Crosland

There's no way the Elegoo cure station is worth £65.00. It's not even worth £42.50. I paid £55 late last year, I would not buy another. The turntable is a small solar powered one (I was surprised when I unpacked it and it started turning with no power!), about £5 on ebay. UV LEDs are easy to get hold of. Power supply for the LEDs, £5 max. The buttons do not have any "debounce" and it's very difficult to set the time accurately, making it frustrating to use. The case is nicely built, that's only kind thing I can say.

It's also completely pointless. If someone has intercepted AGs e-mail they have all the details.

You may well have a problem if you start ballasting and weathering the track. Once you have droppers soldered to the rails, drop them through small holes drilled from the top and subsequent connections can be screw terminals or wago style, no need for soldering under the baseboard. On such a small layout you could run a simple "spine" bus down the middle of the baseboard and connect the droppers to that.

The dust from those things is nasty and you don't want it getting into any loco mechanism.

And you can only list three items for £1 fee.

To take on example from this thread, accepting payment months ago and then switching to silent running is simply not acceptable practice, no matter the size or nature of the business. IUf goods cannot be supplied then a refund should be offered. There should be no need for customers to resort to apyPal or credit card charge-backs. Communication is key. A simple note on the website would go a long way. Similarly, a simple e-mail auto-response "Sorry orders may be delayed a few days whilst we are on holiday/ill/etc.,..." I say this as the proprietor of a "cottage industry". Has anyone who has spoken to him recently mentioned this thread? He may be blissfully unaware of the bad feeling being created.

The best practice wiring is exactly the same for DC or DCC. DCC is less forgiving of the usual DC short cuts.

That's the benefit of the monochrome screen. The UV light transmission is much greater, compared to an RGB screen, allowing much shorter exposure times for each layer.

Do the people who do this actually know what prepositions and verbs are?

Yeah, but they were probably fitted by grease monkeys who didn't have access to RMWeb Used correctly, insulation displacement is an incredibly reliable means of making connections.

And people moan about eBay! If the sellers fees are the same then that's nearly 80% total to the auctioneer.

I would start measure at the input to the PowerCab. Voltage across the input. If it's DC that's straightforward. If it's AC then it will be 50Hz and the meter will be accurate, so also straightforward). Current by putting the meter in series with one connection. If there's no appreciable voltage drop, then the problem is downstream. Next, build a simple bridge rectifier and turn the track into DC volts for more accurate measurement. Use that at various points around the layout and accessory bus. Add a couple of volts to account for the voltage drop across the diodes. See what is the effect of connecting/disconnecting the accessory bus, running trains, ...

For simple spade terminals you will probably be Ok with a cheap tool. In general, you should buy the crimp tool from the manufacturer of the crimp terminals, but the tools can be hellish expensive for a few connections on a model railway. The best crimps/tools are not just squashed flat on the wire, they are curled inward at the same time. You also need to match the crimp terminal to the wire size. There are some good "compatible" tools but I can't make any particular recommendation. Then you get generic tools. Some of the £10+ tools are actually no better than Blackspur that you might get from the pound shop.

Probably the rubber buttons breaking down.

It isn't so much voltage spikes but rather shorts that need to be handled. If you read (and quote) the whole sentence it is clearer. The terminators, or snubbers, are to protect against voltage spikes. The voltage spikes occur due to fast changes in current combined with the wiring characteristics. This may be due to a short, in which case it happens before the system has time to detect the short and shut off the power.

How did you get 24V out of a model D? Did you connect to the AC or DC outputs? What sort of "step down"?

In the UK? Which couriers still collect on the doorstep? All of the big ones send me an invoice some time after delivery.

Do make sure you use the correct size (colour) for your cable. They tend to have a bad reputation in some circles, but that's entirely due to poor application, rather than any inherent issue.

I learnt etching for PCBs from my father who used to use hot water from a just boiled kettle to dissolve the FeCl To say it used to spit a little would be an understatement.

It's not too difficult. So long as the package is clearly marked as "faulty goods being returned for repair" they should get through customs. We've been doing this for years for returns from outside the EU and now, post brexit, from the EU. We also send repaired goods back the other way to the EU with no customs problems, so far. EU manufacturers are, however, probably worried that end customers will not do this and the manufacturer will have to pay VAT and fees which could make the repair uneconomic. Hence the requirement to go through the local agent.

Any process like this needs "tooling". In the case of etching it used to be "photo-tools" which were the films that were laid against the material being etched to block or let through the UV light. Etching in the PCB industry is all computerised these days and the tooling is all digital. Physical films are no longer required. I don't know how the etching companies supplying the MR etches operate.

They have reduced their range as the owner is retiring to concentrate on his layout, due to being diagnosed with cancer. There's a note on the website.

Was it sent air or surface mail? In the opposite direction I am sending tracked parcels by RM that are reaching their destination in a week. It's better than it was pre-covid.

No, the connection is made within the Wago connector. The 5-way example is designed to join 5 conductors. You can get them in smaller quantities from CPC, Farnell, RS, etc. Yes, it will dangle on the cable. They are designed to be used inside "choc boxes". Lots of info on YouTube, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGv6h5bacdg which uses a Wago box. For MR use you can, e.g., velcro or hot glue somewhere convenient.

How did you fund the PayPal payment? Was it set up to direct debit from your bank account?