Western Loading Point

[Johndc120]

38 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

That Tandem is very nice John.

Is this your first layout to EM standards? If so well come to the party.

Regards Lez.

No it’s not my first. I think this is the 4th layout in EM gauge although this Tandem was a particular pain in the bum! The last one I did was opposite hands and was much easier. Thank you for the kind words Lez.

 

John

[Johndc120]

And that concludes the track laying on this layout. A nice little micro layout with a incoming line, outgoing line, a loading point on the front and a siding to dump things in now and again

 

Plenty of room now to set the scene with the scenery

 

 

 

 

 

[Johndc120]

A nice bit of progress this morning. I’ve finished the buffer stop with a couple of little bits of plasticard behind the bufferbeam to ensure it’s electrically insulated. Not that I’m going to power it but incase you run onto it with a loco

 

 

 

All the electrical droppers are now in place ready to start wiring it up. I’ve also put in the brass pins on the board joint and cut through the rails. 
 

 

In these pictures you can also so a mock up of the loading hopper, this is just a quick 3D print of the bottom, it will be a lot higher. We’ve learnt a few things from this mock up including the Shute needs to be 8mm lower and the straight section to direct the flow of coal better

 

Lastly a new toy has arrived so couldn’t resist posing it on the layout! Not quite what you expect to see on western metals but who cares! 🤣 looks different and nice with the HAAs

 

 

 

[Johndc120]

Progress report 22-2-24!

 

Now the track has been laid we can now move onto other bits, first job which should really have been done before the track was laid was to fitting of alignment dowels. Happily they went in okay and the track still aligns

 

 

Next simple job was to cut out the cork and drill down for the tie bars and operating arm from the servo

 

 

The next major project to start is the wiring. We are fitting the control panel, conveyor controls and the loconet sockets on the front and back of the layout. We have Strengthened the side frames before cutting out the holes for the panels

 

 

 

 

First little bits done

 

The last of the new toys arrived for the moment, this is a Hornby Class 56 which I'll try to convert to EM gauge at the same time as the new Class 58. the next loco is an accurscale Class 31 which is a special release from Key publishing

 

 

 

The other thing I've been playing with since the last update is a lovely little modern boothy by intentio models. This will be a little mess room for the shunter and driver of the colliery loco

 

 

[Johndc120]

Progress on the electrics/electronics and another pair of locos Chipped and converted to EM gauge

 

This first photos shows the point control kit, the boards are in connection with the 3 points, on the left are 3 Tam Valley single servo controllers and on the right are 3 Tam Valley frog juicers. 

 

 

following this is the bits to control the conveyor, at the bottom is a 2 way DCC accessory decoder and then a relay interface board. This allows us to use stop/start buttons on the layout and DCC commands to operate the conveyor

 

 

Lastly on the electrics we have the inputs for the layouts at the bottom including the 16v AC for the conveyor controller, the DCC and 12v on the 4way plug and the loconet sockets to plug controllers into the panels on the layout. The Bachmann controllers sole purpose is to provide a controllable power for the motor on the conveyor so we can tune it to the best flow rate, faster for big wagons and slower for wagons like 16T minerals etc 

 

 

Whilst this has been happening on the layout, off the layout we have also converted both the Class 58 and a Class 56 to EM gauge. They are also DCC fitted now with TCS chips

 

[Johndc120]

Frog Juicers and 3 way points. 

 

During testing we have found an issue which we have had to correct. We are using servos with frog juicers for the polarity change. In the photos I have circled the 2 zones which are polarity swapped with the frog juicers. The first photo shows the original set up where the 2 zones up against each other, this meant when a short loco traversed between them sometimes the frog juicers would both change to the wrong position and the loco would cut out without power.

 

The solution has been to introduce a length of rail, highlighted in blue in the second photo, which is permanently powered so you never transit from one juicer into the next. This eliminates the failure mode.

 

One to keep in mind if trying to do the same 

 

 

[lezz01]

Yeh tandems can be very tricky. both to build and to power. Good to see you've got a solution.

Regards Lez.

[Johndc120]

Yesterday we printed the stepped spillway for the layout, it's based on one which can be seen on the side of the A470 between Abercynon and Merthyr. This gives the reason for the tightrope bridge on the headshunt and the water from which joins the main channel which runs parallel to to the track

 

Next Job is to get it painted into concrete colours and heavily weathered, we can then build up the surrounding land to match this

 

 

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

On 15/02/2024 at 21:27, Johndc120 said:

A nice little micro layout

Interesting to see how people's interpretations of 'micro layout' differ!

 

This layout looks bigger that my (supposedly) 'full size' layouts!

 

Either way, looking forward to seeing how it develops. Maximum respect on the tandem turnout, by the way, a curved right-hand one is in my future to do list!