5BarVT

Don’t know what you mean. I find it easy . . . :-) As easy as Simon does! Paul.

Complete with side kick operating so you can go wandering off . . . :-) Paul.

The Penwithers Jn diagram shows the same post with a worked distant so one of them is wrong. It would be more logical if Penwithers was right. Paul.

An alternative is to use transformer connected sensors where the feed wire is routed through the centre of a toroidal transformer. No volts drop that way (#) so no difference between detected and undetected tracks. # - not quite true in theory, but the effect is so small for it to be true in practice. They tend to be more messy to install though! Paul.

I work on the basis that FY points don’t get painted and can be got back out for repairs more easily so they don’t get doubled up droppers or switch blade droppers. Paul.

Thanks for the warning and suggestion Andy. Two Six successfully done thus far. Paul.

BACK TO TRACK LAYING - AT LAST I’m back laying track - very much out of practice, but motivated to push on as I want to get some running back asap. On another thread there was an encouragement to fit droppers to the switch blades so as not to rely on moving contacts that might get painted up. As I hadn’t done that before I’d mentally made it into an ‘above my pay grade’ issue. Today was the day to challenge that idea. Before at the bottom, after at the top. It’s a lot easier than I’d made it out to be! And, yes, the droppers are the opposite way round to the rest on that point. (See earlier treatise for why I’m not changing them.) Paul.

No, ‘cos the door’s shut! Interesting position for the shunter - does that imply the loco is RH drive or is the fireman relaying hand signals across the cab to the driver? In which case, why not ride on the platform side and cut out the middleman. Perhaps that footboard was platform side when he got on and has been hanging on one foot style all the way out and back in again. Times have changed! Paul.

Brass coaches all perceived to be way out of my skill set, but I understand enough to be impressed by the above methodology. Potentially transferrable (with care) to plastic bodies and bogies if riding is a problem. Paul.

I’m a Traincontroller user but I would advise anyone starting from scratch to go iTrain because of what I perceive to be better support systems. I need to stick with TC because I have specific requirements with the display screen presentation that I don’t think iTrain can deliver, and because I have developed a way of achieving the type of operation I want using specific TC attributes. However, when I get to an exhibition where Iain is operating his layout I will be plying him with plenty of questions about exactly how iTrain works as part of my disaster recovery planning. I also suspect that TC could be described as nearly at the end of its system life whereas iTrain is much nearer the beginning. Paul.,

I’ll second that. I made provision for point position feedback and haven’t done anything with it yet. I may well do something with it ‘because I can’ when I’m looking for extra things to do with the layout, but I haven’t missed having it thus far. Paul.

I think G&H will do bespoke if you ask, so might be worth asking how much to extend to 5’. Paul.

Found it, thank you. I use a Digitrax LNWI which I connect to using WiThrottle. I’m hoping JMRI might be an interface that works as it’s based on Loconet. Paul.

Looked on App Store under DTPro and nothing railway related comes up. Is that it’s full name? Paul.

Further corroboration that signal 3 only read through the crossover and not straight on into the siding is available from the lever leads S3189-7 also on the SRS website: it shows lever 3 requiring lever 8 reverse. Another clue (more reliable on older drawings when design staff understood the concept) was the use of FOR on the lead description. FOR indicated through the crossover Reverse, AT was used reading along the straight route. Paul.

To say nothing of the aroma!

The Digitrax LNWI can have a password added. WFRM enable that simply to stop phones auto connecting and doing exactly as stated. I’m surprised that Making Tracks hadn’t already discovered the problem in Chester Cathedral. As ever, something to be aware of so that you can prevent it being a problem should you go down that route. Paul.

And it’s a ‘safe one’. Do you remember the ‘sucker punch’ type where you could be concentrating so hard on what the iron was doing that you forgot to allow room for the plunger to spring back? Paul.

And the lack of mass will make it less able to ignore the pulses. That explanation works, thank you. Paul.

Note the voltage on the display and the alleged voltage produced by the controller. I’d made an effort to understand which way I wanted the pot connected, including marking the 0 ohms position on the underside of the pot . . . My logic converting that to which pin was my zero pin on the stripboard was flawed. All sorted now! Paul.

Back in the 90s I built a PWM controller with a ‘variable’ frequency output (I used a preset in place of a set value resistor). I ran that at probably 10kHz on a 16’ end to end with no apparent problems. Only 1 train moving at a time though. Is the problem with coreless motors that they cannot dissipate the extra heat compared to motion that a square wave gives because there is no core in which to dissipate it? If so, does a higher frequency help that much? Alternatively I could be completely wrong about the mechanism! Paul.

What’s wrong with it? It shows the tracks and where they go, what more is needed! Paul.

Hope you aren’t suffering too much brain overload! Paul.

I want to know how you made the invisible string that’s pulling the 158 along. :-) Paul.

Have you come across the 2d53 website? It has trip workings that might be of use to you. https://www.2d53.co.uk/trip/T8106N.htm Paul.