NIK

Hi, Bachmann's all new J72 is reported to have a coreless motor and looking at photos the motor appears very similar to that in the latest revision of the 03. Regards Nick

Hi, I don't think its an Ethernet cable. The pin to pin wiring also has to be correct for the Power Cab. I've had the cable type that suits the Power Cab go high resistance in the past. Regards Nick

Hi, If the voltage drop is seen at the Panel the Power Cab connects to then the resistance of the track connections is not relevant. The current has been measured and is proportionate to the number of locos on the track. As to the cause of the voltage drop it could be in the connections between the Panel and the Power Cab. The Panel could be faulty or the cable to the Power Cab. Regards Nick

Hi, I didn't give advice - given the information given in the original post I suggested a possible failure mode that I had experienced. Regards Nick

Hi, The symptoms seem similar to some of my Bachmann diesels where the drive to one of the gear towers has become loose so one of the worms wont turn properly and the gear tower acts as a brake. If so hopefully others will advise you (and me) on how to get the loco working again. Regards Nick

Hi, I missed this weeks working night on Beggarwood so instead I've attached a photo from our clubs open day on the 7th September. Beggarwood or a bit of it is on the right of the photo. In the middle of the layout was some tables for stock and a loco programming track. A dog came into the hut and we thought it belonged to one of the visitors. It went under the stock table, extracted my sandwiches and scoffed them and then had a pee. Luckily there was a concrete floor but some of the pee went on one of my stock boxes. The dogs owner turned up shortly afterwards (the open day is in a park that a lot of dog walkers use). She was suitable embarrassed and cleaned the floor. Before the open day an LED strip to fit inside the roof of the football stadium was tried out. Its intended to represent the glow in the sky when a match is going on and the lights are on. The LED strip was designed for 12V and the consensus was that 9V gave the right effect. Nine volts might be handy as its one of the standard output voltages for fixed electronic voltage regulators. The strip I bought was 5 metres for £2.50 and we've only used about 3 feet for the stadium so there lots to spare. The strip is only 5mm wide to suit the ledge on a reinforcing wood strip inside the structure, the LEDs shine upwards onto the backscene. The LEDs are about and inch apart and an inch from the 5mm gap in the stadium roof and the light that gets out is nice and uniform. The current consumption of the three foot of LEDs at 9V was under 100ma so its not going to load the 300 Watt auxiliary power supply too much providing the 19V to 9V regulation is efficient enough. Regards Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for new members).

Hi, Another structure for Beggarwood is on the way to completion. Rob has taken a number of footbridge kits and come up with a footbridge between the lower and higher parts of the area. On the high level is the football stadium so the bridge would probably get a lot of use and abuse. On the lower level will go a load of houses. Its been checked that a Mk1 sized coach will fit underneath it. It shouldn't spoil the sight lines for the signals at the right hand end of the mainline and its just beyond a signal that will go on the incline in the foreground. The bridge is away from the end of the board so hopefully should avoid damage during storage or transit. Regards Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for new members).

Hi, I noticed in the Railway Modeller that Bachmann are releasing a modified OO Class 03 suitable for a DCC decoder (Next18). I think its got a new motor and modified chassis (no plastic motor mount). The motor is small and looks cylindrical and appears to be mounted at the end to the die cast chassis. No sign of a flywheel. Could it be a coreless motor?. Regards Nik

Hi, I noticed in the Hornby advert in the first episode that on the layout that seemed to represent the present day of Hornby railways there was a 4 VEP. Hopefully that will encourage Hornby to reintroduce the 4 VEP albeit with improvements including the replacement of the pizza cutter wheels and the plastic inside bearing slots. Judging by the slope of the incline it was parked on it will also need 8 wheel drive or possibly more. Regards Nik

Hi, It may not be the cause of the problem but the minimum DC input voltage for a Power Pro 5 is 18 volts DC. As mentioned changing the battery and reseating the daughter board (earth your hands first before touching the insides) may cause the Power Pro to work correctly. Regards Nick

Hi, Beggarwood Lane performed reasonably well at our latest club open day on Saturday. I thought that was pretty good as most of it had been in store since the last open day and hadn't been tested. I didn't see the carriage sidings or the electrified branch get used and the incline didn't get much use. I still managed to write down a page of observations of things that need to be looked at before its next outing. The first photo shows a Hornby Brighton Belle traversing the junction between the mainline and the spur that leads on a gradient to the lower level. The second photo shows part of Stuart's goods shed (which isn't finished but looks as though it is to me) with a 13 car boat train speeding past in the background. The two right end scenic boards have not been put back up the club room so the wiring for the industrial sidings can be finished. Regards Nick (on behalf of Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for new members).

Hi, Here's a photo of the interior of the Scout hut (one of the two huts used for the open day) with John Smerdon's O gauge layout in the foreground, A Bridge Too Far to the left, Chris Cleveland's Ropley far middle and Beggarwood Lane to the right. It was taken towards the end of the open day so visitors who were in the foreground looking at layouts earlier didn't block the photo. Regards Nick

Hi, Beggarwood Lane (not Road) as in a previous post Ian kindly put up is installed in the Scout Hut and the mainlines and fiddle yard were tested yesterday afternoon. Its all grassed and ballasted, many of the buildings are on the layout and there should be lots of trains running today in lots of BR liveries. Regards Nick

Hi, I bought mine from AliExpress (VL53L0X module) from £1.76 + 80p postage. They need a controller to read the distance data - I used an Arduino Nano clone and VL53L0X interface software I found on the internet. The chip produces a cone of Infrared so pointing the chip in the right direction is important to not get too many reflections from buildings on the layout. I've yet to try black tubes over the sensor optics to restrict its view. Regards Nick

Hi James, I don't have a video of using the IR laser ranging modules - I tend to rush my projects. I'm planning to try them out on a club layout in some sidings that can't be seen by the public (or the goods yard operator if they sit at the front of the layout) so I may be able to make a video then. I hope to interface them to MERG CBUS as the layout is going to have CBUS added for feedback. The actual Infrared laser ranging chips are small enough to fit in a OO buffer beam but they are surface mount and the electrical pads are on the back of the chip so are difficult to connect to- hence the use of small modules (from China). Regards Nick

Hi, I can't find a video on any of your posts in this topic. I haven't tried depth sensing a whole baseboard due to the high cost and I haven't got an application for that level of automation. I've bought some miniature infrared ranging laser modules (approx. £4 each) for sensing where the end of a train is with respect to the buffers but that is a very specific application. For hidden fiddle yards I've been trying computer vision using the obscured pattern technique. I've tried putting black printed strips with white squares on them and placed between the rails. I tried a Raspberry Pi 3B/Pi Cam using OpenCV software to recognise the white squares and reject as many other patterns as possible. When a white square disappears its assumed there is a train over it. The latency of the system was well over 100ms at times and I've yet to find out why - it seemed to be in the sending of the X,Y (only 10s of Kilobyes per second) info over Wifi. I've now bought a Pixy2 camera with some built in object recognition which is said to be able to recognise and report the X,Y coordinates of up to 200 identical coloured shapes at 60 frames per second. It also works by using hue rather than RGB so may be more tolerant of lighting conditions. Regards Nick

Hi, If using remote uncouplers such as Spratt and Winkle then an accuracy of a few millimetres to uncouple a vehicle over a magnet. To couple together vehicles with any coupling system an accuracy of a millimetre might be needed (OO) (to avoid the stationary vehicles moving excessively during the coupling operation). Regards Nick

Hi, I thought I'd add a few words about computer controlled shunting. I think most of the technology to do realistic (as good as the best exhibition) shunting is too expensive at present. Some DCC decoders include features to allow a DCC controlled uncoupler to be operated by a function button and the loco to perform a shuffle to uncouple from the next vehicle. The bit that I think is expensive is a general purpose high resolution detection system so that locos and rolling stock can be positioned accurately. This could be done with a ranging 3D camera (such as Intel make) plus a recent Intel CPU computer. Approximate cost £1000 per 4' by 3' baseboard (OO models). Integration with existing commercial model railway automation software might be difficult. Alternative computer vision might be more affordable. The new Raspberry Pi 4B single board computer (base model £34 for 'motherboard') may be powerful enough to recognise individual model railway vehicles. I see the technical challenge is the difficult cases such as a wagon carrying track panels which to a camera mounted over the baseboard might look like the track is unoccupied - might be able to use the movement of the wagon to separate its image from the background or use shadows for the same purpose. Regards Nick

Hi Johna, Do you have another loco?. If so does that go through the same bit of track ok?. If so its probably a problem with the loco you mentioned in your original post. Adding to what has been said previously the insulated track joiners are thicker and wider than the standard metal rail joiners and can catch the flanges of some locos. You could check the back to back of the loco wheelsets if you have a back to back gauge. Regards Nick

Hi, I haven't used touchscreen monitors but I have used multiple cheap Windows tablets running JMRI talking to a Raspberry Pi 3 running JMRI (using JMRI simple server option). The tablets are mainly used to display turnout positions set via routes via a mimic display but the turnouts can be operated individually by touching on the turnout icon. Regards Nick

Hi, Since I think the DCC protocol defines the number of times a command is sent a DCC command station designer could legitimately assume that it is ok to add extra copies if they so desire. When a computer is added to a DCC system it may ask the DCC command station to send additional copies. When Wifi smartphone throttles or multiple computers are added to a computer/DCC system there may well be multiple operators all asking for the same accessory to be set to the same state (especially true when computerised route setting is used). So I would guess an accessory decoder should be designed to cope with multiple commands with the same requested state. Regards Nick

Hi, Adding to what Nigel has said it appears Sprogs are not currently supplied with a power supply. All of my Heljan 33's draw a bit less than one Amp (on 12V DC, on a rolling road) but some out there might do (such as if the gear towers are not properly lubricated). The power supply input requirement on the Sprog II can be up to 15 volts DC - so if the voltage is towards 15V there may be more current draw than on 12V. The power supply itself may be shutting down rather than the Sprog if the power supply has not enough to power the Sprog and the DCC gear attached to the Sprog. Does your Sprog have an indicator that the current drawn is over the Sprogs limit?. Regards Nick

Hi, I did a test on a Black Beetle motor bogie (see attached). As the Tenshodo SPUD probably has a less powerful motor* than a Black Beetle I would expect it to struggle more to haul coaches. * the SPUD has two small magnets held either side of the armature by a flimsy plastic casing as opposed to the Black Beetle that has a conventional 'can' motor. If your layout has no curves apart from the odd point and no gradients and you run the 4 BIG at slow speeds you might get away with one SPUD. My MTK 4-CIG has a SPUD which was fine on a previous layout that had no curves but it slows right down when it gets to a 36" radius curve on a new layout. I'm looking to replace the SPUD either with parts from a loco/MU chassis or a Replica chassis. Regards Nick

Hi, Judging by a recent loco I took apart that had surface mount components they may be the two inductors. There are normally two inductors and one capacitor on a RTR loco with a DC motor. Regards. Nick

Hi, Chokes are an old word for inductors - they restrict or choke rapid changes in current. I think they have been included in DC model locos for many years to reduce the radio interference from the supply route to the motor. I've never seen the circuit diagram of a commercial DCC decoder but I guess the close proximity of a low impedance drive from the decoder is part of the reason the inductors (and capacitors) can be removed from locos fitted with DCC decoders. Also each DCC decoder has its own power reserve (a medium sized capacitor - not a stay alive) so even if there are interruptions in the pickups or wheels the decoder can often continue to drive the motor with a low impedance and reduce the radio emissions to an acceptable level. Although removing an inductor made of just a wire coil should make no difference to a DCC decoder (the motor has a much larger inductance), in recent years inductors with ferrite cores have been introduced and their characteristics vary noticeably with current and frequency. I could see this could potentially throw out the Back EMF feedback system employed by some decoders. I usually only remove the capacitor but as I learn more about slow running on DCC I may start removing the inductors as well. Regards Nick