Ray H

21 hours ago, GWR57xx said:

The best add-ons I got were UVTools (free download software) and a Wham Bam magnetic base plate.

 

UVTools lets you optimise various settings in the slicer output file - I guess you’ll be using the basic Chitubox?

 

The main ones I use are the base layer exposure delays to eliminate “elephants foot”, and also the “Raise platform on print finish”. I ran my first print before I knew about UVTools, and at the end of the print the platform raises to the top of the Z column. There is a lot of resin still dripping off the base plate and this falls from a great height into the vat, splashing resin up the sides of the cover and all over the inside of the printer. This nifty option allows you to set an extra step at the end of the print to hold the platform at a lower height for long enough for the worst of the drips to finish, saving a lot of cleaning up.

UVTools will also identify errors in your design, such as suction cups, overhangs, islands, resin traps etc, which can save you a lot of failed prints.

 

I find the magnetic base plate makes removing prints from the plate an absolute doddle. I see lots of videos on line where folk are trying to chisel their prints off, scratching the base plate and often breaking their print that they’ve just waited several hours for! It consists of the magnetic plate which you stick to your Elegoo one plus a thin flexible steel plate that is held on by the magnet. At the end of your print just unclip the steel plate, flex it and your print will pop off effortlessly.

Hope you enjoy your 3d journey.

Thanks for those words of wisdom.

I'll take a look at UVTools. Yes, I am currently planning on using Chitubox as the slicer.

What I thought was my flexible magnetic plate arrived (from the Amazon [?] )around 15 minutes before their 10pm curfew yesterday.

I hadn't realised prior thereto that the Elegoo build plate wasn't magnetic, nor that the magnetic plate that I had just received therefore had to be stuck to the build plate. I spent some time wondering how what I had in my hand could be both flexible and fixed to the original build plate! I've since discovered the need for the flexible steel plate and an order for that is about to head to (the [?]) Amazon.

The videos that I've seen of the magnetic plate suggest that there needs to be a spacer added to adjust the lowest height the build plate drops to in order to accommodate the extra bits that will be fitted. Did you find this to be the case and, if so, did you 3D print one yourself?

The plywood bases for the drop in sections have been cut to an approximate size.

I now need to decide how to build & position their end supports aside from deciding their vertical height - see my previous post.

There's not a great deal of space on the (garage) door side as can be seen here:

The 15mm thick plywood strip is the support for the existing lifting flap but it serves to demonstrate the available space.

I want to straighten the track breaks so that the break on both rails is at 90º to the rail ends. I also want to provide a more significant support for the rail ends, especially on the higher (LR) track. Fortunately (!) I can just about get to the underside of the baseboard so that I can screw a more substantial support in place from below.

Jim's has lent me his scroll saw so I ought to be able to make some fairly precise cuts in the drop in section support that will match a similar shaped piece of timber under the end of the drop in section. A couple of (vertical) pins on the flap and matching sockets on the support will help to hold everything together (and the pins/sockets can be the means by which track power is passed to the drop in boards). 

The length of the present flap was determined by the presence of some pipework at the other end of the flap as can be seen here.

I'm thinking that I might extend the fixed part of the layout to nearer the door frame - which will reduce the length/weight of the drop in sections. I can do this as part of providing the enhanced supports for the rail ends on the fixed board and provision of the fixed board fitted supports for the drop in flaps - see also the comment above about squaring off the track ends.

I previously added a small overhanging section to the fixed baseboard as part of the means to try to disguise the old hinge mounting supports as can be seen here.

That does narrow the entrance into the garage slightly and is no longer required for the original purpose so will be removed.

I'm glad in a way that I've started this before turning the 3D printer on otherwise I could see me trying to do both at the same time!

More anon.

That's today's jobs over and done with . . . . (and I now seem to have volunteered myself for another extracurricular job tomorrow which'll again reduce modelling time as a consequence).

Anyway, part of today's plan was to head to my preferred model shop and relieve them of four yards of O gauge track (in exchange for the plastic alternative to money). I spied upon this book just as I was leaving. This was a complete co-incidence as Jim and I were discussing how to portray the new drop in sections yesterday. The book is now in my ownership.

And lo and behold the first picture therein was this British Rail offering from a bridge at St Pancras. It represents an example of an idea we were batting around yesterday.

We came up with a couple of options of how we could do something similar (even if it isn't 100% accurate).

Doing something like the above will impact on the height that the drop-in sections need to sit at. This is obviously a rather important part of deciding the height of the board edge supports for the drop in sections.

I could try 3D printing the flat-bottom rail baseplates but I think what they're affixed to may need preparing some other way because, unlike the picture above, all of track that I'll be laying is on a curve - I've also just realised that I'll need to fix the rails securely to something as well and that's not something I've worked out how to do.

I hope that I'm not talking out of turn here but I wouldn't have thought that running a dcc fitted model onto an incorrect route would have caused the decoder to fail unless the decoder or something else moved or came into contact with something it shouldn't have done.

Presumably the railbus stopped and your controller indicated that you had a short.

It might just be worth trying to reset the decoder, perhaps more than once in succession.

Equally you could simply place the railbus on your programming track and see if you can read a CV - CV8 would be a good one because that should show you a value of 145. Equally, try reading CV1 (or even try selecting the loco using the default address of 3).

✌️

5 minutes ago, GWR57xx said:

Nice bits of kit.

You may find it becomes a bit addictive!

I have no doubt about that, which is why it is probably fortunate that I made a start on the above layout changes before I started tinkering with the printer. I am, however, taking advantage of the time between layout work to gen up on the 3D software.

I also keep finding additional items that I hope will make life easier once I start using the printer and am using their delivery times as another reason for not starting on the printer.

The lifting access flap has now been - you've guessed it - lifted, but only off the layout. In theory it could go back in place but only as an overweight drop-in section as some of the scenery around the hinge mounting blocks is no longer recognisable as such.

The two drop in replacements have been cut and await their side pieces - pieces to help prevent them from becoming mis-shaped over time. Jim's lent me his scroll saw for cutting said side pieces which I hope to have a go at on Wednesday.

I also need to come up with a plan for securing the new sections in situ on the layout as well as sorting out where they're going to be "stored" when not on the layout.

I was already considering the inclusion of piers at the edges of the fixed baseboards.

Great minds . . . . .

We - Jim & me - had a site meeting this morning 🙂

The lifting access flap is destined to disappear to be replaced by two separate drop in pieces - one for each level - although the lower one may yet morph into two pieces, one for the BR track the other for the exchange siding.

The securing blocks for the present flap will disappear and the lower level scenery (such as it is) will be pruned back to nearer baseboard level.

Each drop in piece will be made to look like a steel bridge - even if a bridge just over 1m is one heck of a span at full size!

The exchange siding may gain a couple of inches into the bargain.

The builders are due to start work tomorrow (with a trip to get a suitable piece of plywood) with the intention of going to the PW depot (on Tuesday) to buy a few lengths of track. Obtaining extra track will allow us to construct the new arrangement whilst retaining the present flap, just in case we have to back track for any reason.

Watch this space!

17 minutes ago, DCB said:

Not sure about the geography but it seems to me the hinges are the wrong end.

I use a shouldered bolt in a tight-ish fitting hole in a bracket to avoid the wobble and flop using door hinges on their sides on pillars which makes reliable alignment so difficult.    My lift section is bigger, has two levels one landing on the other and can let me in or out of the shed in under 15 seconds.  The upper part also clips up automatically and has to be released to come down.   Lower part will also get a similar hook when I can figure out how to do it.

Thanks for the suggestion.

The long wall of the garage is on the left. Hinging the flap on the other layout edge will cause the overhang to impact more on the entrance into the garage. I can't leave the flap vertical because the overhang at the top would be about head height.

Likewise, I don't want to move the spring loaded fire door because that would then open against the layout and as it is an inward opening door I keep it open whenever I'm in the garage. I should add that there is no longer a practical & quick exit from the other end of garage

I don't know the regulations for having the door open into the house but the wall you can see beyond the door is narrower than the width of the door so that option's not really practical either.

A (not so) quick "play" with Templot has produced the above "either/or" options - the letters A & C correspond with the same letters in the image in the earlier post.

Option C doesn't look quite as bad as I thought even if it does span a baseboard joint.

Thanks chaps.

It isn't normally too bad but someone else in the room - no names, etc. although I will add that we've been married (to each other) for almost 50 years - was the culprit for waking me this morning and I just couldn't clear my head afterwards. I would have got up but we're currently hosting daughter's dog and I knew that if I started moving around - to go into the computer room - I'd disturb said animal.

Unfortunately I'm already on tablets . . . . . . .

And on the night went . . . . 

I've not been totally happy with  the lifting access flap arrangement for a while and have a nagging feeling that this arrangement might even be contributing to the limited use I'm making of the layout.

It is a bit cumbersome (although not too heavy) and its near 90º shape causes it to overhang the front edge of layout quite a bit when folded back.

The hinge mounting posts are quite prominent with their tops obviously higher than the LR track and yet too low to form the abutments of a bridge over the BR track.

Various bridge options have been considered with the latest and most favoured being a footbridge over the (lower) BR track with steps down to cross the LR at track level. This will depend on whether the bridge's required height to clear the BR track would leave enough room for the steps down to the LR rail level foot crossing.

The flap is around forty inches at its longest point and a shade over sixteen inches deep (front to back). There's just room for it to be stowed, as a drop in, rather than hinged flap, to sit above the baseboard  to the right in the image above. It wouldn't protrude any further (when stowed) than the fixed baseboard and could have a wall mounted support for the back and a couple of "legs" to support the front. I wonder how cumbersome lifting it up and down would be?

It would avoid the need for the hinge supports but would need the use of electrical connections for track power.

Another thought that won't go away is to have a separate drop in trackbed - no scenery - for each level (albeit that that would be harder to disguise scenically). I could use aluminium angle to brace a single layer of 3 - 4mm plywood (or even MDF as it is indoors) and one board could sit upon the other when stowed off the layout.

I could try mocking up the latter idea as an experiment and retain the existing flap away from the layout in case the experiment fails.

And as the night dragged on . . . . .

The rail mounted crane wasn't the only thing I've been thinking about.

The railway would probably need lifting gantry somewhere near the shed. This could go just in front of the lean-to track - the left hand track of the two seen in the image in the previous post.

Why stop there - especially as I now have the potential to 3D print things if I can get to grips with the printer's CAD software?

There's no inspection pit to aid loco preparation and disposal.

I have to be a bit careful about adding this because the LR track on the baseboard level below is on a gradient here so the depth of any pit may have to be very shallow.

One of the disadvantages of an extra evening drink, even of just tea whilst at club, is that as you gain a few years, you tend to have to arise at silly o'clock for reasons that should be obvious to those similarly afflicted. 😒

And so it was at around 03.30 (local time) this morning that I found myself mulling over numerous things as I lie in bed, still awake after originally waking 30 minutes earlier.

I have been thinking for some time that the PHLR really needs a small rail mounted crane. So far I've only managed to locate one kit but one is better than none (although a 3D printed one could be a remote possibility in due course). It'll probably never get a run out but at least the railway will have one should it be needed.

My thinking was that it could normally be found not too far from the loco shed, possibly with a kick back siding somewhere in the vicinity of the area marked C in the image below.

I hadn't realised (as I lay in bed) that the track here is quite straight so I'd need to have a (more or less) left hand point, which may look a bit odd (and said point would also need to straddle a baseboard joint).

Another possible position is in the area marked A in the same image. A much smaller/tighter radius point but it might help to disguise the brick pillar in the foreground on the right.

And least anyone should think I'm losing the plot, the area marked B above is not a third option for the siding! Instead, it is the current location of two twin, surface mounted, mains sockets.

Fresh from my recent success at raising the sockets at the other end of the garage, I'm now considering moving the sockets in the image above. I've yet to decide whether to surface mount them on the aforementioned brick pillar and above the top of the backscene or to mount them on the end of the cupboard that is just visible at the extreme top of the image above. An advantage of the latter is that the pattresses are currently aligned in line, horizontally and there is space to repeat that on the cupboard end (and I wouldn't have to drill holes in the pillar 😃) whereas they'd need to be mounted one above the other on the brick pillar and would probably need two new pattresses.

Does it run with lights and sound turned off?

I've just taken delivery of some new stock!

I've thought of several things this 3D printer (and other components) can be used to produce and that's just in the short time I've taken to get it ordered and delivered.

All I need to do is read the instructions that came with the kit and then carry on watching YouTube videos on how the create the 3D designs.

I now have yet another excuse for delaying any (serious?) scenic work 🙄

48 minutes ago, KNP said:

I shan't bother with any couplings as this will never be pulled by anything . . . . . 

What? Not even attached to one of your express trains?

Don't tell anyone but I think they're coating down hill (unless they're propelling) 😄

7 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Well as it was imaginary does it really matter what it was called. If we follow this would we have to call the head doctor a trickcyclist.

And don't mention Train Station  😬

Drop them an email and see what they say.

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

How about The Ploughley Hundred Light Railway?

That was the name of the district, as a subdivision of Oxfordshire, and it sounds (a) nicely agricultural, and (b) less peculiar than the Hundred of Manhood which, of course, was part of the title of a light (lower case “l”) railway (lower case “r”).

I do like that idea - "P H L R".

Mind you, with my memory, I'll probably have to keep checking the spelling of Ploughley 🙂

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

They seem often to have started with grandiose names, which they then retained even when they petered out in a boggy field miles from anywhere. Now, Westbury spans the Bucks-Oxon border, with a bit of Northants dangling down very nearby (Evenley is in Northants, I think), so yours could have a really verbose title: The Buckinghamshire, West Northamptonshire and North Oxfordshire Light Railway. That would be particularly apt if it never actually went into Northants.

 

Is there room along the sides of the carriages for that?

The coaches are longer than the locos so it probably would fit along coach sides but I doubt it would fit on the Manning Wardle's tank. 😄

I doubt I'll actually use the LR's title anywhere except in the heading of this thread. That said, trying to make home made "logos" might be easier to apportion using W & M for no other reason than the "&" could more or less go in the centre with the W & M (having similar character widths) on each side. That argument wouldn't stack up if I decided to include the "L R" as in W & M L R. I might just stick with W & M.

I reckon that our local postal service is awaiting the building of a new Light Railway around here! The delivery delays that we seem to be experiencing certainly don't appear to show their road based motor vehicles in good light, but I digress (although you can probably take it from that, that the adhesive brick papers that I ordered several days ago still haven't arrived 😒).

I think that I'll go with the name changes previously mentioned viz: the halt will become Fulwell and the terminus will become Mixbury.

The remaining question then is, does the light railway thus become the W (for Westbury [Crossing]) & M (for Mixbury) or do I call it the W & A (for Ardley, which was the originally planned terminus)?

When the money ran out and lines stopped short of their originally intended terminus, did those lines change their name to reflect the truncation or did they stick with using the originally intended terminus in the line's name?

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

As regards model railway connections, C J Freezer’s son worked at 55BY, . . . . . 

Indeed he did and I was his manager for a significant part of that time. 😒

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That must have been where the late Norman Eagles of Sherwood Section fame worked.

Indeed it was. One of my office colleagues was originally married to his secretary but I didn't appreciate then exactly who he was so I never managed to wrangle an invite.