Izzy

The question is not whether the chassis is live to one side, as with many locos such as the Farish 03/04/08 etc. but whether the motor is isolated from it, which they are I.e. no brush connection directly to the chassis or the motor body itself being ‘live’. This is where the issues can lay if they are.

Bob

I, and many others from comments I’ve read, started off down the DCC road by using our then current DC layout, swapping out the DC controller for the DCC one, and leaving all the section switches on. I still wire the track in the same way now but have eliminated the switches.
 

Bob

14 hours ago, dave75 said:

Looking at expanding my dcc plank layout, have read lots about power districts but have yet to find a decent simple definition of what one is. 

Leaving aside the hardware required which seems to be a circuit breaker etc and thinking just of the track, is a power district any different from a DC "section" 

Ie a lengths of track electrically isolated from ajoining pieces by isolated rail joins or cuts in the rail?

 

Yes, it's exactly the same in principle. Splitting a layout into separate power districts can be done for a variety of different reasons and there are several ways of doing it depending on what is required. The simplest is just to feed each section through an on/off switch as you would a DC powered layout, doing so to aid with fault finding or short circuit issues. Or power each through a CB so that if a short occurs in one section the rest of the layout remains okay. Another is for power draw where boosters power each section.  Much thus depends on what the layout owner wants, with the size of the layout and the number of locos running on it playing a large part in deciding what is best.

Personally I feel that for a lot of DCC users with smaller layouts and one operator just the one section is all that is needed because if a short occurs then the attention is taken with dealing with that. A continuous circuit layout however is another matter and where such arrangements as power districts etc. then becomes helpful. A separate bus for the track and accesories is probably best though whatever else is chosen.

Bob

The decoder hasn’t been locked somehow to prevent cv changes has it? I have looked at the Dapol Imperium profile in JMRI but can’t see one although I have read there is some mention of cv15. It’s a bit confusing TBH. Thought it worth a mention though just in case. 
 

The other thought is that you might need to knock cv5 down really low to see an effect with the 121. Try a silly figure such as 50 and 25 for cv6 to see if there is a difference. If there is at least you’d have a benchmark to go on. 

Bob

8 hours ago, 2mmMark said:

I'd recommend this instead of scouring pad. It's a little bit finer and has a better base colour


I made an "electric nozzle" for a Noch puffer bottle that works very well.   The charge for the nozzle comes from a Flockbox.



I documented some of my scenic work on British Oak a while back.

 

Thanks Mark, I did follow what you did and thought it really good and to make a note of it, which I then forgot to do being typical me, so thanks for the reminder and the link. I have found a few different materials to try today, some scouring pads and also something from Woodland Scenics.  I also have an old grinder my wife gave me years back which I must try and dig out and see if some of the scatter stuff can be made finer.

Bob

9 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Have you tried using green scouring pad, cut (or torn and trimmed, depending how neat you want the hedge to be) into strips, then dressed with flock as foliage?

 

Jim

Not yet Jim, I’ll give that a try. All this is as you can see both experimental and rather nip & tuck in that there isn’t much room which makes it seem more difficult. I never seem to have enough space with anything I do!
 

Bob

The point hand levers, and some fencing

I had laid the point lever bases when the track was ballasted. I used 10thou plasticard to represent the wooden plank mechanism covers. However when I came to add the actual levers I found they were already starting to break up.

This didn’t seem very good and having had problems with plasticard like this before I decided to replace them with new covers made from scrap nickel silver etch culled from the etched kits I have made. I have a habit of saving what I see as useful bits of etches after all the proper bits have been used. In this way I have lots of straight strips in various sizes and lengths and used a few to also make up the actual levers. I haven’t got the shapes quite right, finding it awkward to get the bends in the right places at the correct angles. But using metal for both the levers and the bases meant I could solder the levers into them to assist in making them stronger and more damage resistant.

I will probably still catch and bend them at times when track cleaning though….. They were given a dunking in metal black before gluing into place and the levers then painting white. I think they look okay.

I have also made and planted the fencing along the back and end. 1/32 ply cut into strips and planted into drilled holes after a coat of black poster paint. I did try at first to drill holes in them to string wire, but this didn’t work out, they just kept breaking up, so the idea is it gives a hint of post and wire fencing without the wires. I managed to wire all those on Tendring, but most of the time the wires are not visible unless the light direction catches them so I think this subterfuge will work.

The etched buffer stops do make up nicely.

The next job is to try and put a hedge behind the fence because the fencing alone looks too stark to my mind. But I have never made field hedging much before and so this is proving a real challenge and especially in 2mm as most of the scenery materials around seem more suited to the larger scales.

Bob

Although it’s been driven by lack of space to have bigger layouts down the decades I’ve slowly come to understand that for me at least as a lone modeller the saying less is more really does apply. Picking a station that allows a wide variety of train movements and services such as you have done is key I believe. Even though I didn’t have that in mind I have managed that with my Priory Road and the scope that has resulted is most beneficial. I do sometimes wish it was just a bit bigger in both length and width, but not too much. So if I’m totally honest while I am envious of the space you have I think that I would reduce the station trackwork a bit and instead have more fiddle capacity. Sometimes I think more fiddle space for easy use is more important than the main layout design. Whenever I see really big layouts now I think, well that looks nice, but I can only run and control, and look at, one train at a time. 

With regard to your sometimes unreliable running this might be down to the track. The Peco rail is very narrow in head section so the slightest bit of dust or dirt is problematic even allowing for stay-alive. The 2mm code 40 is wider at 0.5mm and I haven’t found the need to fit SA to any of my bogie diesels. They mainly have steel tyred 2mm wheels which do seem better for current collection.

If you can afford to do it going 2mm and using the British Finescale trackwork/points might bring benefits. Or even using that track in N. (I wouldn’t be able to stand the still bumpy ride through the pointwork, but that’s just me).

Enjoy the ride whatever!

Bob

9 hours ago, Yorkshire Square said:

 

As I understand it they're all different diameter axles and the length over pinpoints aren't the same either. You end up with items that are only suitable for a specific model or a small group of models. Frustrating to say the least. 

I’d say! Thanks for the heads up. This is the big downside of pin-point axle collection where there is no collective standard. All the makers in the differing scales seem to be going their own ways with all wheel standards and designs which makes it very awkward to say the least when you want either consistently or to adjust/alter things. 

8 hours ago, VRBroadgauge said:

 

I've been regauging Association wheelsets from 9.42 to 10.5mm gauge. I just made up a jig out of styrene (plasticard) and moved the wheels accordingly after some careful measurements.  I've had excellent results. Is this what you're referring to?

Not exactly, rather the distance from the outer wheel face to the end of the pin-point, which of course can vary with not only the overall wheel width but the length/angle of the pin-point and the design of the outer frame. This is crucial as the gear meshing mostly relies on them being right. The tender wheels in the Farish locos that use them are a pain for example as being just plain mazak castings as soon as you shift them they generally become loose on the axle.
 

Bob

1 hour ago, GER_Jon said:

The Dapol wheel sizes by my measurement are

3-333   7.5mm

3-336   7mm

3-339   6mm

 

 

That’s handy to know @GER_Jon thanks. Would the stub axle diameter be the standard 1.5mm? I don’t know what Dapol use as I haven’t any locos to check at present.

Bob

Not read of any conversion myself but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done. However more likely you are the first to want to do it. The new wheels for Dapol conversions might be a solution, if the muffs can be bored out to suit their stub axle diameter - have no idea what that is not having used any yet. Otherwise pin-point axle conversions are difficult due to the need to shift the wheel on the axle, if that is indeed possible, and that is besides machining the wheels. 
 

Bob

The layout cover

One of the driving principles behind this little layout was that it should be small and easy to both use and store. So as part of this the fiddle board was designed to plug into place in use, and be stored within the outline size of the main board. This has been achieved by making a pocket in the cover into which it is placed. This accounts for the lack of even a low backscene. This internal pocket sits just above the fencing posts. It is a nip & tuck situation but as it is shorter than the layout itself there is still room for the bridge!

The cover is made of 5mm foamcore sheet bought from Hobbycraft and is a close fit over the layout, quite tight in this particular case. I have used this material for all my layouts covers in recent times being lightweight yet providing enough protection. The joints are glued using tacky PVA and then reinforced with 2” wide masking tape. This is to both protect all the edges and corners from damage and guard against any paper cuts cause by handling. The outer covering paper of the foamcore board is thin, hard, and cut edges can be sharp.

With some care taken in the design it is possible for the cover to take the weight of the layout involved so they can be up-turned to work on the underside for wiring etc. when needed. This has proved most useful now a countless number of times. Some covers have been made before track laying and others such as in this case towards the end of the layouts construction when locations of all the scenery is known.

Despite the material they have proved surprisingly robust. Although easy and cheap to replace should they get fatally damaged none have needed doing so to date and I would be surprised if any got to that stage given the length of time that has passed since the first were made and survive intact today.

Bob

What do I wish I’d known? That decoder makes are not equal in the motor control quality, most not being nearly as good as I got under DC. If it hadn’t been for CT & Zimo I’d have bailed out back to DC. And the situation is little different today than 14 years back. For the high investment cost I had expected better. Now I know different.

Bob

1 hour ago, JSpencer said:

Under TTS, the supplied bigger round speaker had to be located in the tender, while the chip went into the smokebox (some sources saying TTS were suitable for sugar cubes). 

Any 8ohm speaker will suit TTS. I have never used the supplied speakers with any TTS I have fitted. One uses a Zimo dumbo one. The improvement in sound quality over the supplied one is marked. 
 

Bob

The Cement works

As I have based the premise of this layout around the cement works at Claydon near Ipswich I though I should try and find out a few basic details about it to help with decisions such as what type of huts to make and so on. The information I have managed to find so far is interesting.

The works opened in 1914 being built by Masons to replace an earlier works of theirs at Waldringfield which had been closed down. The new location was to take advantage of not only rail access but nearby chalk deposits as well as those for clay. It survived bombing in WW2 and was taken over by Blue Circle Industries in 1946. They built new kilns at it, at one time numbering 5, one being for some time the largest kiln in the UK. The works operated until 1996 and closed down completely in 1999. Although coal fired through the Masons era in the 1960’s it was connected to the National Grid and became totally electrically operated. Production in later years reached towards half a million tons annually, so it was an important place yet I have seen few mentions of it in articles concerning Blue Circle cement works in the UK. Of the few photos discovered is one from 1971, an aerial shot, showing rows of both original Presflos and later type cement wagons in the sidings along with large numbers of cement lorries. It always looked a large busy place whenever I had driven past it, I just didn’t quite appreciate how big it was.

The fact it was connected to the National Grid during the time period I am modelling means that coal wagons for power supply shouldn’t feature but as I am only using the works as a general guide then in my case they will. I have plenty to use plus it gives another different traffic flow. The more variety of wagons that can be used the better. In fact if I were to choose I could just use it as a set of exchange sidings situated near a junction or some similar situation and have a wide variety of traffic use it.

That the works existed for so long does give rise to the question of what kind and type of huts to produce though. I had originally planned to make a LNER type D prefabricated Hut for one but I am now leaning towards having brick built structures. Or maybe since @bécasse very kindly provided drawings of brick built exGE huts which I have made for Priory Road perhaps I will provide a couple of these for the maintenance side alongside the Type D, the idea being this arrived at the same time as Blue Circle took over the plant. Having to wait for ballast and paint to dry out for days in a row alongside being occupied with other non-modelling activities and wider family duties has given me plenty of time to think about such matters.

Bob

They look to be the standard LMS/BR design. I only know this through all those I’ve made from the etched kits the 2mm association produce…….     Interesting conversion that has bought the buffer heads into line with the beam of the further one. 
 

Bob

10 hours ago, Torper said:

It would appear from Bachmann's website that their latest 21-pin decoder is the 36-557A which is made by ESU.  They retail it at £39.95 which seems expensive for a non-sound decoder, but it apparently offers F2 braking - I have to confess that I wasn't aware that any non-sound decoders had that facility.  On that basis I'd be very tempted to go for it, but I wouldn't buy it from Bachmann as you can get it for about £31 from some retailers, e.g. Rails.

I believe - not entirely sure of the necessary parameters (firmware versions onward)  - that all the recent Zimo standard ( non-sound) decoders can be set to have braking on F2. Got the details, cv changes required, somewhere. Sure others could confirm this.

Of course this is also another advantage of Zimo’s. With suitable equipment, (say a Roco Z21), you can update the firmware on them to the latest spec if you want/need to. Or get a dealer to do it. 
 

Bob

13 hours ago, Carver Bridge TMD said:

Just put this in Sir Gwynedd class 47. On step one it stutters but doesn't really move, on step two it jumps to a scale 40mph and tries to throw itself on the floor. I'll put this one in the 'do not recommend' pile for you...

Just as a matter of interest I've just looked up these ANE decoders in JMRI/Decoder Pro. I thought that maybe there would be a few odd tweaks you could try. I was wrong going by the profiles available. No motor control adjustment at all. And precious little else besides. Just speed curve adjustment through the two normal modes, V min/mid/max and the full range.  So very basic indeed. At the price paid that makes them to my mind extremely expensive on the VFM scale compared to such as the likes of Zimo.

Bob

7 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Unfortunately, while smartphones are fantastic devices that can take great pictures, they have fixed apertures and so depth of field is very poor when photographing models. Then focus stacking is a necessity.

Actually that’s not strictly true in relative terms in that most fixed lens small sensor cameras have native DOF that even at wide-open apertures is greater than most larger sensor cameras such as DSLR’s can produce even with their lenses stopped right down. It’s a sliding scale with such as large plate view cameras having very shallow DOF and very small sensors basically giving back-to-front DOF. In the old days of film use this was used to advantage to produce cheap fixed focus/focus free/fixed aperture cameras simply because everything captured at any focused distance would be in relative sharp focus within the DOF.  This continues these days with most small sensor cameras. It’s all to do with the relationship with focal length and sensor size. Where the larger sensor cameras gain is with far better image collection information thanks to larger pixels. Their downside is the need for a far greater amount of light falling on a subject to fill/saturate those pixels and the much longer shutter speeds thus required to capture one and provide a sharp and blur free result, meaning using a tripod is almost a given. With small sensors and thus very short focal lengths this isn’t needed and they can be hand-held down to very slow speeds with sharp images being produced. Sharp is of course a relative term to be considered in relation to the overall image quality. In other words whether the image is viewed at distance, down at pixel level, or something between the two. 
 

With the images taken with the 24mm I think the most impressive part is the apparent distortion free result. Usually with any DSLR wider-angle lens much below 35mm you expect to see hints of barrel distortion even with the best examples. However in these digital days in-camera processing can offset this and maybe this is what has helped here. 

Bob

You can either use superglue or one of the Loctite thread locking compounds. I use whatever comes to hand. Just be careful to fit the flywheels first and put whetever you use on the tip of the shaft and then slide the flywheels back and forth along the shaft to spread it and lock everything in place. Do it this way to prevent any compoung getting into the motor bearings and locking that up solid, which of course wouldn't be too good.......!  If you ever need to move/remove the flywheels then apply a bit of heat to them, say via a soldering iron, just enough to start the breakdown of the glue joint. Heat will do this to any of them, cyanoacrylate or Loctite (anaerobic) glues.

Bob

Adding the grass

I don’t know about anybody else but I really struggle at times to get even a small bit of grass to look anything close to realistic. But a recent comment I read might have changed that for me and how I approach all scenery in general in the future. Over the recent years I’ve bought quite a bit of static grass in differing colours none of which has turned out to be what I wanted. I’ve mixed it endlessly, laid different lengths in patches and so forth. Mostly the tonal shades just seem wrong. It has been very frustrating. Then just recently I read a comment that the person went over the static grass with whatever particular shade he wanted via an airbrush. Now I don’t know what type of paint was used but this simple action had just never occurred to me despite the fact I always weather the track and ballast.

So when I had laid the Javis static grass I got a few days ago and once again it didn’t come up to expectations colour looks wise despite all the mixing of the various differing shades I thought it was the prime time to give this painting of static grass a whirl. And what a difference. Such a simple and easy solution which I now realise could be applied to most items connected with scenery making in respect to trees, bushes and so forth. I have never thought about painting any of it before but it does now seem quite a logical thing to do. Matt poster paint also seems a good medium to use and that’s what I have done. Having plenty helps here but it’s more about the light matt finish that results. It always dries quite a bit lighter tonally than when it is mixed and wet. Mostly. With pure white and black it’s a bit different and extra care is needed not to overdo them.

I had first laid the grass using Hobbycraft ‘School Glue’ PVA with the grass being put on using a Gaugemaster/Nock puffer bottle with a bespoke nozzle on the end. So no fancy static grass applicators were harmed here. I did look at them once. For my tiny layouts they seemed complete overkill. And rather expensive on the whole for something that would get very little use. By contrast the puffer bottle was a quick and easy try out. At first I did think that perhaps I would have to spend a bit of cash on something better as the initial results were rather disappointing. But then I hit on the idea of using a spare nozzle off a Anita’s Tacky glue bottle to better contain and direct the grass. This just push fits over the head of the puffer bottle and it’s internal push fit cap with the large holes in it, and once cut down so there was a reasonable hole in the end it has proved ideal. All my recent layouts have been grassed with it. Although it can get a bit tiring squeezing the bottle multiple times in succession, and not huge amounts get puffed out with each squeeze, you can go back and forth over an area building up the thickness as required. That’s how I now do it anyway.

I left it to dry out for an hour or two – the school glue goes off quite quickly - and then airbrushed it. Because I used my little Neo for this with it’s small 0.3mm needle I drew back and set the needle a bit to allow the poster paint to flow and not continually jam it up. Poster paint is quite coarse in contrast to the fluids such as ink and thinned enamel/acrylic paint normally meant to be used with such a fine size. I also set the psi at around 25-30. A few coats were needed as the thinned paint didn’t give much coverage in colour depth terms. I also varied the tonal shades and then did a pass with some beige/brown to tone it all down. I’m fairly happy with the final result as it stands at present. Not up to what others seem so easily to achieve, but far better than anything I have been able to produce before. It looks a bit uniform at the moment in respect of the earth banks but I’m hoping that when I add some buses and such like it will appear a bit more natural.

After this I went and airbrushed the track. Various brown shades, black, and a coating of a greyish white to represent the cement dust getting blown around from the wagons. This does now mostly seem to have eliminated the mauve tint.

Oh, the bridge has also had the weathering treatment with the Rowney pastels. As I gave the brick paper a coating of Ghost matt varnish before making it, I could attack it with both the airbrush and poster paints, (or rather the overspray from doing the grass), and then the pastels, without doing any harm to the base paper. I did a couple of times run a wet brush over some parts to alter things without affecting the printed paper beneath.

Sorting the hand levers for the points will be next I think while I muse on the huts and lineside fencing along with some bushes.

Bob

As others have said there is one make, Zimo, that generally stand head and shoulders above all others when it comes to motor control with any loco of whatever scale/gauge etc. Many of us have discovered this purely through trying a range of different makes. Of course the actual sizes of the various decoders varies as do what features each may have to suit particular circumstances and needs of an individual loco, but if they can’t/won’t run decently then all the bells and whistles in the world won’t make up for it. Sometime you can get lucky with other makes and each persons desires re running quality will be different, but for me it’s just Zimo now. Anything else is just hassle and/or disappointment. I accept they aren’t the cheapest but this is the judgement call you have to make. 
 

Bob

With my IPad in the last week or two I now keep getting Google adds appearing at the headers and footers of a page when I look at different pages. Refresh the page and they go, change page and they are back. This doesn’t happen with either my iPhone or laptop so I wonder if somehow it’s related to the latest iPad updates. 
 

Bob

As one of those many souls who for various reasons is unable to get to exhibitions these days and has never seen Lime Street in action the prospect of videos of it to watch is most welcome. 
 

Bob

9 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

In my experience, by using high-quality (and, therefore, rather expensive) lenses which will stop down to much smaller apertures than 'normal', then there is absolutely no need for stacking.

Quite some years ago now, back when stacking first began to appear, and in connection with running a digital camera website I undertook a series of tests to see just how it ‘stacked’ up. So using a couple of different DSLR’s along with their normal lenses, nothing more than the average owner would use, I took optimum single shots at the best apertures for the lenses, f8 or f11, (after that lens diffraction degrades any image and mostly offsets any DOF advantage), and then did a series of stacking shots at the same apertures. In all cases what the single shots lacked in terms of total DOF they more than made up for in clarity and definition and were seen by all who viewed them as the better image. 
 

Now I admit that times have moved on and that the stacking software of today has evolved but the basics are that you can’t get past the fact that the average human eye can resolve 22 llpm ( line pairs per millimetre) and past that point details just merge. So large DOF is only good within certain parameters associated with viewing distance and size of reproduction of any given image. 
 

Bob