ikcdab

Thanks. I replaced the diodes with a bridge rectifier and all is now fine. Ian

Yes I have done the light test and ask seems ok. I don't know about the percentage power, how do I set that? Looking at the glass screen very closely, I can see tiny scratches (about 30mm long but very shallow) in one spot on the screen. Ive no idea how they got there. Can minute scratches diffuse the light source? The printer is meant for home use so must be able to deal with things like that.

No i havent, I have only used the water washable one. My issue is inconsistency - sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. As I have always used the same resin, I'm not sure that is the problem? Ian

This is a follow up from my original post which I started the thread with. So I had a typical experience yesterday. 1. i printed a few 4mm scale signal lamps and signal platforms - so small stuff. All printed perfectly. Great, we are on a roll. 2. then without cleaning or doing anything else i tried to print 3 girders, each about 100mm long by 10mm high. These have printed perfectly before so i know the supports and the file are all OK. Total failure, no print at all. 3. So i cleaned out the vat, filtered the resin to remove bits, polished the glass screen and cleaned and relevelled the build plate. I then tried to print 3 x SR concrete tool sheds. One came out OK, one half printed and one was the usual pile of mess in the bottom of the vat. All other variables are the same. The printer is in a spare bedroom which is heated. This is using elegoo water washable resin. This is the Saturn printer. Here are my settings - are these OK...? Please comment! So today I am going to renew the FEP film and have yet another go. I do find this all very frustrating. I see on youtube people printing the most wonderful things, yet I struggle to to get any kind of consistency on the simplest items. Grateful for all of your comments! Ian

Add a shelf along the back where the trestle is too wide. Shelf is then used for control panel, spare stock or cups of coffee.

I suspect there is no hard and fast rule and it depends on the exhibition. Id ring the exhibition manager and ask.

To be honest, all I ever have done is to buy copper rod and file my own tips to whatever shape I need,tinning as necessary.

Why is the 3.9mm one mentioned above no good?

I use these minature relays - ebay link This is the diagram: I'm not quite sure how your voltage from the track works, all you say is "taking power from the track on the side being switched". So I assume you know what you are doing there. The relay doesn't mind what polarity the input is, so that gets over your direction issue. The LEDs are powered from a separate supply that is a fixed polarity. The voltage of this does not matter, you just need to size the resistor accordingly. I use a 1K resistor for 12v or a 270 ohm for 5v. When there is no voltage from the track, the relay is open and one LED is lit. When there is voltage from the track, the relay closes and the other LED lights. Hope this makes sense! Ian

Hi James, thanks, I'll PM you. Ian

I think the scalescenes bridge would fit the bill. The kit is flexible for width and I actually built mine as two arches to span two different lines. And you can download it in stone (ashlar) https://scalescenes.com/product/r011-arched-bridge/ It's recommended. Ian

LEDs are far preferable and you could fix your problem by using a miniature relay.

As said above, you have two options. Either you repeat the switch position, which only shows you the instruction sent to the point motor, or you have some form of feedback from the point to show that it has answered the point motor. On a model railway, I suggest that the former is perfectly adequate. I do this on my own layout by having a rotary switch aligned on the track diagram so that the pointer on the switch knob aligns with the route selected. If you had a multiway rotary switch (very cheap on eBay) you could wire in a led as well. If you want to do the latter, which could be much more fun, I would look to fix up a small slide switch that is operated by the point tiebar. Use a spdt switch and each side can operate a led on your control panel. Does that make sense? If not, let me know and I'll draw up a diagram this evening. I don't know the GM500 at all but an ordinary dpdt relay (again, very cheap on eBay) would do this job very well and replace the GM500 which look like an expensive solution. Ian

Thanks for the reply. I find this circuit excellent and I would recommend it to anyone. It's simple to build and effective. Ian

Thanks for the reply. I use the MERG servo4 boards and drive them with the MERG servosetplus software. I have the speed on the slowest it will go! Thats the penalty for driving the gates directly from the servo. If I had an indirect drive (i considered using spur gears) then I could have geared it down a bit more. But I found I had too much backlash in the gear train and the gates didn't stop accurately. So I opted for the direct drive and slightly faster. For more than 30 years I was a signalman on the WSR and I swung the gates at Blue Anchor on very many occasions. They could go like that if the wind was blowing hard! The other advantage is that come the day when I have a train barreling down onto a crossing with gates not yet open, I might just get them open in time to avoid too much destruction! Hi Ian, thanks. It is convenient that MERG do the servo4 boards and that servos are very cheap. The adjustments to get accurate motion with one servo and linkages sound fearsome. Red lights: may be. I used the MSE kit which does come with some fairly amorphous pieces to represent lights. I didn't put them on because some photos of the prototype didn't have them and I didn't like the castings. But I now think that having the red lamps might add a bit of colour and I might add them on. But I want to get the road and wicket gates done first. Ian

So finally its all setup and working. I had to change out a servo that couldn't manage 90 degrees. Little bit of tweeking in the MERG servosetplus software and we are off. I have programmed in some bounce so that the gates appear to bang against the stops and bounce back....let me know what you think.. Ian

My compressor went bang yesterday. The cam on the end of the motor has sheared off. It is very old. I have tried a repair but it failed, I will try again today. It is obviously a high stress area so needs to be a strong joint. So now I am looking for a possible replacement. Looking on Amazon I see two types: https://amzn.eu/d/4o224iH this is very similar to the one i am replacing at £63. Otherwise I see there are ones with tanks such as Fengda Airbrush https://amzn.eu/d/aMEjEdu I am using this to power an iwata neo for painting my OO models. Any recommendations? Thanks Ian

Yes I know about inclining stuff and that's what I do. But however you incline it, you still have to start the print somewhere, hence my question about how far the first layer of the print can span between supports. I have done two print runs today. The first one had a few gaps in three print, luckily on the hidden side. I immediately ran the print again with the identical print file and that one went perfectly. The only difference would be thatv the second print was after the printer has thoroughly warmed up.... Though it is situated in a normally central heated house.

Hi James thanks. I am seiving out my log burner later on so I'll save some ash. I look forward to seeing your photos. Scenics are not my strong point, I far prefer mechanical stuff electrical things! Ian

Thanks, yes i do that. In this case i have inclined things 45 degrees for just that reason. Its a longitudinal girder.

So a further question. Supports. In the attached image, you will see the first part of the print appearing as a black line spanning the supports. My question is, how far can resin span in this situation? Bearing in mind its only 50 microns thick at the start, there must be a lot of strain when the build plate tugs it away from the FEP. Up until now I have crammed in as many supports in this situation as I can, but i am now wondering if that is the right thing?

Can you say a bit more about this process? Do you ballast first and then sprinkle on the ash or something different? My wood ash tends to be light grey!

This is excellent, a lovely little layout. I do like how you have made the track look so flowing. I also do a lot a scalescenes buildings and I love them. Very well done.

I think I tend to agree with this, certainly on my home desktop and laptop, the apps are installed locally and so I can use them offline. But when I'm out and about with just my phone, I think I'm using cloud apps and that has never been a problem for me.... At least you know they are always updated. One thing though, at the risk of going off topic, do make sure that all of your data is in the cloud and therefore thoroughly backed up. I pay for Dropbox, it's a fairly small fee and means that not only is my data safe, but I can access it on any device. I am still quaintly charmed to be able to work on something on my desktop then to move to my laptop and just pick up where I left off. It also means that ALL of my data, photos, docs, whatever going right back as far as I want is immediately available on my phone wherever I am. Ian

I have modelled both. Obviously with O you need twice* the space to fit in the same thing. in your space you can fit a decent O gauge small station,but in OO you could fit a mainline. There is far more RTR available in OO, you will find that O gauge can require more modelling as opposed to just buying stuff. O gauge is great. You get better running because of the greater mass of the stock and you can have far more detail today you can actually see. My latest layout would have been O but I wanted to model a main line and have certain elements that o could only fit in with OO. O gauge is more expensive, particularly if you are looking at kits etc. Finally, O gauge is NOT too ambitious for a first time modeller. At one time it was the smallest scale and it was where all first time modellers went! Ian * You need twice the length and width which, of course, means you need four times the space!