Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Bogie]

Cor b****r me pink with a blue banana, well I never. Kids in the 1950s had all the fun.

 

That's one way of looking at it.  I myself am beginning to understand why anyone who grew up in the 1950's is a touch overwhelmed by the modern age.

[Mallard60022]

We set off to Canberra on Saturday, Australia Day, for an overnight stay. Now, you may well ask why a couple of Sydneysiders should want to do that and there are indeed, in my opinion, very few good reasons - but this was definitely one:

 

 

This is the catalogue from the National Gallery of Australia's current major exhibition, which we visited yesterday. If you like that sort of thing, it is definitely worth the trip.

 

Bringing us back to a railway theme, something I didn't know before was the connection between the Pre-Raphaelites and British light railways. According to Wikipedia:

 

"Colonel Holman Fred Stephens was the son of Frederic George Stephens, Pre-Raphaelite artist and art critic, and his wife the artist Rebecca Clara (née Dalton). He was named after his father's friend and former tutor, the painter Holman Hunt, although the two later fell out. He was a great nephew of the naturalist, explorer and biologist, Charles Darwin."

 

One or two of the pictures in the exhibition had actually been presented to the Tate Gallery by Col Stephens himself.

 

Anyway, back to business in the railway room today. I decided to start the replacement of the H&M point motors by Cobalt iP Digitals at the Down end of the Paddington loops.

 

20190128 001 PD point decoder board before disconnection.JPG

Here's a picture of one of the decoder boards before I disconnected anything. The two motors I worked on today were 214 and 215, which operate the two points leading from the main lines into the Paddington Down throat.

 

Fitting the new motors to the boards was quite easy, while programming the motors was also straightforward once I'd read through the DCC Concepts instructions a couple of times. The motors come pre-centred (as do their analogue cousins), which makes them easy to fit in the correct position. Once they were in place the first job was to release the self-centring function by using address 198, after which I encoded the actual accessory addresses. To maintain the existing normal/reverse route-setting logic in the Mini Panel I also had to use the software-driven changeover function (address 197), which changes N to R and vice versa.

 

Once the motors were working correctly off the accessory bus, I connected the frogs. Finally, on motor 215 I had to connect the direct push-button connection for the normal direction to keep the number of routes on the Mini Panel within the limit of 30. I made a temporary lash-up with the accessory bus so that the new and old motors can still work together, Once all the motors on each decoder board are changed out I will remove the board and connect the accessory bus permanently to the new motors in daisy-chain fashion.

 

20190128 003 PD H&M point motors 214 & 215 replaced by Cobalt iP Digital.JPG

Here are the two new motors installed and connected. My apologies for the blurred image - it was a very awkward location with limited light, so the exposure was a bit too long to avoid camera shake.

 

20190128 004 PD point decoder board after disconnecting motors 214 & 215.JPG

Here is the decoder board with all the wires for motors 214 and 215 removed. I re-used the frog wires but the solenoid connections obviously aren't needed now, so the wiring under board is a little less congested. A big bonus is that no soldering was needed so I didn't have to struggle with the iron under the baseboards with all the other wiring getting in the way.

 

This all took me a couple of hours, but now I know what I'm doing I reckon it should take about half-an-hour per motor from now on.

 

See your Dfs8X, mine has two duff  CDUs already; I might be sending it back if another goes. It is working off a PSU2 on 18V though so should have enough power so I don't think I'm not giving it enough grunt?

Keep an eye on yours matey.

P

Edited January 28, 2019 by Mallard60022

[TrevorP1]

 

 

Anyway, back to business in the railway room today. I decided to start the replacement of the H&M point motors by Cobalt iP Digitals at the Down end of the Paddington loops.

 

20190128 001 PD point decoder board before disconnection.JPG

Here's a picture of one of the decoder boards before I disconnected anything. The two motors I worked on today were 214 and 215, which operate the two points leading from the main lines into the Paddington Down throat.

 

Fitting the new motors to the boards was quite easy, while programming the motors was also straightforward once I'd read through the DCC Concepts instructions a couple of times. The motors come pre-centred (as do their analogue cousins), which makes them easy to fit in the correct position. Once they were in place the first job was to release the self-centring function by using address 198, after which I encoded the actual accessory addresses. To maintain the existing normal/reverse route-setting logic in the Mini Panel I also had to use the software-driven changeover function (address 197), which changes N to R and vice versa.

 

Once the motors were working correctly off the accessory bus, I connected the frogs. Finally, on motor 215 I had to connect the direct push-button connection for the normal direction to keep the number of routes on the Mini Panel within the limit of 30. I made a temporary lash-up with the accessory bus so that the new and old motors can still work together, Once all the motors on each decoder board are changed out I will remove the board and connect the accessory bus permanently to the new motors in daisy-chain fashion.

 

20190128 003 PD H&M point motors 214 & 215 replaced by Cobalt iP Digital.JPG

Here are the two new motors installed and connected. My apologies for the blurred image - it was a very awkward location with limited light, so the exposure was a bit too long to avoid camera shake.

 

20190128 004 PD point decoder board after disconnecting motors 214 & 215.JPG

Here is the decoder board with all the wires for motors 214 and 215 removed. I re-used the frog wires but the solenoid connections obviously aren't needed now, so the wiring under board is a little less congested. A big bonus is that no soldering was needed so I didn't have to struggle with the iron under the baseboards with all the other wiring getting in the way.

 

This all took me a couple of hours, but now I know what I'm doing I reckon it should take about half-an-hour per motor from now on.

 

 

You make it all sound so easy John!  

 

Very interesting about Colonel Stephens by the way.

[Oldddudders]

In't modern tech stuff clever.

Just wait ‘til you discover DCC! And steam locos......

[St Enodoc]

See your Dfs8X, mine has two duff  CDUs already; I might be sending it back if another goes. It is working off a PSU2 on 18V though so should have enough power so I don't think I'm not giving it enough grunt?

Keep an eye on yours matey.

P

I had a couple that gave me trouble initially but DCC Concepts replaced them without quibble and the replacements have been fine so far. I'm only removing them because I'm getting rid of the solenoid motors altogether.

[Clive Mortimore]

Just wait ‘til you discover DCC! And steam locos......

Dear Ian

 

Should one take some time to view my layout named Sheffield Exchange one would be aware I have a small collection of appropriate model steam locomotives to operate alongside my diesel multiple units. I have even taken to provide coaling, watering and ash disposal facilities for the said steam locomotives.

 

So wot is all this fuss about an extra "C" :dontknow: me trains goes backwards and forwards, faster and slower and stay on the track, wot else does a geezer need?

[St Enodoc]

Just a placeholder so that this topic will appear on my custom activity stream. The new style will probably be OK once I get used to it.

One thing I haven't found yet is how to find tags in topic titles - any ideas?

[Martin S-C]

On 1/29/2019 at 8:48 AM, Clive Mortimore said:

So wot is all this fuss about an extra "C" me trains goes backwards and forwards, faster and slower and stay on the track, wot else does a geezer need?

Well... its not just an extra "C". The other "C" and the "D" stand for something else than "Current" and "Direct". Once you work that out the naming convention gives a hint as to what is possible.

[Clive Mortimore]

33 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

Well... its not just an extra "C". The other "C" and the "D" stand for something else than "Current" and "Direct". Once you work that out the naming convention gives a hint as to what is possible.

Hi Martin

 

As our mate Stu says DCC stands for "Doubt Clive Cares". For my needs DC is wonderful.

[Martin S-C]

Each to his own sir, each to his own!

For my needs DCC is wonderful. I wouldn't contemplate any new layout using DC any more. Its just so... limiting... to what you can do.

EDIT: Chilling more.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Martin S-C

[St Enodoc]

Here we go with my first try at attaching photos to a post on the new-style RMweb.

 

Today I changed over another five H&M motors for Cobalts at the Down end of the Paddington loops. This took just over three hours, so my estimate of half-an-hour each was slightly low. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have dealt with one complete decoder board - six to go!

 

Here's the decoder board with all the connections to the old H&Ms and to the frogs removed. The two cables hanging down are those that are now providing power to the Cobalts.

 

Finally I removed the decoder board and tidied up the wiring so that just the switch and EB1 circuit breaker are left. In theory I could remove these, as I no longer need to limit the inrush current to the decoder board, but I've decided to leave them so that in the event of trouble I can isolate small groups of Cobalts separately.

 

Next time I'll move on to the Up end of the Penzance loops, where two of the H&Ms have been sticky since they were first installed and have defied all my attempts to get them working freely.

[St Enodoc]

Well, that was interesting. The post appeared without problems but the topic disappeared from my custom activity stream.

 

Edit: when I submitted the previous post I switched off "notify me of replies". Now I've switched it back on and the topic has reappeared.

Edited February 3, 2019 by St Enodoc

[Martin S-C]

How do you get the photos to appear within the text in the posts? I have so far only managed to get photos to appear at the end of the text.

[Michael Edge]

Just keep typing after you have added the photo - the cursor appears at the bottom right of the picture (but it's not easy to spot).

[5BarVT]

I’m still getting used to the new site too. Thanks for the tip about the notifications button.  

I was at the Stafford show yesterday and saw an interesting Locolift. It’s 3mm polycarbonate sides and because they go to the top of the end mates they are retained in place. 

Paul

[Martin S-C]

Nice. And you can see your locos better too.

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

How do you get the photos to appear within the text in the posts? I have so far only managed to get photos to appear at the end of the text.

Martin, I tried the same way that I used to and it worked.

 

Place the cursor where you want the photo to go - I usually type something like [1] so that I know which photo to put where - then "choose files". This opens a box with your folder/file structure in it and you just select the one you want. Rinse and repeat.

 

I haven't tried drag and drop and probably won't bother now.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

I’m still getting used to the new site too. Thanks for the tip about the notifications button.  

I was at the Stafford show yesterday and saw an interesting Locolift. It’s 3mm polycarbonate sides and because they go to the top of the end mates they are retained in place. 

Paul

That's very nice Paul. I will investigate further.

[St Enodoc]

On 26/01/2019 at 00:42, bgman said:

 

 

我不明白这里的问题一切都很好 !

 

M.Andarin

 

On 26/01/2019 at 00:45, Stubby47 said:

 

 

然後你看錯了地方



Especially for Graeme (bgman) and Stu (Stubby47):

 

恭喜发财!

Edited February 5, 2019 by St Enodoc

[Barry O]

You been on the Chinese beer again? 

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi John

 

Has that boat with the Warships on board docked in Aussieland yet?

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi John

 

Has that boat with the Warships on board docked in Aussieland yet?

Don't know. Stubby's our resident shiptracker. Perhaps he'll be along in a minute.

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Barry O said:

You been on the Chinese beer again? 

不是.

[Stubby47]

I lost it somewhere near Singapore.  I'll have another look.

 

It appears to be going round in circles...

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Stubby47

[Martin S-C]

4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi John

 

Has that boat with the Warships on board docked in Aussieland yet?

When I read that my mind saw this: