AdamsRadial

Yes, one of my favourites. If you can find i, I think you'd also love UKSomewhere. I have a TRS2004 version with some missing content that couldn't be found on the DLS because it was from various European sites. Every now and then I set out on an Arthurian quest to try and find some more of the content. I tried in in TS2009 and wasn't happy with the poor vegetation, billboard trees just don't look right after TC3.

Feedback control is more appropriate for when the motor is actually running. Until it is turning at a certain rpm there will be no back-EMF worth measuring, but slugging it with too much current wouldn't be healthy.

I hadn't actually seen any values, but if you're right, they might be targetting the higher frequencies of 3 x Motor-RPM?

Possibly they filtered out the 50Hz/100Hz residual ripple from the full-wave rectified mains? As mentioned above inductances tend to block AC and pass DC.

You're right about the paint making good the surface

There was a miniature railway with a Stirling Single, typically I can't find where I put the pamphlet, but there is indeed a precedent for you to draw upon. I'll rummage around and see if it surfaces. ETA the pamphlet remains determinedly hidden but the name came back to me, look up The Jaywick Miniature Railway.

It's possible that you've picked a replacement wire that while of a similar diameter, has more of a tendency to try and straighten out the bends that should keep it tucked against the side or corner of the slot out of the way of the gear wheel.

I had to sign an NDA before they would drop me off.

So how bizarre was that? Looking back a page in the thread and what do I find but that my tongue-in-cheek quip about UFO's is actually on topic?

I was abducted by aliens in a flying saucer for a couple of weeks but when they found out I was too old for studdery they dropped me off again. Just catching up now with what you've all been getting up to.

I can't remember if it was J N Maskelyne or somebody like him who once set the perfect loco had a straight line passing over the tops of the chimney, dome, and leading edge of the cab.

There are similar attitudes to Sketchup in SecondLife , again with the constant chorus to stop trying to use Sketchup and switch to Blender instead. As with Trainz, the complaints are usually about the triangle counts. As with Trainz, however, there are also plenty of objects created with Blender that have horrendous triangle counts. The issue isn't with the tool, it's with the creators. One thing that the Blenderazzi seem to miss is that Blender has an interface that makes it feel like you are peering into the workspace through quite small windows, and the dark theme doesn't help; whereas Sketchup (and the default SecondLife in-world build methods) are more like working in real life, where you can walk around your work and move towards it and away from it, and in the daylight. My personal preference is for the wide-open fields style of working in 3D, and though I can use Blender if I must, I prefer not to. Ruby Tmix does a fair job of slimming down the export, but it does pay to be aware of the odd things about Sketchup that often result in more triangles than are necessary.

Was it running light engine? Both of mine are quieter with something to pull. I wouldn't try the toothpaste, it doesn't sound like anything needs removing, more like the opposite @)

That's got the spirit of the LNWR style locos about it. Regarding the tender drive, I think as it's not going that high in relation to the cab roof you'll get away with a coal line just touching the motor top, perhaps some very thin black plastic you can soften with a hot-air gun and mould over it and then just sprinkle coal dust onto superglue? Perhaps you could add a base to the whitemetal tender to increase the height of the sides a tad?

From bitter experience I'd not go that route, the sideways movement ends up working things loose in plastic. A slitting disk in a dremmel-type tool is going to put far less sideways strain on the work.

I bought the CNC 1610 last year as an experiment, it cost less than £110 so I was in the mind of "What have I got to lose?" I spent a further £20 on an ER collet chuck and set of collets (and you need to get a 3.5mm collet to use the common 1/8" shank tools). I then found that the increased depth of the ER collet and tool assembly had left me with barely half an inch of Z-axis travel, so I bought two more pieces of 2020 extrusion to increase the height of the gantry, and added corner blocks to every remaining corner I could. The result is a very nice compact machine that takes up less room than my 3D printer, and uses dremel bits (see the bit about the 3.5mm collet), and still cost me less than £150. I use a DTI to set up the steps per mm on each axis, which did help. I was very impressed with the accuracy and very small backlash, the spring-loaded brass nuts performed better than I had been told they would. My expectations weren't of milling brass or nickel silver ( although I think with some annealing of the work it will actually do it). I mainly wanted it for cutting shapes from plastic and thin wood. It works well enough at that. The spindle speed is not very high, but for milling plastic that is a bonus, as it prevents melting the work. As a test I managed to mill aluminium, but I was going very tippy-toes with both depth of cut and feed speeds. I suspect for milling frames you would find the 3018 machines more appealing, but bear in mind that the wider the Y axis, the greater the distortion of the spindle carriage, the linear rails are nowhere near as rigid as people think; just try putting a DTI on one and then pressing downwards and watch that needle move

I agree regarding Sketchup, and it's still possible to find the 2015/2016 downloads as well as 2017. They start off as a limited-time trial of the full version and time-expire to just drop you back to the basic free version. You can add extensions to it very easily. There are DXF and STL exporters that help getting your work out to a 3D-printer or to a laser-cutter or Craft-Robo, which is ideal for card models.

I used two types of lubricants on mine, light watch oil on the spindles, and a ptfe-grease on the gear teeth. It quietened it down quite a bit and also made it run a lot more steadily. It also helps to oil the coupled wheel axles and the con-rod pins. (I'm struggling to remember where I got the PTFE grease from, it's a clear compound in a grey plastic tube with rainbow colours on it, and must be 15 years old now, but a tiny dab of it on a cocktail stick does a lot of lubrication). I don't think the tender drives are quite as bad as people make them out to be, I have 7 of them, the only one that is really bad is the very old 9F which can make horrible screeching noises, but all the others are very smooth runners, and get around some very tight radius curves without the problems that conventional drive chassis have.

Blimey, that got rusty ever so quick!

It looks Ok from where I sit

Watch oil or Clock oil for lubrication. When it goes quiet, is the armature or any part of the brush gear warm to the touch? If you flick the armature does it give any feeling of resistance?

You say it runs for 10-15 seconds, I assume that is enough for the worm-wheel to make at least a complete revolution? I've had an old loco once that had bent teeth on the worm wheel so that it would only turn through about 300 degrees before stopping. When it comes to a stop is it humming or buzzing, or just silent? If the former then it suggests friction or tightening up, if the latter it suggests loss of electrical connectivity. For the former, the advice to lubricate is good, I would also suggest you check parts of the chassis such as the axle bearings and the con-rod pins in case they are also stiffening up. For the latter, there are two possible causes. The first is the brushes losing connection with the commutator, the second is the pickups losing contact with the wheels. Spraying the commutator and brushes with switch-cleaner will help a bit, likewise spraying the backs of the wheels where the pickups touch them will also help. Personally, I think it looks too nice to bin

Yes, that's the one. I'd better go buy myself that other one you posted the picture from. Unless it's just a different edition? In my old age I find it harder and harder to save mental pictures of where I have repositioned things to. I had a clear image of the cover of the book, and a clear image of where it last was before I moved it, but after that, nothing. I can see me ending up as a moment by moment diarist recording every single alteration I make around the place.

It might be worth examining the bogie/pony truck pivots first, if they're a little bit sticky or stiff they might be lifting at the curve rather than following it because of that stiffness. If it's every loco you own that's doing it, I'd be tempted to look closely at the track where the derailments occur rather then the locos themselves. Your options for weight are really just the liquid gravity stuff they sell in model shops, given that lead is frowned upon now for health reasons.

Coloured beads, the glass type?