BWsTrains

More than a week has passed, lots of fascinating and demanding Bridge played, movies, some gardening, a long overdue visit to Traverser Graham and not much modelling to speak of. I did come away from Graham's place with lots of goodies, mostly garden produce (thx) but also a Mark I prototype sensor to add to my traverser. The issue is that visibility of the Traverser / layout boundary is highly restricted and a near miss over Christmas where a wagon was almost pulled apart because it was not fully one side or the other. Graham suggested that a detector could be set up to alert when the boundary is blocked. Mark I The definitive example of a prototype which highlights all the things you don't need! Partly my fault as I'd failed to remind Graham of the three track span involved. Then we didn't account for the sensor being triggered during every on/off movement. The built-in buzzer quickly told me that was a no no. As per this from Wikipedia Otherwise, Mark I showed promise. It uses an IR LED and a IR sensor from an old piece of hi-fi kit. Presently the LED is powered from the IC and has a very short range. Mark II will be more powerful in order to span the 15cm gap. Also, it will have the sensor removed from the project board to facilitate placement in line with the gap. The alert will be a Green LED which will flash whenever there is a blockage. This can be located in the structure where any flashing can catch my attention without being intrusive to normal viewing during normal traverser workings (I hope!). Alternatively, I might even run a line the 2m to the Traverser control panel where a blockage would alert by flashing in front of me. In a further behind the scenes improvement, I've added in a power saving control so that all items plugged in to mains don't remain on if I forget to switch off at the wall panel. Our State Govt was running an energy saving initiative ages ago and were supplying these for free. I had a spare kicking around awaiting the proverbial rainy day, of which we've had a great many recently!

Thursday/ Friday I think, according to the link. Steam options are shown. FWIW, I couldn't choose a station, this is such a wonderful railway filled with the strongest memories from my childhood.

Now I'm confused. I thought the A and B in A5 B7 of these Turnouts and Slips referred to switch size as per this table: https://85a.uk/templot/companion/real_track.php If you change the Switch Size in Templot using "Template" then "Switch Settings" an A5 is extended when you change it to B5. Isn't that what The Fatadder is asking about? What am I missing here?

Paul. Sadly, your video and the photo are the closest I'll ever get to seeing this layout. Still 'tis better than nowt, superb! Thx very much for sharing, it's the next best thing. Colin

Ah! An old favourite of mine. See here for lots of helpful input about the coaches, kits and their background: http://www.gwr.org.uk/proratio.html I used this Topic (thx @Mikkel) to kit bash various base Ratio models into stock for my Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway project but revisiting it to add some GWR stock on UH is an interesting idea for rainy days ahead. The kits are OK, albeit dated; upgrade sides from Shirescenes an option. Beware Pre-owned kits, the plastic in the one I bought was clearly inferior (Ratio 610 IIRC, bought because new stock was not available during COVID times). All kits appear to be available now. Later addition. As referred to in a later post to this one, the following link http://www.gwr.org.uk/prot36.html explains the background regarding the old vs new Ratio kits and much else besides.

Love it, the detail on the base of the stink pipe is superb.

Thx, Sadly the high cost of postage severely restricts my purchases from the UK these days and typically I try to consolidate my orders, not easy when it's smaller suppliers. Having lifted / relaid the problem items now and fully resolved my wiring and insulation gap issues I decided to go with the small PECO joiners as per @St Enodoc 's suggestion to isolate the single slip. TBH I fall more into the big picture than fine detail camp so the Exactoscale would have been nice to have but not enough to go to great trouble. I appreciate it's not the same for everyone but I'm content with enjoying the look and feel of my layout at a macro level now it's assembled with decent trackwork throughout. Colin

Sadly it's all a tad far for a trip from Australia!

I see what you mean about the double slip with the webbing being continuous rather than stepped as on the turnouts. A further option might be to install a replacement strip outside the existing ones before cutting them out. If you intend to not glue down immediately it will be better to support the last three sleepers than have them loose from the rest of the base. As a final point, the single slip is configured like a simple turnout with the webbing offset on the outside to provide clearance for the pin.

Those pin heads look significantly more pronounced than the ones in all the new style kits I've built (my early ones were with cast frogs and pre-soldered switch rail pins). IIRC pin heads on my kits sat near flush under the tiebar, I've certainly had no sticking due to them. I've one A5 I can easily lift tomorrow and I'll attach a photo. My single slip is back in situ and NOT coming out again.

Except only available thru the Scale Societies, none of which I'm ever going to join. Pity really given the growing interest in Code 75 even if at more modest OO Gauge. Is there an opportunity here Wayne?

Great, now we can get back to the serious matter of the 8 year saga of the Dean Goods 😈 FWIW after much effort and three goes with shipping across the world I finally received a working model (2475) only to read of the various woes of this release from others on this topic. Then after 11 months of good running, the DCC Sound chip was shorted out by a fault, a loose screw left magnetised against the speaker. OR were very good and replaced the entirety of the DCC kit but by then various reports of motor shorts convinced me it was but a matter of time for events to catch up. The DCC Sound was donated as an "organ transplant" to a more deserving recipient, I popped the cheapest DCC I had into the Dean, then consigned it to lightest of duties available at the time. Roll forward 6 years to a new layout, it will make occasional appearances on light duties only. In my books it's right up there in the annals of small RTR Steam model "disaster" releases. If they ran management courses on Model design and production this would be paired in a Case Study with the infamous 14xx saga (one I ducked). Meanwhile I content myself with running my core fleet of the reliable Bachmann 57xx, 64xx, 45xx Classes, and the Collett Goods.

As recently mentioned on the British Finetrax topic I've hit a minor snag involving one of my earlier turnout installs. Last week I started getting a continuous short with no locos on the layout. Connectivity throughout via the power bus and rail joiners left me no alternative to lifting out the most likely suspects to examine them, in the end useful as my technique improved greatly with experience and there was scope to improve my dropper connections and complete rail painting alongside searching out the culprit. I did know that the insulation gaps I'd allowed between switch rails and frogs on early builds were a bit tight for comfort. A side consequence of introducing curved roads on the template and inexperience. Once fully isolated I could see that the turnout fully pinned down in its correct install position causes the switch rail to move too close to the frog. When released the flex in the base causes the base and rails to ever so slightly straighten removing the contact; we're talking very small movements but enough to be a problem. Problem solved by widening out the gaps. Not easy once everything soldered up and glued into chairs so I used a hand held Junior Eclipse saw blade giving me a gap of ~1mm.

I've built around 15 of these turnouts and share your enthusiasm. One thing which I've experienced twice now may be relevant to you, insulation gap issues. From your pic above on my experience these look too narrow for comfort, I've had at least two shorts arising due to either most subtle movements in the switch blade or dirt bridging the gap at the "knuckle" point (as shown in Wayne's instruction sheet). In one case I had to lift the installed turnouts and widen the gaps, (more details to be posted on my topic shortly). Wayne suggests 0.3mm, I think a little wider does no harm! Good luck with your project. Colin

That's bad news, sorry to hear. With the config as shown it looks promising to the untrained eye to stick a better motor in it's place rather than replace like for like. Colin

I guess this is more about thermal energy stored / required than temperature per se. One ice cube is not enough to chill a decent G&T. For a big substrate to be soldered a single drop of solder has a lot to heat up and still flow, it would quickly cool down if not warm enough. It would make sense that for a given drop of solder a higher temperature and hence more stored energy would be needed on a bigger substrate.

From the look of that pic it'll rival the leaning tower of Pisa. Dodgy axles I'd say

According to the DCC Concepts product advice in the link "Sapphire 100 is an exciting new solder which is designed for use on white-metal and similar alloys. ...... It react (sic) differently and it can be re-worked… Because unlike 70 degree solder it will not combine with the white-metal and produce a weak ‘sludge’, so joints end up stronger." It occurred to me that possibly the technology has advanced. Then, as I've zero experience on this topic it was just to bring it to your attention it case it might be of use,if your Carrs had not reappeared!

https://www.australianmodeller.com.au/products/sapphire-100-solder-low-temp perhaps, I've not tried this myself but sounds to be in the ballpark. It's listed as "Whitemetal LMP Solder" on the pack.

While occupied finding suitable deigns for warehouse hoists (I now have a useful range) and planning some way to fabricate them, in the background I've been beavering away on the topic of yard dirt. Given the non-availability here of Chinchilla Dust, the popular choice amongst those UK modellers who I've asked, I set about searching for alternates. My early preference was for finely sieved (<0.5mm) Gypsum, cheap and available. There are numerous posts about this some way back. By mere chance another opportunity came knocking at my door and it seemed to hold even more promise. Our builder installed a new path recently and used flexible paving sand between the stone slabs. The flexibility comes from using a polymer rather than cement as this sets but retains some flex simply with moistening. I was left the bag to patch up gaps which inevitably appear after the initial install - ah! freebie (well not quite, the path, like everything, was not cheap). The attractions were twofold, it has a good shade, generic light dirt and a built-in adhesive. In my case I figured that it'd be better to sprinkle onto a suitable wet surface rather than try to mist it afterwards. This shows the results of early trials where I used a 1:1 ratio of thick acrylic paint and water to both conceal the stark whiteness of the base materials and provide enough "stay" on the surfaces during application. This corner has the yard dirt and has been detailed with flat relief cottages (representing the other side of the road. Next up will be adding the various items around the engine shed, coaling stage, ash, water tank etc. plus completion of the river bank corner. Tree held in place with embedded Neo magnets in the foam board and a small steel washer glued on the base of the trunk.

I'm hard pressed to think of another 21C technology dependent on the proper working and operation of an integrated 19C technology system (from circa 1870 according to The Signal Box). No five quids on offer for anyone naming one though, (sorry, I'm clean out)

Will do, see my PM.

Graham replied to me as follows "Your version is the result of the original design board. I originally designed it using the ULN2003 to drive the stepper motor coils, but then could see the advantage of using the UDN2998. So your board is able to drive with either design. The chips in line together are the CD4093, CD4017 and the redundant ULN2003. I forget the reason there is a relay, but the design will work without it. It may be intended to supply power to the drive, so that I didn't need a switch capable of higher loads." Hopefully this helps Colin

both very nice indeed, Railmotor is even tempting. You can let him know the chuff rate on the 43xx needs to be reduced somewhat but that's a straightforward fix. Colin

Hi David, Thanks for your feedback and inquiry. A very good friend, knowledgeable in these matters, designed and built the entire electrical assembly so I can't answer your technical questions. I will forward them to him for his input and will get back to you. The circuitry lies under the traverser tray but I got in there, it's a bit cluttered now by all the scenic breaks etc. Colin