Alterstone_ngauge

On 01/02/2020 at 20:28, TomE said:

Excellent work! It hadn't crossed my mind to make use of the space under the tender for tantalums, I might have to investigate the possibility of that arrangement on the C Class. 

 

Cheers, 

 

Tom. 

Hi Tom

love your layout.

Under the tender seems to be where it’s at for the pesky low tender models. There’s literally so much space! (Relatively speaking of course)

Saw you had done the 9f and I suspect you did a similar thing to me ? 

I laughed at your comment about shed queen to useable loco. It’s very true. My front pony truck was derailing everywhere too, so I drilled a tiny hole at a 45 degree angle above it and pushed in a 0.25 brass rod and bent it down over the front. Literally perfect everywhere now. The same concept as the Dapol one, but it never seemed to work. 
 

here’s mine ;

I thought I would share my experiences of adding sound and stay alive to N Gauge locos as I'm getting through a lot of them these days.

I always add stay alive regardless of space limitations. Other than varying the height of the enclosure from model to model, I only ever use full size sugar cube speakers. Anything smaller doesn't sound right to me.

If the loco has a tender I always like to close the gap down to a realistic distance too - the gaps can be pretty wild sometimes.

Finally I’ll add a real coal load, fit the crew and finish off with weathering.

Graham Farish Ivatt 2mt

Here’s a picture of the Finished job on my layout.

Space is tight on this model but everything fits fine in the end. The decoder sits towards the back of the tender with the SACC16 board on top.

Then I soldered two capacitors together as tightly as I could. I drilled two small holes either side in the tender chassis to connect to the capacitors. (2x flat 470uf tantalum capacitors) I had to remove the plastic detailing in between the wheels to locate these. The moulded detail here serves no purpose as it’s underneath the tender and not really visible. A blob of black tac allowed me to locate it so none of the wheels or axles touch and create drag. Then I used a tiny bit of superglue once happy.

A third 470uf capacitors seemed to fit nicely in this crevice. In order to get the speaker to fit, I had to mill down some of the “thickness” of the coal area sides. It goes through nicely after this and no compromise to the model.

Finally, to shorten the tender gap is super easy and took 5 minutes. Just cut some clearance away from the inside of the drawbar, cut the plastic end shorter and the brass wires - then simply bend the brass wires around the pickup bar. Very effective.

Looks and sounds great. With 1440uf of backup, I ran it down my layout on slowest speed and it literally took half an hour and It didn’t stall once.

Here’s a quick video ;

http://youtu.be/soLCXReMkzQ

Thanks for reading - I hope this is of interest to some.

Sound with full size sugar cube speaker (15x11x9) / Stay alive with 1410uf of backup / Close coupled tender

solutions fo Ivatt 2mt 

video;

https://youtu.be/soLCXReMkzQ

33 minutes ago, JeffP said:

I like the way you say it's starting to resemble a model.

Update: it looks pretty good to me, quite real.

Thank you. Getting there now...

4 hours ago, DanielB said:

Wonderful layout, excellent weathering, and ingenius solutions for adding sound to the 08. Well done!

can’t believe I pulled it off haha. Thanks!

finished all work on my Ivatt, 4mt 2-6-0 and WD Austerity this weekend.

New railing thing sorted

Made Some good progress as it slowly starts to resemble a model 

Finally weathered my A3 and Black 5

8 hours ago, grahame said:

This is coming along very nicely. The dusty, dirty, grubby look and atmosphere with the muted colours and limited palette is very redolent of the end of steam era.

 

 

This the best compliment ever cheers Graham! Exactly what I like, and what I’m trying to nail! 

On 27/12/2019 at 22:54, dpgibbons said:

Hi Dan - I assume you used the smallest Tramfabriek motor 0615S 6 x 15mm with a 1mm single shaft. Did you need a custom adapter to connect it with the Dapol drive shaft? 

hey this is the product
 

https://tramfabriek.nl/Dapol-a4.html
 

You don’t need anything, just pull the plastic off your existing shaft and stick it on the new one. Already has a brass adapter so the diameter is correct.

More scenery

On 26/12/2019 at 12:23, Duncan. said:

Hi

Can you draw a circuit diagram with component values showing where the circuit fits  between pick up and motor for the stay alive part of the modification.

Cheers

Duncan  

by the way, you need to replace the motor in order to create space for the capacitors.

tramfabriek is the Brand. It’s a much better motor and much smaller 

On 26/12/2019 at 12:23, Duncan. said:

Hi

Can you draw a circuit diagram with component values showing where the circuit fits  between pick up and motor for the stay alive part of the modification.

Cheers

Duncan  

I can’t but if it helps you just connect a zimo SACC16 pcb to the mx648 via the common positive and ground on the decoder. Then you connect the capacitors to that board. It’s in the instructions of the decoder and mx648. Hope that helps.

Dan

here is some Christmas action
 

https://youtu.be/Ry3MduLvR5A

finished product

My 12 year old 9f had a motor, sound and stay alive upgrade.

9 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I hope that glue is strong 

Me too haha

Thanks. It’s going to be good when I bring it all together with the airbrush. Very in your face at the moment, and with no details added 

7 hours ago, millerhillboy said:

great looking shed area, once that comes together it'll look great with some nice big locos lying in there

the 2mts are both Farish in my collection and they run perfectly to be honest with no detailing ! 

7 hours ago, JeffP said:

Just found this, some excellent atmosphere, shed yard is a bit tidy yet for a transition period shed. Needs weeds on the lesser used sidings. I like the empty, or near empty shed...so many were like that near the end.

 

As an aside, can I ask about the Ivatt 2MT's? Are they Minitrix?

If so, do you have /have you ever had problems with them derailing on facing points?

I'm sad to say that one of those was what ended my "N" Gauge dreams...albeit thirty years ago, when there were very few "N" locos to be had.

 

Editted to say: your shed would be an easy bunk, I'd have loved to have gone there...

 

 

Mirrors gone up for operator feedback. Works well.

wiring up my station lights so I can make progress with the ballasting

Just completed this sound conversion for massive stay alive and sound. I have since painted the wires black.

I hate tinny sounds and stalling n gauge locos so I decided the permanently coupled wagons made for a cool compromise. 
 

The 08 had just been sitting in a box for 5 years stuck in a DC only state anyway....

goes on my layout nicely

self congratulatory hard and fast progress post.
 

Proud to finally have an amazing lighting setup so I can actually see my layout...

Duchess's