wasdavetheroad

I use a dehumidifier and a fan heater set to frost protection. The relative humidity is maintained at about 50% and the lowest temperature so far this winter is just over 8 C. A dessicant dehumidifier is better as it works well at low temperatures. Mine can pipe the water outside but I empty the internal reservoir every day as I keep a record of the electricity usage. They don't come cheap though, my Ecoair was £140 and Meaco is good as well, they are both Which best buys.

Which receiver are you going to use because in model planes etc you can fit a BEC which is a battery elimination circuit?. This provides a low voltage to power the receiver from the high voltage battery powering the motor. I don't get any emails either

The amount of energy available in the battery(s) is the total not just the single battery total. For my express locos I use a 9V voltage booster with 2 x 3.7V batteries connected in series, this has a conversion efficiency of over 90%. in other words 10% of the batteries capacity is used in the conversion process. If you use a 12V booster the efficiency drops to about 80%. Your locos will have different power requirements, mine range from just over 100mA to one loco with 500mA. A low power requirement loco can have a single battery giving a 9V boost at 80% or better efficiency for up to locos which need 300mA , if you want 12v the loco limit is 250mA. If you don't mind the battery voltage declining as the batteries discharge you don't need a booster, 3X lipo batteries in series will provide 12.6V fully charged and 9V discharged, 9V is enough for an express 4-6-2 loco to pull a 12 coach train at a scale 60mph. My heavy freight locos use 2 batteries in series giving 8.4V down to 6V. Maximum speeds with a long train are over 30mph fully charged and over 25mph depleted, this OK as the unfitted train has a speed limit of 25mph. If you are using Lipo batteries don't over discharge them!

My baseboards are a triple layer of 50mm blue foam which I bought about 10 years ago. It was delivered on a lorry in a huge pack. the baseboards rest on a mixture of tables and staging and are immensely strong. I used the recommended glue but can't remember what it is called except to say the glue should not dissolve plastic. I also use long brass screws, up to 10cm, not self tapping, which hold surprisingly well. Smear the thread with some Copydex and it sticks like the proverbial to the blanket. Good luck if you want to remove the screw

Is it a standard 440mm radius point?, if so it looks like the wheel flange is riding up over end of the 'V'

how about googling continuous rotation rotary switches, you may be surprised

It depends on what you want the loco to do and how long you want it to do it!. Then you have to find the space for the battery and associated electronics. The smallest loco I have converted is a Hornby Railroad Smokey Joe 0-4-0, just to see if I could do it. I managed to fit the receiver and a single 100mAh battery and removed the track pickups which always improves performance. Smokey Joe does not have the most advanced mechanism. Testing - maximum speed running light engine with a fully charged battery was somewhat over 30mph. Pulling wagons somewhat slower. I set the receiver maximum speed to 20mph and ran an endurance test. Pulling those 4 wagons the receiver switched off the power to stop the battery over discharging at about 3V. This was after 45 minutes during which the loco had completed 27 circuits of my 5x2 metre layout. from this I calculated that the loco power requirement with 4 wagons was 135mA, in other words to run for 1 hour would need a 135mAh capacity battery. If the loco is not doing anything, just stabled for example, the onboard receiver uses about 15mA per hour. the battery voltage dropped from 4.2V to 3V over the test and the speed dropped from 20mph to 18.5mph. Use per operating session - My Smokey Joes job is to move gypsum wagons to/from a off layout gypsum mine and there is a fictional steep gradient up from the mine. Full wagons are restricted to 3 which must be pushed. Typically the loco can drag 9 empties to the mine and during the rest of the session propels 3 batches of 3 back to the exchange siding. This is about equivalent to about 5 layout circuits taking about 12 minutes and using about 27mAh of battery capacity, say 30mAh. This leaves the 100mAh battery with about 70mAh spare capacity. This means the loco could sit idle for over 4.5 hours plus the 12 minutes running before the receiver cut the power to save the battery. As my operating sessions are 2-3 hours there are no problems. You could even use a smaller 70mAh battery if the loco was not switched on until needed. I remove my batteries for recharging and they are E-flite types with 'UM' connectors. changing the battery for a fresh one should take less than 30 seconds!

You might consider using a battery rather than a supercap. If you are using radio control you have the possibility of using a voltage regulator to ensure a fixed voltage to the receiver both from the track supply and the battery. The receiver than varies the pulse width modulated voltage to the motor using commands from the radio controller. Actually for shunting you might as well just use the battery, less complicated. BlueRail Trains first board, the one I bought for testing, automatically switched between track and battery and it was seamless if you had the same voltage with both. Having an automatic DC/DCC/battery switching system with auto battery charging on powered track is the holy grail of power supplies. All the elements work and it just needs someone to integrate them into a small package.

Yes, different technologies I agree, size is the problem with the Bluetooth and WiFi boards, maybe because they are developed for the american market and it seems they have a lot more room in their locos. I think the show environment may be a problem for any 2.4Ghz band system, Bluetooth, WiFi and even Deltangs Spektrum protocols. This is because of smart phones which can saturate the whole bandwidth with traffic in a large busy venue, especially with people streaming video!. I don't think it matters if you have your own Wifi hotspot, it still has to share the bandwidth. Moving to the 5Ghz band might help there should be no problem for home use. my Wifi analyser shows a dozen or so local networks but they don't seem to make any difference to my several Deltang transmitters. edit - off topic but I am intrigued by your user name, mainly because my layout station buildings are inspired by the ones at Penrith!.

I agree, my operating sessions last up to about 3 hours. The loco rule of thumb is 30 minutes pulling a max load train at line speed and 2.5 hours sitting idle in the fiddle yard or stopped on the layout. My Deltang receivers use about 20mA when idle so need about 50mAh of battery capacity. My most 'thirsty' locos need about 400mA at full load so 0.5 hr full load = 200mAh 2.5 hr idle = 50mAh Total = minimum 250mAh battery I find actual running time is nearer 15-20 minutes than 30

I tend not to agree, Deltang receivers have options that BlueRail don't but for many the important ones may be BEMF, consisting and good support for sound. Deltang are lacking in these areas but it is possible to program a single true consist per transmitter and of course permanently linked locos are easy. The BlueRail boards programming is excellent, blowing away DCC offerings. LocoFi https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/ is another US based WiFi system

BlueRail trains http://bluerailtrains.com/about-bluerail/ produced their original board to work without the need for an attached DCC decoder, I bought a couple for evaluation and they worked OK with a smart App. IMO too large for british outline stuff. what was intriguing was they used battery or rail power and would automatically switch between the two. If the battery and track voltage was the same this would be seamless. Their next offering was via TAM valley with the emphasis on attaching a DCC decoder. however the bare BlueRail board can operate the loco on its own. As these new boards are still large and I am not a fan of smart touchscreens, preferring knobs, buttons and switches I have not purchased one for evaluation. There are also products available that use WiFi rather than Bluetooth. Have a browse of this site which has a lot of information http://www.freerails.com/view_forum.php?id=45

The sides may be a bit deep for a girder bridge so turn it into a short viaduct with the pillars just hanging below. Spray adhesive should stick the brick paper to aluminium although i would use card and then use a prit stick or spray mount on the paper

Well as a challenge I converted a Hornby 'Smokey Joe' 0-4-0 saddle tank to battery power and it worked ok with of course the limitations of the RTR motor and gearing. Here are my notes on the conversion: Rail pickups removed Battery single 1S Eflite type lipo, 100mAh removed from loco for recharging Maximum speed light engine 30mph+ Endurance test with 4 wagons 45 minutes adjustments maximum speed adjusted to 20mph with 100% charged battery at 4.2V speed had dropped to 18.5mph when battery reached 3V loco completed 27 circuits of my 5m x 2.3m layout Standard task for loco is moving wagons to and from an off board gypsum mine into an on board siding. In a typical operating session this is equivalent to 4 or 5 circuits - one trip taking 9 empties to mine and 3 trips each of 3 loaded wagons from mine, 3 loaded wagons is the limit because of steep gradient from mine. 100mAh lipo -27 circuits 70mAh lipo - 19 circuits

I converted some N-scale stuff a few years ago just before I moved to OO scale. The DMU was fine as the receiver and battery was in the trailer coach. The Class 08 shunter had no room in the loco so it had the equipment in a coupled van. Finding room for the battery is the problem but you could use track pickup at the cost of some extra circuitry. In which case you might as well just use DCC as you will get none of the advantages of using a battery. Deltang have small receivers which I believe are not subject to their receiver chip availability problem. The Rx-45 works at up to 6V and 500mA. dimensions 9mm x 9.6mm x 2.1mm

used and washed plastic and metal ready meal containers are great for putting bits of a project in. My speciality is forgetting where I put the container., it took half an hour the other day to find the Stanier 2-8-0 tender top, I should have finished the project six months ago.

As a diabetic I have a lot of needles and lancets which I use a yellow medical sharps bin for. I also put my modelling scalpel and knife blades in there. Certain local pharmacies accept them, not all though, the nearest one is half a mile away. The bins seal when full so they can't look inside. I imagine they eventually go straight into a furnace. Check your local government site for a list of participating pharmacies.

I left the top of mine so as I have resurrecting the layout for winter I want to re coat as neccessary and need to buy a new bottle, expensive though. I think i might try some PVA as an experiment, would PVA peel off the wheel and surely it dries hard?

I have been using Wilko hard plastic tube glue to stick polystyrene to card and balsa, seems to work like a charm

Neat even at over $50 a pop. How about posting the links on the radio control forum, once they get their hands on them they wont be looking like minis for much longer

I use single cell hobby batteries with 'UM' connectors, usually with small voltage regulators. for example you can boost 2 single cell lipos, nominally 7.4 volts to either 9 or 12 volts, or a single cell to say 5 volts. Some locos will be happy with an un boosted battery. I remove my batteries to charge them so I can use single 'UM' battery chargers. I now have the capacity to charge 10 batteries simultaneously and independently, so no need for balance charging, the batteries are all 4.2V after charging. I made up small wiring harnesses in whatever combination I needed.

The DEltang RX6 series will cease production at about the end of the year because the main onboard chip will no longer be available.. David T is looking for someone to continue development of a replacement of the Rx6 Series. I believe all but one of the Rx4 series will continue in production. Micron Radio Control have receivers in development which, because they use the same Spectrum DSM2 protocols as Deltang will be compatible with Deltang transmitters, also Micron transmitters will control existing Deltang receivers. Tony Walsham of Remote Control Systems in Australia also has alternatives available and in development.

The nearest match to DCC functionality in this area would be BlueRail trains latest boards which apparently allow the controller to select any loco from a 'pool' as long as it is not in use by another controller. Not sure of the details but the BlueRail boards are in production, or at least the versions that connect to a DCC decoder are available from Tam Valley? The multi operator feature on Deltang transmitters is designed to allow passing on control from one operator to another american style but it probably won't handle a large layout with lots of shared locos. I use Deltang stuff but don't use this feature although I do exploit it to allow for some consisting.

The switch on the TX22 is 'centre biased' which means it springs back to the OFF position. There is also a un sprung version. both work just fine as a lot of the receiver functions have a toggle on/off option.

What model? there are various ones with differing switches