Tricky Dicky

Regards to the track the problem seems to have been (which i mentioned ages ago but never had the answer) that no ground preparation was seen (not allowed?) so whatever track they used would have had exactly the same issues. If they'd have followed Prototype practice even to a limited extent they'd have had small cuttings and embankments! I assume that the owners of the footpaths used would not allow any changes to be made to their property?! I'm not surprised, had they gouged out a proper railway on those paths up the hills the amount of erosion come the first downpour or frost would have been horrendous!

I can understand they were not allowed to excavate the paths and tracks but surely a bit of packing under the track with gravel or sand would have prevented many of the derailments seen and once finished the residue would have been easily swept away to form part of the path surface. In the first episode it showed track being laid past a pile of gravel, I thought they intended to use it but, no. The track did seem to perform better on paved surfaces with less derailments unless they were edited out?

Richard

Easily found on eBay and elsewhere: search for 'pluggable terminal strip'.

 

 

 

The commercial product has sprung connector pins so the strips plug together securely without needing any screws tightening (or loosening, when you want to dismantle the baseboards again).  Depends on how often you plan to be assembling and disassembling the layout, I guess.  I suspect the sprung pins and/or the holes they plug in to may go slack after a unknown number of insertions/disconnections anyway.  If you're going to be connecting and disconnecting a lot then a connector system designed to stand up to that kind of mechanical use would probably be preferable.

I can vouch for quality pluggable terminal strips. I used them in a context where they were constantly being plugged and unplugged several times a day however, there is a lot of variety and I did find one cheap brand was not as robust. Again a lot will depend on how often you need to separate them. What I would suggest when using them is to fix one to under the board or on a small piece of ply with enough protrusion on the connecting side for the the other half to slide on and engage with the fixed strip I find doing this helps keep them in place rather than having the strip dangle freely.

Richard

Well they saved the best till last. It was good to see Jenny and her team perform at last and "anyone who can breathe" has got to be the defining comment of the series.

Jenny, I would get yourself a projector and screen put a presentation together and get round a few model rail shows, you should be able to make a bob or two out of it especially if you can get hold of any out takes.

Well done to you and the crew.

Richard

I have quite enjoyed the series and look forward to the final episode. I have found it entertaining particularly the interaction between participants even some of the p**ts though cringeworthy at times have proved good entertainment. I admit I am not hung up on the semantics of wether it is a model railway or not and accept that the track used was the only reasonable solution considering the constraints involved. I am pretty sure our Victorian predecessors would have jumped at using a similar solution if the engineering was available.

My only gripe if I can call it that is I would have preferred to concentrate on getting to Inverness by whatever means rather than employing pseudo Victorian solutions that did not really demonstrate or even use the engineering principles of the structures they copied. The truss bridge was best left as a box section if it needed making lighter then a bit of judicious use of a hole saw would have achieved better than cutting triangular holes in plywood thus diminishing its natural strength. The viaduct as someone has already said could simply have been made with a few concrete blocks spanned with planks, the plywood solution was never going to demonstrate why the arch was such an appropriate solution as employed in Victorian viaducts. The trestle bridge was the only structure that demonstrated the engineering principles especially when one of the builders applied his whole weight to a section. More of things like the spiral was what was needed, here was a problem and a bunch of people came up with an appropriate solution.

Richard

If the select has a thermal cutout then it may take a little while to reset. Have you tried it since you had the issue?

Richard

Unfortunately I seem to have missed that and cannot find any reference to 'BBC Breakfast' on the BBC catch-up TV service.

Watch it on iPlayer it is the last item on the show approx 9:15 - 9:30

Spoiler alert! Claire Barrett let the cat out of the bag in the Breakfast interview. Charlie Stayt demonstrated that put a train set in front of any bloke and out comes the big kid.

Richard

Given that it's ancient and mains powered, I hope you're going to make at least a good visual check of the internal wiring before plugging it in. A check by a proper sparky would be better still.

By the time you have paid a "sparky's" hourly rate to test it it you might be better off with a new PSU.

Richard

Tool station do a Duracell Industrial battery in AA & AAA sizes at a fraction of the cost of standard Duracell batteries sold retail. I have used them now for some time and although I have not really noted their longevity I do feel they are as good as the standard Duracell offering.

Richard

Sorry for the wait, this is the code I'm using:

servo 0,75

servo 1,75

servo 2,75

servo 3,75

servo 4,75

servo 5,75

servo 6,75

servo 7,75

main:

if pinC.0=0 then servopos 0,75

    elseif pinC.0=1 then servopos 0,200

endif

if pinC.1=0 then servopos 1,75

    elseif pinC.1=1 then servopos 1,200

endif

if pinC.2=0 then servopos 2,75

    elseif pinC.2=1 then servopos 2,200

endif

if pinC.3=0 then servopos 3,75

    elseif pinC.3=1 then servopos 3,200

endif

if pinC.4=0 then servopos 4,75

    elseif pinC.4=1 then servopos 4,200

endif

if pinC.5=0 then servopos 5,75

    elseif pinC.5=1 then servopos 5,200

endif

if pinC.6=0 then servopos 6,75

    elseif pinC.6=1 then servopos 6,200

endif

if pinC.7=0 then servopos 7,75

    elseif pinC.7=1 then servopos 7,200

endif

goto main

 

Dave

Thanks for the listing Dave, my original program was very similar except I used an 08M and a single servo and included a couple of lines to switch some LEDs to indicate position. Whatever caused the twitch was nothing to do with the servo which is the usual cause. With the servo disconnected and an LED connected to the output to the servo you could see the brief twitch which I believe is down to the program commands rather than the circuit. A number of other PICAXE users reported some twitching and the fact that the Technical guru managed to produce a program without using the specific servo commands and cure the twitch suggests the problem is in the programming.

Thanks again Richard

I thought Gaugemaster offered a lifetime guarantee, send it back to them.

Richard

If you are happier with a basic like programming  language, try the picaxe range. http://www.picaxe.com/

I've used these for many years, and find them easy to get on with.

A bit more info about one of my boards  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/105820-servo-controller-board-using-picaxe/

 

Let me know if you wnt more info

 

Thanks

 

Dave

I would be grateful for more info, in particular your program and how using servos has worked out on the layout.

I recently designed and programmed a Picaxe circuit for a fellow modeller using a servo to operate a gate on a private siding. In the end it turned out more cost effective to modify one of their AXE024 modules. The only problem I had was with the programming using their BASIC servo commands. I got the servo moving through the required angle at the correct speed but could not eliminate a single twitch which occurred at the end of each movement. In the end I posted my problem on the Picaxe Forum and one of their technical gurus rewrote the program eliminating the twitch. However, programming not being my forte I understand parts of the rewritten program but not the whole, so I wondered how you got on?

I would be happy to continue this conversation in the other thread if it is of no interest here.

Richard

From what I can see each 5cm strip contains the usual 3 SMD LEDs and a single current limiting resistor The strip of LEDs will arrive as one continuous length and you will be able to cut required lengths in multiples of 5cm (5cm of 3 LEDs and one resistor being the minimum length). However long the strips you require will only require a 12v DC supply hooking up to illuminate the LEDs. If the brightness needs toning down then an additional resistance in either of the supply leads will do. The value of the additional resistor is really a matter of trial and error, with LEDs doubling up the resistance does not necessarily halve the brightness, so I would start with a low value in the order of a few hundred ohms and increase the resistance until happy. If you are DCC and pulling the supply from the rails then you probably talking of a 16V rail voltage that means it is not safe to hook up your 12v LEDs as they are but a bridge rectifier or 4 Diodes plus some additional resistance which can be easily calculated will be required. I am going to be out to work in the garden but will look in later this evening if you require any further help. Maybe someone else might contribute in the meantime.

Richard

Can you link to the specific LEDs you intend to use?

Richard

For a simple single bifold door probably the simplest way to drive it is to use a small DC motor with a gearbox driving a threaded bar. A simple nut on the threaded bar fixed so it cannot rotate will move along the bar in either direction depending on direction of rotation. Limit switches at either end can be used to prevent overruns. Servos can be used where small movements are required but a larger movement will need to be amplified through the linkages.

Your strobe effect can be achieved using an astable circuit, ones based on 555 timers are plentiful on the Internet, a bit of experimentation with a couple of components will get you the strobe effect you want.

Richard

 

IT IS HERE!

 

After a year and a half of work in the background, we have now launched TouchCab V1.8.4 to the App Store!

 

While it may seem like not a lot has changed, we've been working on things in the background, and are already testing V1.8.5 with Beta Testers, and even later versions privately!

 

So, what's new in 1.8.4?

 

• Updated UI to be more inline with the current iOS versions
• Built for iOS 8 and above, on 32 and 64 Bit devices
• Adapts to all iPhone/iPod screen sizes automagically
• ECoS is now discovered AutoMagically

 

What's Next?

• 1.8.5 is already being tested with additional Language support
• 1.8.6 is being tested internally with some nice new additions   
• 1.9.0 is in development with new features planned
• 2.0.0 is, erm, shhh - it's a secret 

 

Hi Mike

Just a request for a bit of clarity about your announcement. I have an iPad2 iOS 9.3.5 and with the imminent demise of 32 bit apps I bought TouchCab, the version that downloaded was 1.8.4 which is both 32 bit and 64 bit compatible. Will the subsequent versions in the pipeline be equally compatible or will they be purely 64 bit versions? If 1.8.4 is the last version to support 32 bit hardware will it still be available from the app store? Currently when I go to my purchased apps TouchCab does not appear in the list.

The reason I ask is that my iPad seems to have a few gremlins occasionally and I feel it would benefit from a factory reset and rather than restore everything from a back up I would like to do a clean reinstall of apps just in case using a backup reintroduces some of the gremlins back.

Richard

The most common method for frog polarity switching on hand operated points is to use wire in tube where a slide switch is mounted on the edge of the baseboard. The wire is connected to the slide switch actuator by drilling a hole through it, the actuator can then be used to move the point whilst the switch connected to frog simultaneously changes the polarity. A simple wire link can be used if the switch can be lined up with the tie bar.

Richard

I was rather hoping one could just hook up a device via Wi-Fi directly to the DR5000.

 

I've got several old wireless routers that are left over from upgrades ADSL > ADSL2 > Fibre, I'll have to try one.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

That should be the case especially if you have a wireless router or modem router. Early modems, and this is going back to dial up days often required a seperate router. I would expect at least one of your leftovers from the various upgrades would be OK and you do not need an Internet connection to simply communicate between devices on what is a LAN.

Richard

Maybe the search was set to "iPad only" rather than search all apps, im sure someone had the same issue a few pages back

Your right Jim, iPad only - zilch, select iPhone only and its there. Thanks for the heads up. BTW I have been following your layout blog a most impressive project, it's a shame running problems have you considering a restart. Keep up the good work.

Richard

The app currently on sale is fine, works very well. I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again if I needed to.

 

Richard

However go to the TouchCab website and use the link and behold the app is there, never seen that before on the App Store.

I opened up the manual which unfortunetly is in Dutch - maybe Dutch Master might translate some of the relevant pages, pretty please?

There seems to be several references to downloads but my feeling is that it is drivers mainly. There is an extensive section on WiFi and Lan but having to rely on pictures only it does show a tablet using WiFi. It then goes on and lists a number of layout control software including Traincontroller, iTrain and RocRail which can be connected from whatever device they are installed via LAN or USB. One screen shot in the LAN, WiFi section mentions a MacClone which suggests some if not all iOS devices can connect.

Short of getting a translation or them publishing an English version that's as much as I can deduce from the manual.

Richard

 

Almost too good to be true?

Yes the guy stood next to me to whom the sales pitch was being given was reaching into his pocket ready to part with his beer vouchers when that was announced. On the website it is priced at €149.99 I don't know what that converts into pounds but should be pretty close then add in a special exhibition price £120 is probably correct. As far as interfaces are concerned the specs. for it list a number of express net devices such as the LH100 and multimaus. As far as wifi devices I wonder if they are relying on third parties to develop the necessary apps. The demonstrator kept telling the guy once he had his phone networked with the device he simply had to download an app but never whilst I was there did he actually specify which app.

Richard

I listened for a while to a sales spiel and several times the demonstrator mentioned an app to download but never said which devices, android, iOS or Windows and there does not seem to be any information on the website. At £120 it seems very competitive considering the number of bus systems it supports and with built in WiFi and router.

Richard

Soldering has got to be the preferred method, if you are managing to solder droppers onto the rails then soldering onto a bus wire should be straight forward. Admittedly working under a baseboard can be awkward depending how agile you are.

Screwed connectors are one alternative but if your layout is portable and subject to knocks even slight ones, can over time result in screws loosening.

Then you have IDC connectors (Insulation Displacement Connectors). The most popular being the Scotchlok or suitcase connectors. Although they can cope with a range of wire sizes problems can occur when there is a wide difference in wire sizes being connected. Use one that suits the bus wire and it may not sufficiently displace the insulation on the thinner wire, likewise use one that suits the thin wire and it may almost sever the thick wire.

Other connectors are the Wago type. Push in types are best suited for solid wires whilst the lever type will connect both. The only downside is that you cannot do inline connections and need to cut and reconnect the bus wires. Every connection that has to be made is a potential problem and it is better to avoid cutting wires where neccesary.

Richard