KingEdwardII

Steve, I'm curious to understand why you follow this procedure when attaching the control rods to the servos. I would have thought that it would be simpler to have the servo at one end of its sweep - e.g. the end corresponding to the signal being in the "stop" position (horizontal). Clearly I am missing something here. Yours, Mike.

The NMRA have something comprehensive on this topic, if you're up for a bit of maths https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/standards/sandrp/pdf/tn-7_track_center_and_obstacle_clearance_methodology_jul_2017.pdf Enjoy! Yours, Mike.

CMME have a DCC 16 channel servo controller that contains an Arduino as its brains - £28 all-in and that includes an Adafruit 16 channel servo board and requisite software both to deal with DCC commands and to control each servo independently, including semaphore bounce: https://chesterfield-models.co.uk/product/arduino-dcc-sniffer-relay-servo-decoder-all-in-one-copy/ I'm using one to drive semaphore servos, but it could equally well drive servos to operate points. It will NOT drive MP1 point motors.

Yes, I have 7 paired MP1 motors on my layout - either crossovers or cases where a point leading from a main line into sidings has another point in the sidings diverting into a headshunt or equivalent that must be interlocked with the point on the main line. The current loadings of two MP1s are well within the capabilities of the DR4018. Yours, Mike.

Not sure that I would ever want to have a "model railway" with literally no trains. The ultimate Beeching nightmare. Plenty of stations to model, but not a lot happening. Might as well model the supermarket car park that got built on the station site... No, life is far better with trains running around - the more the merrier. Any era. Steam, diesel, electric - all are welcome. And I am also looking forward to riding on some real full-sized ones now that lockdown is finally receding. Yours, Mike.

My reading of the RocRail docs seems to indicate that it can display the image of a loco in a block. I have not tried to do this on my copy of RocRail as yet. See here: https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=rocgui-gen-en&s[]=block&s[]=displays&s[]=loco&s[]=image Yours, Mike.

Not sure that is the right comparison point. Pi 4B = £33.90 + SD card (~£5.00) But the really direct comparison is with the Pi Zero = £4.80 + SD card (~£5.00) The Pi Zero W for £9.30 adds in WiFi capability. The Pi Zero is a full computer (Linux, etc) not just a microcontroller like the Pico. For both the Pi Pico and the Pi Zero you probably additionally need header pin sets, plus a power supply of some kind. The Adafruit board with its library can do the kinds of movements that you describe (e.g. "move from where you are now to +45 degrees, and take 3 seconds doing so") and the CMME DCC servo controller that I've been working with has a programmed semaphore signal bounce, although their unit uses an Arduino rather than a Pi to drive the Adafruit board. CMME have done the DCC accessory controller part that you mention. I think that what you're doing is great - just wanted you to be aware that there is some other stuff out there that is working in this same area. Yours, Mike.

Looking at the photograph of the yard posted further up on this page, I can't see much in the way of height variation within the yard. There is a steep climb up to the yard from the main tracks which explains the switchback arrangement there, but once into the yard, it all looks fairly level. So I doubt that height variation explains the peculiar track layout relating to the bottommost line on the map above. The photo implies that perhaps they didn't use that bottom siding much anyway since there is a road truck parked right across it. Yours, Mike.

Are you in effect producing the equivalent of the Adafruit 16 channel servo controller described here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-16-channel-servo-driver-with-raspberry-pi/using-the-adafruit-library Yours, Mike.

Definitely an anglicisation - Aberaeron is the Welsh name of the town. I lived in Aberystwyth in my youth and never remember seeing the spelling "Aberayron". Railway line only completed in 1911 - closed to passengers by 1951 and gone completely in 1965... a really short lifespan. Unsurprising in that the population is only around 1500 souls and the region generally very rural. I have a photo of Aberaeron station in 1959 in the book "Great Western Branch Line Album" and it still looks in good condition despite the demise of passenger services. Yours, Mike

Edwina Currie - that astonishing case of a politician forced to resign for telling the unvarnished truth !! She said that British eggs were contaminated with salmonella, which indeed they were, at that time. For this, she received the order of the boot - consequence of anger from the shires following a huge drop in sales... Yours, Mike.

If you ever see a "1", steer well clear of such a place. A place not far from us got a "2" and the litany of failures and breaches was astonishing. With added rodents and roaches...yum Makes British Rail sandwiches into cordon bleu!

I wonder if you should print off a couple of Food Hygiene certificates for the windows here? A real touch of authenticity...

Agree with you - names like "Clucking Bucket" and "Cock A Doodle Bucket" imply that the food in this establishment is more than a little underdone...

That's equivalent to 0.75mm2 wire. How long are your cable runs? I envisage that they are fairly substantial - i.e. many metres. I'd say that 0.75mm2 wire is a bit on the light side for long runs of wire - above, Iain mentioned 2.5mm2 wire for the power bus and that is what I've used on my moderate sized indoor layout. Even on my accessory bus I use 1.0mm2 wire and the power loading on that is much lower. The concern here is what happens when the voltage reaching the loco drops, which is what is behind Iain's suggestion of an upward tweak to the voltage coming out of your controller, if possible. Yours, Mike.

I have been using the MP1s driven by the DR4018 and they are very good. The DR4018 is driven from the controller via the DCC bus and it does not have any loconet ports. The connection from the DR4018 to the MP1s and MP5s is 3-wire for which I use 0.5mm2 mains flex. Yours, Mike.

I attach a picture of my power bus wiring showing the way I use the Tap Splice connectors and the terminal blocks. The baseboard is a bit more complex here since this is under the Engine Shed and there are extra support timbers to deal with the long cuts through the baseboard for the inspection pits.

No, I never daisy chain the wires coming off the power bus. I have lots of pairs of 1.0mm2 wires coming off the power bus, which each then connect to a single pair of terminal blocks. The main power bus is indeed a "single long run around the layout" - or rather two long runs, since it is fed from the middle of the layout and there is a left section and a right section. The point of a large cross section power bus is to reduce voltage drop to a minimum and it gets more important to minimise voltage drop. a) as the length increases and b) as the number of simultaneously active locos increases. My power bus is about 5 meters for each half. I plan for 4 or 5 simultaneous locos, 1 or 2 manually driven the rest driven via computer automation. Yours, Mike. PS You may find the solid core mains cable tough to work with. I always use mains flex, which is stranded and so much more flexible. Fairly easy to strip as well, when you need the wires separated out. Plus, when you need 3 wires (e.g. point motors) the earth is also a sheathed colour coded wire.

OK, so my approach is a two-step one. I have it mind to be able to remove any section of track, if necessary, with the least fuss. Not so easy once everything is ballasted, etc, but by no means impossible. So, for me, this means that the droppers must be detachable. Since they are soldered at the track end, that means some form of detachable connection under the baseboard. What I do is to attach to the power bus with 1.0mm2 wires (using the tap splice connectors) and run those to terminal blocks. The droppers are then wired in to the other side of the terminal blocks - and of course, the dropper wires are a lot smaller than 1.0mm2. I usually connect 2 or 3 pairs of droppers to each set of terminal blocks, although this is by no means required and I have plenty of cases of 1:1 connections. Wago connectors could be used instead of terminal blocks. I found terminal blocks very cheap and I like that they have a simple means to screw in place under the baseboard. Here is an example from my layout: The 1.0mm2 feed wires from the power bus are the blue and brown wires leading to the terminal block. In this case there are 3 droppers to the track and a pair linked to the point motor for frog polarity handling. The other wires relate to the point motor & the frogs. The dropper wires are less than 1.0mm2, and need to be conveniently small for soldering to the track. 18/0.1 wire does sound a bit on the small side (~0.12mm2 or 26AWG): something more like 0.2mm2 (e.g.7/0.2 or 24AWG) would be my minimum - it has half the resistance of the 18/0.1 wire. Or even 0.3mm2 wire (e.g. 19/0.15). I happen to use dropper wire that is 12/0.2 = 0.4mm2 approx mainly because I had a reel of it lying around from some other project of mine. Its the Black-Black/White stuff in the picture. BTW, wire sizing can be very confusing. I prefer to stick with the cross sectional area formulation (0.2mm2, etc) since it relates directly to the resistance. Stranding is a bit messy since wires of the same cross sectional area can have different numbers of strands of varying sizes. To see the wide variations take a look at the RS components website under "Hookup & Equipment wire" - they are not necessarily the best place to buy stuff, but they will show you the range of variations on offer. You can filter by cross section and by stranding. This website is handy for converting between the wire formulas: https://www.canford.co.uk/TechZone/Article/MetricAWGWireSizeEquivalents Best wishes, Yours, Mike.

Hmm, the components labelled as "Inductors" on the picture in the previous post look awfully like resistors - they even have the resistor colour coded markings on them. I would not recommend removing those resistors. Yours, Mike.

If you mean Tap Splice connectors like these: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/splice-connectors/0531352/ ...then I have used them successfully with my bus wires. You need to buy the correct size for your cables. I have multiple different sizes since I have a variety of wire sizes for different bus wires and for droppers. They are great for bus wires in that you can attach them anywhere along the bus wires, you can add as many as you like and it is a simple job with a pair of pliers to connect them. You can't really remove them once attached, but the connection wire can simply be cut off - there is no need to remove the connector itself. There are lots of alternatives. Some folk like the Wago connectors - but these have the characteristic that you have to terminate all the wires in the connector - you can't just attach to an existing length of wire as with the splice connectors. It's fine to do the terminations, but I think it is a bit of a faff if you need to insert extra connections into an existing bus wire. Soldering droppers direct to the bus wires, I really would not recommend, although I know that many folks do this. It is OK if you can get the baseboards out and on their sides, but I would not recommend soldering underneath a baseboard that is fixed in place - messing with hot solder in that location is not a good recipe. It also has the downside that you have to expose a section of the bus wire to make the solder connection - the exposed sections should not be left exposed in my opinion due the possibility of shorts. Yours, Mike.

But the shiny new set has done wonders for getting me out & about...

Yes, and at an eyewatering price of £385. Even other stockists who discount now have it at around £300. The computer interface has crept up to £63. Mike.

I use 2.5mm2 mains FLEX for the power bus - perhaps a bit over the top, but relatively cheap and easy to use and of course, low resistance and thus minimal voltage drop. For a smaller layout, perhaps 1.5mm2 mains flex would be sufficient. I have an accessory bus and I use 1.0mm2 flex for that, since the current draw is much less. I am now also planning a 1.0mm2 pair for the 5V DC supply that my servo motor controllers are going to require for powering semaphores. The reason for using mains flex - it's flexible (!! - stranded wires), widely available and you can get it at low cost. You can choose to keep the 2 or 3 wires together in one cable (I do this for point motors that have 3 terminals) or strip off the outer sheath and use the inner wires separately (I do this for the power bus, to assist with the frequent connections required for all the droppers). The inner wires are also natually colour coded which helps. Yours, Mike.

Can't ever have enough bird poo. Perhaps you should try some of the real thing... Mike