luke the train spotter

Well here is how I fitted high capacity stay alive to my tiny Hornby Ruston. Compared to the peckett this was a much easier fit and no serious loco surgery had to be used. The decoder I used is a Laisdcc 870021 (make sure it's that product number) and a TCS ka4 high capacity unit. Match up the black and black white stripe wires and the blue wires and solder them together, making sure to insulate. Now turning to the loco, detach the loco from the runner wagon (you wont need it once the stay alive and been fitted). Then take the loco apart, there are 4 small cross screws under the sanding pipes which hold the loco body on. After that I removed the cab roof. This is a separately fitted part and I levered it off with a sharp craft knife which revealed this interior. I used a pair of pliers to bend the cab control leavers off as they're super glued into the cast metal base of the cab. This makes plenty of room for all the stay alive gear and is actually quite spacious. Now thread the wires of the decoder through the hole where the bonnet is and hard wire the decoder to try chassis. Then you can fit all the stay alive gear back in the cab as a test fit. I opted to place the decoder on the floor then put the capacitors on top though there is ample space to use different positions and combinations. After that I then reassemble the loco and tacked the roof back on with some very small drops of super glue. All in all quite an easy fit and no serious surgery involved. I then popped it on the layout and changed CV29 so that it would have a value of 2. This ensures smooth running and a gradual release of power from the capacitors so you can't tell when it's running off track power and when it's running off capacitor power because otherwise it's a bit jittery. From start to finish it took me less than an hour to fit the stay alive and it works a treat. I'll get a video explaining this video up on YouTube soon showing it running as well but this is all dependant on how I tackle my sixth form work. I'll leave you with some pictures of it on Distillery Yard including some shots of it against my peckett.

So I do pre bend the wire a bit before glueing it in place (though you could solder them to some copper clad pcb board) but then I press them under pressure against the wheel so they can spring onto the wheel.

Also, forgot to post this in the post above, what do you think about the edited higher contrast pictures? Would you rather see them or the original photos?

Well I've now finally got one, the wait is over, Hornby have delivered a stunning model and a ruston has joined the distillery rosta! I can already say that I have fitted high capacity stay alive (like I did to the peckett) and will be posting that tomorrow on this thread as well as producing a YouTube video on it as well. This means that I don't have to run the loco with the runner wagon. The ruston actually makes the peckett look big!

As promised some photo edits...

Well the rest of the scenery is now done and I'm very happy with how it's looking. I used the same method as before expect when I was rebuilding the forest I found that some of the trees just wanted to fall over so some barbeque scewers sorted them out. Photos below of the method and application of the new scenery. I've got some photo edits to share later too. I'm incredibly pleased with how it has come out with the grass having much more depth and texture which just adds to the scene. So much better than before. Thanks for looking.

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive and hope to fit high capacity stay alive to mine so I can remove the running wagon. From my calculations from scale drawings there should be plenty of room.

Ahhh very nice! I'll check that out.

It certainly isn't big! Yes the wagon that it's pulling does have pick ups (in fact it is all wheel pick up) and it also houses a very small coreless motor.

SKLR? Ah I saw them but decided to put a pre order on a ruston instead. Tough decision though!

So a new loco has arrived to join the fleet! Couldn't resist rails of Sheffields bargain price of 40 odd quid so just had to pick one up. Here it is on the layout, it's even smaller than the peckett!

Well distillery yard is now over a year old and its age is beginning to show! A combination of moving the layout around and the cat has resulted in some rather flat static grass. Keen to redo it and also upgrade my current static grass gear I invested in a woodland scenics static king. Running off a 9v battery only gives you average results but it's definitely worth investing in the additional power adapter which gives some fantastic results! Certainly not cheap as i spent £100 overall on the applicator and power adapter but I reckon it's the best applicator on the market and the results are simply fantastic. I began by removing the trees on the embankment running the length of the layout closest to the viewer then covering the track/buildings/some stock with newspaper. I then worked my way from left to right adding a second layer of static grass over the flat existing layer. For this I used a combination of woodland scenic static grass fibres (4mm dark green and a 7mm field mix I think) as well as some 4.5mm Polak mid green fibres which were originally used on the layout. The glue I used is mod podge. The excess static grass was then collected to be re used. I've still got to do the other side, replant the trees and add scenic details like shrubbery and horse bushes etc. Here's a before and after photo. Im very happy how it looks and it definitely looks rougher and longer like I originally wanted it too. Much more rural Scotland than manacured lawn.

Great to hear that it's gone to a good home! Look forward to seeing your thread on it.

That black painted fascia with the nce socket looks proper smart. The 141 looks very at home too.

So a stay alive unit is basically a block of capacitors that act as a small rechargeable battery to provide power when the loco doesn't pick up any off the track for reasons like dirty track. You get different sizes of capacitors and I used high capacity ones in my peckett which provide around 30 seconds of power once i remove the loco off the track which is much more than I need but is very useful because I think my peckett has only stalled once or twice in the 7 months that I've had the stay alive fitted. As far as I'm aware, stay alive only works with dcc and no equivalents are available for anologue users. I had to fettle around with the CVS on my peckett to get a smooth power discharge from the capacitor unit and o actually had to disable the anologue running CV so I'm pretty certain that it wouldn't work on DC.

Someone boil the kettle?

Looks great with the light box. You'll be able to get some really quality photos with that set up. Always interesting to see how you managed it on a budget too.

Oh that's very disappointing. After seeing the amazing results of last year's competition I was really wanting to enter this year's challenge.

Looks like the Pagoda top for a distillery!

Well thankfully there are no frog wires to worry about! Not using a point motor is even more important for this layout because there is no room for under baseboard wiring/point motor wiring so everything electrical has to he surface mounted.

Now that the track is down and I have a clear idea of what I want to create I can begin the electrical side of the layout. First of all I use wire in tube point control to control the single point from the fiddle yard section of the layout. The method unused can be seen in my YouTube video below. The wiring has also been done. Since I use dcc all the rails are wired to be live. Lots of wires for such a small layout!

I could do but I think an industrial building would act as a nice scenic break as well which would be helpful in such a small amount of space. If I was modeling a light railway or something with a passenger service I probably would use a scenic traverser..

It's been a little while since I've done anything on the layout but I've been really focused on the planning of it. I wanted to get the right balance of rural scenery to industrial scenery but I think I've come up with a good compromise. I also found it very difficult to come up with a good track plan. A loop would be too tight for most of my stock with the nem couplings so that was ruled out. I really wanted to have it all scenic and no sector plates/traversers but due to the really small amount of space I have to play around with I've decided to use a sector plate. So far all the track is laid but I still need to wire it all up and test it. I plan to use the wire in tube method of point control which I've used on most of my other micro layouts.

A great layout idea! I am also currently being drawn into the world of 009 modelling at the moment. I may have missed it but what are the interior dimensions of the box?

Is that an electron loco?