive them?  Laptops rarely come with drivers for more than one external monitor.

The number of monitors you can drive from one machine varies a lot, depending on the machine hardware.

 

Laptops can be limited by the number and type of port available - often there is only one HDMI or DisplayPort. However, some laptops like my MacBook have 4 USB-C ports each of which can support a Monitor, though I've not had more than 2 at the same time on mine so far.

 

Desktop and Tower computers can in principle have more display adapters installed and thus more monitors. It is also possible to use external port relicators to drive more monitors, which are most commonly used with laptops.

 

Another approach is to use really low cost computers like the Raspberry Pi - a Pi 4 or Pi 400 can drive two monitors out of the box. If you want more monitors simply buy some more Pis - the monitors will likely cost a lot more than the Pis - especially if you like large (22"+) touch-screen monitors as I do. I have been able to use multiple computers simultaneously controlling my layout - this is made easier by having a LAN connection to my controller (Digikeijs DR5000).

 

I think that you need to consider what function(s) the monitors are going to perform, especially when you have multiple of them. It can get tricky to control things via a mouse & keyboard once you have a set of monitors. That is one reason I like touch screen monitors - "point and click" with a mouse transforms into "point and poke" with a finger, but it requires some attention to the user interface to avoid the need for typing anything.

 

Yours,  Mike.