Trofimow

Yup, my luggage van pre order cancelled as well. This is just the latest in a string of my Hornby pre-orders that have been cancelled with Hattons. Sorry to say it, but there is just no point in giving Hattons any more of my Hornby orders any more. I am cancelling the rest and will try to re-order elsewhere. Wherever the fault lies, it does customer confidence no good at all, in either the retailer or the manufacturer.

The proposed Alexa voice control additions have now been implemented and tested. These are useful in that it is not necessary to get to a control panel in order to action them, although they can also be operated by a hardware panel control. "Alexa Emergency Stop" puts Traincontroller into freeze mode, cutting the DCC power and making a hard stop of all trains and layout functions. This can only be reset at the computer. "Alexa Pause Operations" instigates a soft stop of the layout. It stops the timetable clock and locks the exit of every block, having a similar effect to putting all signals to danger. "Alexa Resume Operations", as you might expect, restarts the clock and unlocks the blocks, enabling trains to continue. Each of the above will also trigger a voice announcement by the computer and put a message on the track display. The pause function will also be triggered automatically by the PSX circuit breakers if a short circuit occurs, such as a derailment, with a voice announcement of which breaker, indicating the general location of the problem. When the short is cleared, the breaker will reset and trigger the resume function.

Another occasional update on progress with construction of the layout.... Testing on the level 3 storage is now complete. Trains have been runnng under computer control from their assigned storage loop down to the return loop below level 3, back up to level three and then up to the temporary return loop at level 2 height, a vertical range of 12 inches. The rails are graphited and with the magnetic adhesion enhancement, full length trains of 13 bogies or 39 slu goods stock have presented no problem, and a loco can restart a train at any point on the layout. The intensive testing has certainly shown up those places where my tracklaying was not as good as I thought it was, all such instances have now been investigated and fettled accordingly. A few wiring errors have also come to light and been corrected. The temporary return loop has now been removed and work can start on installing the baseboard structure for level 2 storage. Progress beyond that is going to be dependent on the future availability of points and track in these uncertain times.

Or Electric Light Orchestra

Yes, the sides have come up a bit thicker than would be ideal in 4mm, but apart from that it seems pretty good to me.

I took the liberty of blowing this up to 4mm and running it on the photon with very acceptable results.

Next in this occasional series of progress updates... The final set of storage loops on the lowest deck have now been installed, which completes phase one of the build. Next will be some intensive test running to find the bugs before work starts on the next deck. A temporary return loop has been installed to represent the rest of the layout.

Not necessarily. But Amazon stock it. Other suppliers are available....

Lion dung. From your local zoo.

Yeah right, I give it 30 seconds before that's made an offence!

There's both, but noise is by far the biggest contribution. However, your comment about disabling the pulse input provoked a re-appraisal. Most of the time the cameras are in one position covering the point ladders at the entrance and exit of each set of storage loops. They can be panned to look the other way, but this is (hopefully) a rare requirement, only necessary in the event of a stuck or derailed train out of shot. Since they are static most of the time, I'm wasting my effort looking for a technical solution when the simplest option will do what is required. Consequently the servo power is now disconnected by default and each monitoring panel has been given a "pan enable" push button which tempoarily restores the power when needed. Now there's no twitching at all!

Having spent all my working life in the meeja, I have worked with news journalists for many years. There are certainly those who know very little about a very wide range of subjects. There are also a good many who are very well informed in their respective fields. The thing is that good quality journalism is expensive to do and in the age of the interweb an increasing reluctance on the part of the consumer to pay what it realistically costs. To a large extent, you get what you pay for.

Well, the parts arrived, so I've done a test using AndyID's drawing in the first post. I use the servos in question to mount CCTV cameras for fiddle yard monitoring, controlled via arduinos. ANY unwanted servo movement is immediately noticeable on the picture. Preliminary results are that servo twitch is not completely eliminated, but is greatly reduced, probably by better than 80%, certainly enough of an improvement to be worth fitting to all the cameras. I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile doing the same between the control output and the long wires, so having the opto isolation at both ends. I'll give this a try when time permits.

Declaring an interest here... I also have a number of servos, arduino controlled, over twisted wires between 10 and 25 feet long. Servo twitch , though not a show stopper, is a nuisance. After following this thread, it seems worth a try, so I've ordered the necessary bits and pieces to trial this proposed solution. I'll report the results in due course....

PM sent

Whichever it might be, you would think it might be in Herr Freiwald's interest to assist his customer to resolve the issue. Continuued intransigence does not help his reputation, or encourage further use of his product...

That's reassuring as far as it goes.... But it does not address Shirley's problem or change the fact that the way she has been treated is IMHO unacceptable. And there's nothing to stop him doing the same to anyone else in the future, should he decide to do so.

Indeed. This thread has given me something of a dilemma. I've been a happy user of TC for many years, since version 5, fully bought into all its add ons including 4D sound - but ! I'm 9 months into a rebuild of a large and complex layout that absolutely relies on computer control. I anticipate it will take me another 3 years to get the railway to effective operational completion, before I start on the car sysytem. I don't want to find that TC as a system turns up its toes by the time I get there - I assume there is no practical way to make a back up of the dongle. I really don't need the extra programming commitment or expense, but I'm wondering if it might be wise to develop i-train in parallel with TC, to ensure that the layout will still be usable if the worst happens.

It's a couple of months since my last update. There has been steady progress in the meantime, but not a lot to show you. A great effort has gone into wiring and basic systems infrastructure for the whole layout, not just the small portion built so far. One of the principles instituted as a result of experience with Effingham Mk 1 is to absolutely minimise under baseboard wiring, which had proved to be a PITA for all sorts of reasons. It is, in fact, all the more necessary to do this on the rebuild as the clearance under the baseboard at the lowest point of the layout is barely 7 inches. All the main wiring, including ring mains and busbars for the main electrical services is now carried along the front of the baseboards in cable ducts. Circuit boards for occupancy detection, the Megapoints system, etc. are mounted above the baseboard in 3D printed holders and identified with printed labels. The DCC control is split through a total of 10 PSX circuit breakers for the whole layout, and for the storage levels currently under construction, each PSX output is further split down through a control panel so that each RS-8 occupancy detector board and each point ladder can be individually switched out. These panels serve no operational purpose, but are purely for maintenance and to aid fault finding, which was previously a nightmare. All the main systems and infrastructure services are Alexa enabled and can be switched on and off by voice control. Why on Earth would I want to do this? Well apart from the obvious answer – because I can – there are practical advantages. Effingham Mk 2 is going to be a large and complex layout and already has multiple systems which have to be started up and closed down in the correct sequence. I could build a control panel with lots of switches that need to be operated in the right order. Instead, one voice command will start up or close down everything correctly. Additionally, whilst working on wiring a particular system, such as soldering feeds, that system can be switched off by voice, and the switched on again for testing without having to extract myself from a tight space and walk across the room to a panel. Provision has also been made to give some basic voice commands to RR&co Traincontroller, such as to pause or resume operations, once things progress that far.

The RS-8 isn't really intended for driving LEDs. It is commonly used to report occupancy to a computer control system over the RS data bus. If you want to use RS-8's perhaps you might consider using an old PC or laptop for the mimic display. There are plenty of software options available, some such as JMRI are free and may do what you want.

self isolate

A comforting thought, if not entirely accurate, as I will relate...... Firstly, let me say that in al the goings on that I talked about in my previous story, there was never anything hostile, we never felt threatened and it was never frightening, even when we were physically manipulated as in the leg raising incidents. Activity at home is quite high at the moment as we approach VE day and the anniversary of the crash, the favourite tricks at the moment being to turn on the bathroom light, and refuse to let it be turned off again, or to turn on the little fountain on the patio. Going back to my childhood, when we lived in the "haunted" terrace of houses, my father's parents had the house next door and that also had its own quota of presences. One in particular that everybody experienced was definititely hostile and malevolent and made that very plain. Luckily, it was very tightly tied to a particular location and not able to physically manifest itself in any way. My grandfather died when I was still a child, and grandmother continued to live in the house after we moved away when I was 14. All these houses in the terrace were let by the same landlord, and when grandmother died, the opportunity arose to buy her house at a reduced rate. My younger brother did so and moved in with his new wife. Although it was initially a happy marriage, it did not remain so and life became difficult for them. As with most things, there was fault on both sides, but she went out of her way to be unkind to him, the full extent of which only became apparent later. As the marriage disintegrated, the activiy in the house ramped up, and she would regularly be "ambushed" on the stairs by an unseen presence that would repeatedly and forcefully punch her in the stomach, with the clear and successful intention of causing her pain. We assumed it was grandmother demontrating her displeasure. Personally, I have never been harmed by a ghost, but I have been threatened by one, but perhaps that is a story for another time.

OK, I'll give you a ghost story. It's so off the wall that I don't expect anyone to believe it, in fact, I find it hard to believe myself and I'm still living it 26 years in. I've thought long and hard about whether to put my head above the parapet on this thread, but AFAIK nobody on here actually knows me, so if you all conclude that I'm barking, it probably doesn't matter too much. This is going to be a long post....but stick with it if you want ghostly happenings. First, a bit of background. I lived the first 14 years of my life in a haunted house. It was a victorian terraced house and in fact the whole terrace was very active with a number of...ghosts, presences, entities? I'm not sure what description to use as only some of them presented as apparitons in the classical sense. Anyway, as I had always had this going on around me, I didn't know any different and thought it was completely normal. So fast forward to the mid 1980's, now married, no kids, and have lived in 3 different houses since the above, none of which showed any activity. My wife became manager of a care home, which required us to live “over the shop”. It was not at all unusual for ex-residents to still be seen or heard for some time after they had passed. Not scary, just one of those things. By 1993, we had saved enough to use as a house deposit, and started house hunting. We found a house on a modern estate. It was a much bigger and better house than we should have been able to afford, but the owners had done a moonlight, leaving a trail of debt and the house had been repossessed, needed work, and was on offer well below normal market value. We cheekily put in a low offer, and it was unexpectedly accepted. We lived there peacefully for 18 months, until early in 1994, my parents came to stay for the weekend. We gave them our bedroom. In the morning, they complained about being woken by numbers of people running together along a concrete footpath past the bedroom. The same thing happened the following night. There was no such footpath, just lawn and woodland. This was the first event in a major haunting over the next few months. We had the full monty. Being called by name, poltergeist activity, apparitions, knockings at the door, windows being opened, the sound of all the kitchen cupboards and drawers being opened and closed and the sound of things being thrown around the kitchen in the night. The dog point blank refused to stay downstairs at night. And the signature event, that happened several times, and to both of us. It happened to my wife first, and I accused her of dreaming it until it happened to me. I got home at around 03:30 after working a long shift, and took the spare bedroom to avoid waking my wife, who had an early start in the morning. I had not been asleep long, when I was jerked very suddenly wide awake. I was on my back and my right leg was straight and extended upwards at a 45 degree angle. Someone had a very firm grip on my big toe and I could not move that leg. Nobody and nothing was visible. Recognising that it was what my wife had experienced, I said out loud “Look, I've had a very long day and I'm tired. Do you mind”. My toe was immediately released, my leg fell back to the bed with a thump, and I turned over and went to sleep. I used to fly at this time, and one afternoon, I left for the airport, dressed in a buff coloured pilot shirt, with epaulettes and matching trousers. During the afternoon, my wife saw “me” on the stairs, and spoke to me, whereupon “I” disappeared. We noticed something being built at the entrance to the estate. It was kept covered, so we could not see what it was. Then there was a big event around this structure with the great and the good, military band, etc., while they unveiled the memorial to 50 years since the opening of the American D Day evacuation hospital that had stood on the site. There would have been USAAF casualties brought in, whose uniform was similar to my pilot outfit. There would have been a morgue, with bodies identified with a label tied to the big toe....and the emergency teams would have run along the concrete footpath that used to pass next to where the house now stands. Well, that's just the first part of the story. The next year we moved to another house a mile or two away on the other side of town. It was a far bigger and better house than we should have been able to afford, but it had been on the market for a long time and it was a repossession. We put in a low offer and it was unexpectedly accepted.... The house was the most peaceful and tranquil place imaginable. So much so that visitors would remark on it. No danger of any ghostly happenings here. And so it remained for 19 years until late in 2014. Minor things began to happen. The bathroom light would be on when we came home or when we got up in the morning. The TV in the lounge would be on in the morning. In retrospect, these were what I would categorise as low level “call attention” events, but at the time we were blaming each other for leaving stuff turned on, not thinking any more of it than that. We were not taking any notice, so things began to ramp up a little. We had stripped out the master bedroom to redecorate, so were using the spare bedroom. On night, I was at work, and my wife was woken during the night by a faint blue flickering light pervading the room. Now wide awake, she became aware of a woman's voice speaking very quietly, just on the edge of hearing, but not able to make out any words. The bedroom TV, inside its cupboard had spontaneously switched on, and the light was leaking out around the door. Another night, in early January 2015, I was at work, but as usual was logged in remotely to my computer at home. Around 04:20 it went off line. I got home just after 8am to find the house in darkness and my wife's car on the drive. She should have left for work almost an hour ago. I opened the front door and pressed the light switch. No power. Standing there in the dark, I could hear running water. I found a torch and followed the sound into the den to discover water pouring through the ceiling and cascading down the walls. It had got into the light switch and power sockets and tripped the main breaker. Going upstairs, I found my wife still asleep in the spare room, no power - no alarm. Moving on to the master bedroom above the cascade revealed its source. Some two weeks earlier the central heating radiator had been taken out and the pipes valved off to facilitate redecoration. Someone or something had fully opened both valves at, I would guess, around 04:20. Now as we knew, this was a most peaceful house, no ghosties attached to this site, so these happenings must relate to us instead. My father in law had passed only a couple of months before, so he appeared to be the most likely candidate. I said out loud to him that he had got my attention, but I would be most unhappy if I now had to repair the ceiling and redecorate the den as I already had enough to do! After a few days the den had dried out completely, no watermarks, no damage to the ceiling, no trace of the deluge. A few days later, we were sitting in the den one evening before I was due to leave for work, discussing the goings on. I had been trying to put forward rational explainations for each event, including a feasibile, if unlikely rationale as to how the lounge TV and satellite receiver could be accidently turned on remotely. There was a very loud knocking on the welsh dresser. Anyway, the time had come for me to leave for my night shift, so I went to the lounge to get my gear. I found the surround sound amplifer on, the one bit of kit that specifically could not be accidently turned on remotely as I had been describing. I called my wife to show her and then turned the amplifier off by physically operating the switch. Five seconds later, as we both watched, it turned on again. “OK” I said. “You win, we will get a medium in”. Soon after, a note was put through the door. It was from a WW2 researcher who was looking into an event at the end of the war. He was organising remembrance and a memorial for it and would like to talk to us. It turned out that the events in the house coincided with his research. On 10th May 1945, 2 days after VE day, a squadron of USAAF B-17G aircraft based at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire took off on a trip to Germany with their ground crews on board to show them the results of their bombing. One of the aircraft descended to get a nav fix, and on rejoining the formation, wake turbulence led to a loss of control and a mid air collision. B-17G 44-8198 lost its tail and crashed inverted at Bocking in what is now our garden. There were no survivors from the 11 on board. Their remains would have been taken to the nearest morgue, which happened to be a couple of miles away at a certain American D Day evacuation hospital... In due course, on the 70th anniversary of the crash, the memorial was dedicated nearby and we hosted a private visit for surviving relatives of the deceased. There is a video of the memorial dedication on my youtube channel https://youtu.be/7EqhOUNtaGE After this, the activity in the house largely ceased, apart from in the run up to the anniversary of the crash and at Christmas, both times when we lay flowers at the memorial. And the medium? Well she detected nothing of the foregoing events. She said that there were two young girls present, fun loving and mischievious and we should expect poltergeist happenings. Well we've never had seen any indication of any such thing, so I reckoned she had just trotted out a well worn cliché and there was nothing in it. Then my mother in law became unsafe to live alone, so she moved in, we converted the den to a bed sit and looked after her for the last months of her life. She regularly asked about the 2 girls in the old fashioned clothes and pretty bonnets. Very shortly after mother in law passed away, we had to look after my father at the end of his life. He asked about the 2 little girls who would visit most nights. Subsequently, we found out that the convent next door used to have a Catholic orphanage back in the day. So what to make of it all. I'm an engineer, and I don't do religion. I don't know if these are the spirits of the dead, a ripple in the space time continuum, trans dimensional crosstalk or what. I just know what I've experienced.

I use 25mm x 3mm. Other widths and thicknesses are available. It works well for straight track, but neerds cutting and shaping for curves, which can be a bit of a pain.

Mine is black and I don't paint it. Its own adhesive sticks it to the baseboard (extremely powerfully) and I use a latex adhesive to fix the track. I have not yet started on the scenic part of the layout build, so have not added ballast at this stage.