RobAllen

11 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

With a separate accessory bus, you don’t use the ‘frog’ output from the cobalt.  You wire the track bus to one of the switches and the common from that to the frog.

Fortunately, I was already aware due to some excellent posts on this forum.
As I understand it, the advantage of the accessory bus is that when I short the track bus due to not setting a point correctly, I can still drive the point motor via the accessory bus.

I haven't actually got as far as installing a point motor yet, but my plan is to do one and get it working all the way from JMRI's panel with control via WiThrottle before I do the second one.
 

5 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

With a credit card it's much safer

For any purchase between £100 & £30,000, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act comes into play if you use a credit card. This makes the card issuer equally liable if the goods are faulty and you can get your money back from them if the seller goes bust before suppling the goods.

Can't remember the last time I used cash. 

I don't know about other businesses, but my bank charges me more to pay in cash than any other method, including card fees.

13 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

If everything is wired to a common bus it’s much more difficult to sort later when the annoyance gets you.  My suggestion would be to wire back to the control box separately even if they common up in there.  So much easier to sort if (when?!) you decide you need to.

Fantastic point Paul! I'll pick up two different colours and run a separate bus for the IP digital points.

29 minutes ago, RailWest said:

I've never tried this for real, but....why not have a the bus as a complete loop around the layout

I've not done enough research, but I'm pretty sure that I've read that you shouldn't loop a DCC bus. at 2m long in each direction of the "L", I'm not worrying too much about it all as it's a relatively small layout. I'm not totally sure if I'll bother with an accessory bus yet!

Second board wired up now!

I've essentially run the bus along the side where the most droppers are closest, hence towards the back on the left board and the front on the right hand one.

Obviously, with both station boards done, I had to test it out!

It works!

I need to lay complete the track on the third and fourth boards and wire them up next. Then on to the point motors.

Might just turn a few locos up and down first though…

First board wired up. Tomorrow, I'll work out how to do a plug for the connection to the next board. 

16 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

If you have already done so, have a look at "Sampford Courtenay" in the Layout Topics area

I guess you mean Stoke Courtenay?

15 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

Indeed. I know very little about 'sport'

My kids gave me that look  when I told them that proper sport stops for lunch and afternoon tea.

I visited yesterday and was incredibly impressed by the presentation of Shwt. In addition to being well lit, it is also quite a deep layout, with plenty of space front to back which really gives a sense of the place. Makes me wish I had an extra foot of depth for Holcombe!
 

It was also quite popular!

Many many thanks to @Johndc120 too for explaining how Shwt uses WiThrottle and JMRI to allow routes to be set from the phone. I very much appreciated being able to look behind the scenes and have a walkthrough of the JMRI set up, particularly as I imagine exhibiting is already a busy time. It was enlightening and I'm looking forward to doing similar on Holcombe when I get to that stage. Thanks!

I visited yesterday and it was fantastic to see Templecombe Lower! Very very nicely done. I took a few photos the with phone as I enjoyed watching the start of the daily sequence:
 

I always have a soft spot for a 2P

A Standard 4 on shed.

Ivatt 2MT and another 2P!

The pilot is used on all trains from Templecombe Upper back to down to the junction. There was a lot of operational complexity at Templecombe and it's captured nicely here.

I also very much appreciated the slides telling us what was happening. Very engaging for those of us watching.

 

1 minute ago, NHY 581 said:

Anyone going to the Bristol show tomorrow ? 

Currently planning to attend on Saturday.

12 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

I can confirm that SWAG'25 will be held on.....

 

SUNDAY 6TH APRIL 2025.

I'm back from a week or so in the US for work. This is now in the diary and I'm more hopeful that I won't miss it!

Thanks all for the photos. It looked like it was an amazing event this year.
 

1 hour ago, CovDriver said:

Apologies for the lack of updates but with a little get away to Belgium for a week and a bit of stress from the day job normal service now resumes just a couple of pics to show what's been done recently.

The best thing about this hobby is that we attend to it at our own pace.

18 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

How can something as lovely as that be considered pollution!!!

I'm actually very happy with the photo I took too. Not often you see the Stove-R out either.

33 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

As requested  here's a link to some SVR photos with significant local interest..

My local line and 1369 looks great! I popped down on Thursday to get a photo of 13268 at the head of the LMS coaches. but I won't pollute the thread with a non-GWR loco :)

The DCC solution I chose is DCC-EX.

I didn't want to build it all from scratch, so purchased a complete system from Chesterfield Models. This included a box with a Motor Shield and an Arduino running DCC-EX to connect to the track along with a separate box containing a Raspberry Pi running JMRI as set up by Steve Todd. 

With the power supplier as well, I decided to put it all in a wooden box to keep it all safe and together.

The iPhone is an old one that I had lying around. It runs WiThrottle. The system creates its own WiFi network so the phone automatically connects and is ready to as soon as I turn it on which is nice. I run JMRI by VNC from my computer to the Pi.

It all works nicely and even provides a separate programming track output in addition to the main track.

Quite pleased with the holes that I drilled. Turns out that using a rule and pencil first helps!
 

I’ve always got time for a 7F. 13806 looks good. 

I intended to do some wiring today, but I don't have the right bits, so I have ordered them.

Instead, I decided to cross the next baseboard join.

There's only two for this one. Firstly the pretty straight line to the industry:

and then the curve… I bought some templates from WHWW and used the 638mm one:

and of course am now waiting for the glue to dry!

I'm hoping to attend on Saturday. 

After this weekend's work, the track in the station is laid:

All droppers in position too, but no point motors yet:

I think that I need to sort out the DCC buses (track and accessory) next which will require working out a solution for joining the wiring across the board given that I can't get at the underside until one board has been disconnected.

3 minutes ago, MAP66 said:

What about this as a solution from Modeltech, haven't used it myself but looks like a good bit of kit for aligning track over baseboard joins.

I looked at those, but couldn't work out how to use them with angled and curved track. 

All 4 done now though!

12 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I'm sure I've missed many others...

In my modelling neck of the woods, Mangotsfield immediately comes to mind. They rather optimistically built 6 platforms at this junction station.