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Trofimow

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Everything posted by Trofimow

  1. Well, that's the three levels of storage fully completed, now the various ramps up to the scenic level need to be installed. To start with, there will be two single track branch lines running into the main station at Effingham, these will share an access ramp into the centre of the top level storage loops. This ramp is now in place and has been tested. Trains of up to nine coaches have been successfully started on the gradient using a pacific loco, which is far more than will be required in practice.
  2. Wiring on these loops is now complete and tested. There is rather a lot of it - certainly not the mythical DCC two wires only. It seems that depending on your point of view, I over complicate the wiring, over engineer it, or arrange it for ease of operational fault finding.
  3. Well, it didn't take long to hide all that bare plywood under some track. Wiring it up might take a little longer though.
  4. I totally agree with what has been said about running with all metal wheels and no traction tyres. I have far too much hidden trackage to be cleaning it all the time. It was all treated with a 9B graphite stick when first laid, and is kept topped up by treating the accessible track from time to time. I have not found track cleaning necessary, and the graphite has had no noticeable effect on haulage capacity, the layout is almost all on gradients and I run long trains without a problem.
  5. The multipanel draw is negligible, but you may need to join the 0v lines of the 2 PSU's to help the mulipanel correctly read return data from the servo contoller.
  6. Is the servo controller on a different psu to the multi panel?
  7. Given that you are running 60% more power than I am and only one third the number of servos, I would be surprised if your troubles are power related, which points towards network issues. Power aside, our network configurations are quite similar, but I would make the following observations. I have tried to place the CAN decoders to minimise the length of daisy chain between the servo decoders. The CAN bus itself is laid with screened CAT5 network cable. The cabling between the CAN decoders and the servo boards, and the daisy chain between the boards has been done with ebay servo cables as you have done, except that if a run exceeds one metre I have used a twisted triplet of wires instead to try to improve noise rejection. No such run exceeds 3 metres. I would be very wary of using long runs of plain servo cable, for fear of generating noise on the network.
  8. I have not measured it, but I guess I'm running around 60M now, and the problems started at about half that, which would be similar to where you are now. I put in the CAN bus on Dave Fenton's advice and all came good. Your 16A total available power is quite a bit greater than my 10A. My 5 power zones are each fused at 5A slow blow, and with the sequenced start up I have not had any power related issues. The zoned power architecture also helps to prevent any wiring size issues.
  9. Do your issues manifest during normal operation, or only at startup? I am currently running 203 Megapoints servos on my still expanding network, all powered from a single 10A supply via a panel mounted ammeter. In normal operation the current draw is negligible and is only significant at system startup. This has been addressed by dividing decoder network into 5 power zones, started sequentially at 10 second intervals. I did have random control issues once the network length became significant, but this was resolved by installing a CAN bus.
  10. So the test trains that were giving trouble have now had their tension locks replaced with alternative couplings. Most trains will run in fixed rakes so standardisation on one type is not necessary. Reliability of running has been transformed and the longest trains can now be left to circulate continuously round the layout without problems. This means that the layout itself as so far constructed has passed its testing and construction can continue with the next phase, which is the final set of storage loops on the top level, a vast expanse of plywood awaits...
  11. In the best traditions of the hobby, the most effective way to ensure that something gets made RTR is to put the effort in to build it yourself first... If our friends at accurascale are reading this, I've almost finished the SR meat van, and I'm hoping to make 2 different Transfesa ferry vans next in line. (hint, hint)
  12. Not really. Sorry to disappoint your friend, but although satisfactory for my layout, they are not of what I would consider to be commercial quality, and the amount of work and therefore time involved would make the cost completely unrealistic.
  13. Much longer than you could imagine... I bought the printer with no prior knowledge whatsover of 3D printing or CAD design. My understanding of it is still somewhat rudimentary and basic now. The learning curve was vertical and It took many, many failures before anything vaguely acceptable came out.
  14. The complete van, body and chassis printed as one piece. Here are a couple of earlier iterations during development.
  15. My triple decker varies between an absolute minimum of 6 inches clearance, which is tight, to a much more comfortable 8 inches. Baseboard width should also be a consideration, don't make it wider than you can comfortably reach through the gap.
  16. These have been seen on here in a previous thread, my first attempts at 3D printing bodgery. This one is a one piece print, and I used the chassis and doors from this bashed with the Parkside PC 594 kit The meat van is also in the works as a one piece 3D print, but still a WIP at this stage.
  17. Intensive testing has been in progress of that part of the layout thus far completed. It's been instructive to say the least, but the issues have been identified, and faults with the layout itself rectified so that construction can begin on the next phase. We have four levels so far, from the bottom up, a return loop, level 3 storage and level 2 storage all completed, plus level 1 storage two thirds finished. The speed limit throughout the storage system is a scale 45mph. To circumnavigate at this speed takes around 14 minutes. I have set up a representative selection of 20 or so trains to test with, and the problems so far identified fall into 2 groups, issues with the layout and issues with the trains. Layout issues have been relatively few, starting with the least common, some programming errors where a section has been assigned the wrong DCC address for the occupancy sensor, or a turnout operation has been programmed in the reverse sense. Next, there have been a few wiring errors, reverse polarity, poor connections or a feed not being put in at all. All easily rectified once identified. Finally, there have been a handful of places in which my track laying has fallen short. These were soon found by the half dozen or so locos in my fleet that are most intolerant of poor trackwork. The necessary improvements have been made so that all these locos will now circulate round the entire layout reliably. You might think that faultless running should now follow. Unfortunately not, which brings us on to the second group of issues, those with the trains. Train lengths are long, up to 13 bogies or 39 SLU wagons, the layout is mostly on a gradient of between 1 in 80 and 1 in 100. There are curves of up to 180 degrees at 3rd and 4th radius in the storage areas. This results in a lot of weight and drag in the train and contributes to the issues to be dealt with. The first and quite common issue has been wheels and bogies. Back to backs of course, but there has been a major issue with trains, particularly goods trains, derailing for no apparent reason. This was traced to vehicles from a particular manufacturer, made a few years ago. The wheels have a particular profile which is visibly different to the norm and have caused no end of derailments. Once re-wheeled with suitable replacements, the derailments cease. Bogie stock has sometimes given problems with a given bogie always derailing at a particular place were nothing else has a problem. This has usually been down to too much or too little freedom of movement of the bogie in question, rectified by adjustment to the pivot. Which brings me to the greatest cause of trouble, tension lock couplings. They tangle, they part spontaneously and they override one another in a heavy train descending a gradient and then derail it on the next curve. Sometimes they just fall off, particularly those with dovetail fixings. Where possible they are being replaced with alternatives in the longest trains. All the test trains now perform satisfactorily, but it has been quite a game to get there. That's it for now, who knows what more fun awaits with the next phase...
  18. Yes, it's scary how the numbers mount up! Still the end is now in sight, only the uppermost storage level at the front of the room remains to be done. One through road and seven storage loops in each direction, plus an entry road and an exit road for the storage system, but that will eat another 31 points.
  19. All three levels of storage are now completed at the rear of the room and also on the centre peninsula All the tracklaying and wiring is done so things are nearly ready for test running this phase of the build, however another system constraint might delay things a little. I mentioned in a previous post that I had reached the limits of available DCC power, and how a booster was needed to grow things any further. This time I've hit the limits of the point control system. Servos are used, controlled by a Sprog over a Megapoints network, which has now reached the maximum capacity of 192 turnouts. A second network will need to be installed before any more points can be linked to the computer.
  20. With all the train storage on Effingham being on the hidden lower levels, a cctv system is necessary to see what's going on. Each set of storage loops has a camera on the entrance and another on the exit, panable to view the approach and departure routes. Here are the cameras at the end of the centre peninsula storage, one for each of the three levels. The cameras are mounted on servos using 3D printed fittings. With three sets of storage per level, there's a total of 18 of them. Pan control was done using arduinos (in the green boxes) and pots mounted to the control panel. This pan control worked, but has never been entirely satisfactory. There are of necessity long wiring runs from the panel to the cameras, and control has always been twitchy, and subject to noise. Attempts to damp out the instability merely introduced latency into the control response, which merely replaced one problem with another. With the penultimate set of storage loops now nearing completion, a better system was needed. Effingham uses considerable quantities of servos for various purposes, and I have one of these little testers to use when installing them. It was temporarily tried in place of the arduino control on the most remote of the camera servos and worked perfectly, so now these little units have replaced all of the previous arduino controls.
  21. Although Effingham has survived thus far using a single Lenz Set 100 for the DCC supply, it was always expected that in due course one or more boosters would be needed to support the number of trains that the layout will be able to accommodate, and the wiring was planned accordingly. It seems that time has arrived, as it was noticed during the wiring of the most recently laid set of storage loops that the layout now draws over 4 amps of DCC power just in standby and with only a few trains parked on the layout, but not moving. A second handset would also be useful to reduce the amount of unplugging and moving around of the solitary existing one, but a cost effective way of achieving all this needed to be found. I obtained a reasonably priced second hand Lenz Set 90 on ebay, which gave me a LZV 100 command station and a handset, and from a dealer, a Lenz transformer to go with it in as new condition, but offered cheaply as it has a continental mains plug. When the set 90 arrived I was not greatly surprised to find it reported Error 17, internal battery fault – perhaps why it was sold on. No matter, since I am only going to use it as a booster, in which mode the battery is not required. A simple internal mod is all that is necessary, and now the power available to the layout has been doubled.
  22. I still have an old Hamblings Wheel Press Tool somewhere!
  23. Track laying is done for the first of two sets of storage loops on the centre peninsula and wiring is in progress. Access to the peninsula has the stair well in the way, which needs to be crossed twice on each of the three levels, once on the way in and again on the way out. Two bridges are therefore needed on each level, passing between the bannister spindles. Here are the bridges put in some time ago when the first level was constructed. Now there are bridges for all three levels. It's quite a drop to the ground floor below.
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