idd15

First EVs with sodium ion batteries have gone on sale in China. Somewhat limited at the moment but give it time… Sodium ion EV Cheers idd

So my take on all this. Very good to see Hornby are still developing and putting significant investment into TT120, and long may it continue. Maybe things are not going quite as quickly, or in the many and varied directions as perhaps we’d like. But hey at least it’s happening! 😊 pip pip idd

Some pics from this morning taken from the road and footbridge nearest the incident. Might be on the BBC news this evening as a local team were also there:

Apparently the current version, which is only available on the continent has clocked up over 140,000 unit sales in 3 yrs. So I think it’s going to be pretty popular in its new guise. We’ve also got the new Citroen eC3 and Renault 5 on the way later this year with prices starting in the 20 to 25k bracket, so maybe just maybe EVs might start to become a bit more “affordable”. Cheers idd

Ta Dah! 1st preorder TTA has arrived. Am very impressed with fit and finish, most of the lettering is readable with a magnifying glass. The walkways are also very impressive with no blocked or misshapen holes due to too much paint. Hope others are as happy with their samples as I am. idd

I have both a Badger 200 single action airbrush which is siphon fed and a Sparmax 4 double action gravity fed brush with an inbuilt paint cup. Of the two I prefer the Sparmax because there is a lot less to clean! The Sparmax is also clever in that you can configure it to act a as single action airbrush. However, as I also spray the odd RC model aircraft then the Badger is the one to use because it can hold a lot more paint. To my somewhat untrained eye as an infrequent sprayer the quality of the finish is the same. HTH idd

You may find you actually burn off the insulation with your soldering iron, there are “enamelled “ wires made so you can do this. The trade name escapes me at the moment! Alternatively you could use fine abrasive paper by gently pulling the wire through it. hth idd

One of our small suppliers had both of his two diesel vans out of action this morning due to the cold. One was a collapsed 12v battery and the other was a “frozen” gearbox. Had to run the engine for half an hour to defrost it! Driver was not happy either as he was well behind. idd

Have used Vajello Matt spray varnish and seems pretty Matt to me. However you still have the problem with spray cans being a bit fierce at times! hth idd

Yes I like the design cues from the old model. Do you think the grenade launcher will come as standard or be an optional extra? 😀 Big takeaway is that they’re after best in class efficency. Stellantis is now very much going down this route as well with the Fiat 600 and improvements to the existing range. A good move imho as I’m not a big fan of the “bung a bigger battery in it” school of design that seems to have dominated recently… cheers idd

Yes, just put the receiver into bind mode and then rebind it to the transmitter with the memory set to the one you want to use. Hth idd

Yes absolutely this would be another way of doing it and I did consider it. You could make a suitable cam by mounting two servo discs face to face with the centres offset by the required rise which, is only about 1mm I think. However, in my particular case because the layout is supposed to be portable I didn't want the ramps falling out when carried and stored on end! Though this problem could be overcome by using a thin countersunk head bolt through the baseboard as the anti swivel pin with a nyloc nut on it. In fact adding a few nuts would give the ramp a bit more weight as well! The other reason for using the wire linkage was to ensure that when the ramp was retracted it was positively locked down and less likely to cause a derailment. Perhaps a bit of overkill but "murphy's law" always applies I have found...🙃 cheers idd

This is how I implemented prototype ramps on my layout. They are cut down lolly sticks with a small screw into plastic tube. The tube slides in another tube glued through the baseboard. A panel pin is pushed through the ramp at one end and goes through another hole in the baseboard to stop rotation of the ramp. The ramp connects to the servo arm with a very thin wire to give some flex. Bit crude, but does work provided ramp goes up parallel. It is also fiddly to set up. Servo is driven by Megapoints controller which allows you to control servo direction and throw, again this can be a bit fiddly. I've not got around to refining this as I found the number of button presses on the dcc controller to address a point or uncoupler "got in the way”. If you have a dcc mimic diagram on a tablet then this would not matter. I will probably go back to toggle switches driving the Megapoints controller directly. HTH Idd

Am at GBMR show today and am one happy bunny because the folks on the Hornby stand confirmed that a Pendolino is on the to do list. Where on the list or when they could not say. 😁 HS125 looks and sounds ace, TTA tanks and the hoppers are also looking good! Go Hornby! 😁😁😁 Cheers Idd

Resisting the temptation so as not to encourage you! 😀 But honestly it’s bad enough saying to people you may have 20 minutes or so to wait on this super rapid charger. Can you imagine the outcry when you explain you’ve got to put on a hazmat suit to fuel your car with ammonia? idd