Ouroborus

You'll get 100 different answers to this and even if a consensus was ever to be reached on the best camera, the variance between users is vast. In short, it depends what you want to photograph. Close ups benefit from a big aperture. Full front to back photographs benefit from a small aperture, unless you want to focus stack. I find mobile phones work well - you can get them low on the layout. SLRs, being somewhat bigger don't sit quite so low down, so the 'angle of view' can look a bit odd (I like my pictures to look as if they are taken trackside rather than 4m in the air). It's all practice. Have a go with your phone to see what works well and what doesn't and what you want to photograph

I work as an NHS dentist. We can't buy masks - none available through our suppliers. Usually made in China, the importers are diverting them to Amazon and Ebay because the mark up is so much better. Ditto sanitisers. Some people are doing very well. I usually pay £3.50 for a box of 50 masks. I see on Amazon that they're £15 for 5. Sanitisers cost me £40 for 3*1200mls (except i can no longer buy them). Online its around £30 for 500mls. The emergency treatment centres due to open are being hampered by a lack of PPE and we're being asked to donate whatever stock we have remaining. I see people wearing gloves and masks, opening doors, taking the gloves off and then touching the same door handle shortly later. Unless you have cuts or abrasions on your hands, gloves do FA. We didn't wear them in dentistry until the AIDS crisis in the 80s, which is blood borne, before than we had bare hands. I have a plentiful supply of gloves that i could wear to go out, but i choose not to because instead i'd rather think very carefully about what i'm touching and in particular, what the person before might have touched. Regards masks, the paper 'surgical' masks stop things ("splatter") hitting you in the face. End of. They're not sealed. I read a journal report published a few years ago that swabbed the inside of surgical masks for bacteria and viruses. 80% had bacteria behind them, 100% had viruses behind them. I understand why people use this PPE, but as the old phrase says, don't die of ignorance - contaminated PPE is a greater risk to you than nothing at all.

*edit. Forgot to say, with the proof of concept now complete, I can now add other Arduinos with other programs I've written to control building lights and sounds, as per OP. Thanks.

Appreciated your advice with this. I bought from Amazon some adjustable transformers for a couple of quid and tuned down the output to 9.5v. Cut the plug off a battery lead and connected up. Worked perfectly. The Arduino runs a simple little program that flashes a blue led as a loco passess over. It uses a hall sensor and the magnets are stuck to the underside of underground locos. The attached video shows the most basic flash, but the Arduino is controlling four other sensors that each flash slightly differently. Transformers : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SJFTD7F/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_uSsEEbMM5BERC video:

I've written a small program that sequences a dozen LEDs in some buildings. An Arduino controls it. Can the Arduino be connected to a switchpilot in order that the on/off of the sequence be controlled through a CV in the command station? Thanks

I specifically asked about replacement wheels and sent them a picture and ref number. Was told they can't get them.

You could do it with a photo sensor and an arduino as well. As the wagon/carriage/loco passes over the sensor, the drop in measured light triggers an action as Keith mentions above.

R3376 E5022 class 71 Green Hattons £128 Kernow £94.99

You have this right. The mirror function is used to align the point on the plan, but does nothing for how the point is switched. Looking on the Lenz instructions and more widely on other forums, there seems little to be done at ECoS end and there is some suggestion of switching the DCC feed wires into the Lenz. I will be surprised if this works, but you never know. The Lenz instructions point out that if the decoder throws the point the opposite to the direction intended, "simply reverse the wires". Easy on a bench in front of you, less easy when you're upside down under the layout.

Thanks both. The point decoder is the Lenz Ls150.

Fairly new to the ECoS and spent tonight adding my points to the system. Quick question - the ECoS gives an indication of whether the point is thrown. But if this wrong and the ECoS is showing the point thrown when it's actually straight, is there any way of correcting this within the ECoS or do I have to physically switch the +ve and -ve wires for each point affected? Thanks.

Just watched a video on this. Try this. In there somewhere

I benefited from such a scenario, albeit on a completely different item. I asked my LMS about an item that was out of stock and seemingly unavailable anywhere. A few phone calls went into to Hornby and up turned said item, reportedly stock allocated to a shop who failed to pay his bills and thus put back into the system by Hornby. Maybe i received somebody elses preorder for this item? Like I said, this wasn't Rocket. I guess the relationship your LMS has with Hornby may have some sway and it again reinforces the benefit of a good relationship with your LMS

Thanks Richard. I might look at this for the TTS 66 which goes excellently with the megabass.

Just my tuppenth on the Bachmann 08. Much more difficult to add the supplied chip and speaker to than the modern Hornby version, but if you're a little hesitant to mod the chassis, then the chip and supplied speaker will both fit into the cab without adding cable. You will need to remove the metal weight in the body and then find a way of feeding them through and what I found was that you can cut/melt a 'slot' into the top of the bulkhead in the cab and feed through both the speaker and decoder. (the decoder won't come through completely, but sits 2/3 in the cab, 1/3 in the body, supported in the slot you cut) I took out a couple of windows to help the sound out and the glazing at the back of the cab has a lip that needs removing for the cab to seat back down. Paint the sides of the speaker black and you won't see it. You won't see the decoder as it sits under the cab roof. Still not as easy as the Hornby version!

I've been working my way through my HST's and adding TTS sound to them. If you're going this way, some things i've found. Initially, i placed some of Richard's megabass speakers in and whilst these give a load throaty growl, they are rather loud. Unfortunately, whilst the sound volume can be lowered (CV182 - initially 4), it still seemed far too loud. Once you're down to Cv182 being 1, the next lowest is off. So i changed to another one of Richard's speakers (a much smaller one) and while it loses some of the bass, it also lowers the volume. I found the MTU to be the worst offender. In contrast, the Valenta needed the volume increasing. I know some people use the same CV setting for these, with the direction reversed on the power car. (programming the TTS requires a motor on the test track on my ECoS) By keeping different CV's, you can keep individual control of the engine noise, but driving the train became a bit of a faff. Running as a consist or with both on the same CV was a lot easier, but the engine 'note' was in perfect sync in both power car and trailer. To me, this sounded just a little odd - it was like a stereo effect. However (and purists look away now), mixing the Valenta and MTU chips into the same HST so the power car was Valenta and the the trailer MTU got rid of the stereo effect and broke up the sync. Whilst the sound of the engines was similar and when in consist they revved up in a similar way, there was a really pleasing difference as the Valenta unit began to whine and the the MTU gave more of a growl. TTS is what it is, so i might be exaggerating with "whines" and "growls", but there is a notable difference in engine note, which is what i was aiming for. For reference, even with similar speakers, for similar volume, the MTU CV182 was 1, Valenta CV182 was 6.

The key word in this was "again"

They do. Quite a nice RC Severn class. Its a fair old size

Thanks. Appreciated the link. Had a walk over there at the weekend. Other than mine waste on the ground, few signs. I thought the shaft might be fenced off, but found nothing. BUT! There is something weird and wonderful going on at Giants Hall Farm. The place bristles with cameras and razor wire. No signs of anything in production (it was listed on google as a GRP manufacturer), but i dodn't see why you'd need so much security, nor the need to fly union flags on the front lawn, nor the camouflaged comms mast. Spooky!

Oh dear, my beloved Shapfell, my poorly wallet. Duly ordered. BTW, amazon payments doesn't seem to be working on the site at the moment?

Scrub what I said above, actually not too hard to find a here and now. 1950's plan of Giant's Hall Colliery adapted and overlaid onto 2020 Google maps. My Dad's Dad used to work here, you can still easily pick out the connection to the wcml

I feel a bit sorry for Josh. He has an opinion which is his right to. He finds models expensive, so do I. I can afford them, he can't. Despite being able to afford them, there are some I'm choosing not to buy because I'm drawing a line. In the same way that i could afford a BMW, I choose to drive something smaller and cheaper. Life is full of things that we'd like but we'll never have either through choice or tough luck. There is perhaps a generational issue that Josh's generation have been encouraged to think that all they need to do is want something enough and they'll have it. Whether its a job, car, house, all you need to do is 'follow your dreams'. Sadly, that's all bs. Yes Josh, it is expensive and its a shame that you're priced out of it, but its maybe better that you learn this lesson with a toy train than something much more expensive - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it.

Fabulous. Thanks for the link. My Mum was born at Boundary Street in Ince, Her parents were married at the now demolished St Mary's. So much has changed. Its getting harder and harder to see where it all once was.

I almost feel embarrassed after the last post, but here's mine, straight out of the box alongside it's cousins. Three different models, three different shades of BR blue. Heljan do make some lovely models when they set their mind to it.

Got my LaPoste four car for £160 new on ebay the other month. Lendons sell the extra coaches