ikcdab

This looks like a great piece of development. Well done. Did I read somewhere that PWM controllers dont work with coreless motors? Or did I imagine it? Certainly I think that PWM work best with certain types of motor. Can you elaborate?

With anything like this, you just have to work through it systematically. Do the point motors work if you apply power directly to them? If so, then does the CDU actually operate correctly? If so any wiring breaks between the CDU and the point motors? Etc You just have to eliminate variables and logically track down the point of failure.

Excellent thanks. Just what I needed. So internally, what changes were made to the bar area? Do I need to change the Hornby interior moulding? Ian

Ah yes, many thanks. The three panels to the left are slightly smaller. Thanks again Ian

I am doing the conversion on the Hornby D167 buffet car to fill in the windows as per the 1950s conversions. I have been following the excellent articles here: https://highlandmiscellany.com/2015/08/23/the-cruellest-cut-carrying-on-with-hornbys-gresley-buffet/ However, i have a snag. The space to the right of the kitchen door is 80mm for new panneling.. To the left of the door is 37mm, but out of this needs to come 8mm for the new half window, so leaving about 29mm of new panelling. All the pictures i have seen, such as this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldrailpics/31776924807/in/pool-2178722@N22/ appear to show the new panels equally sized - there are 7 to the right of the kitchen door and 3 (plus the new half window) to the left. If thats the case, then the maths doesnt add up. To the right the panels would be 80mm /7 = 11.4mm wide, but to the left they would be 29mm / 3 = 9.6mm wide. so what am i doing wrong? is it perspective in the pictures that seems to show the panels all the same size or something else? Here is where i am so far with it with a scale to show the issue: any advice? Ian

Go to your local B&M. In their household range they have emulsion, mocha. Its perfect.

Airfix/Dapol girder bridge sides. Perfect.

I believe the answer to be yes. I think scalescenes pdfs are vector line work and text (which would not dilute), filled with bitmap textures which will dilute if you enlarge them. Though, I also believe that the bitmaps are very well anti-aliased which means that they can be enlarged a certain amount without pixelation. Ian

Southern Signals by G. Pryer is the "go to" for LSWR. Excellent book.

My understanding is that PVA dries from the outside in. It forms a skin on the wet glue that prevents the static grass fibres sticking. Basing glue, on the other hand, dries differently with no skin being formed, so the fibres stick much better.

Sometimes, if I have the spray in stock. So far, I haven't noticed any difference between sprayed and unsprayed. I only use OEM inks and I have UV film on the railway room windows.

One thing that distinguishes a model railway from a train set is the track geometry. Train sets have tight curves, straight track and no transition between the two. Model railways emulate the real thing and have long, sweeping curves as far as possible with very little actual straight track. You have 18ft square in N gauge, that should give you the chance to have long sweeping curves and much more generous radii. Try and get away from the square "straight and curved" layout. Ian

Hi Steve @railtec-models about chance that the 7mm fruit D set, Product code: 7mm-6325, can be done in 4mm? I need a couple of sets! Ian

I rang up the compatible company and asked them.

try https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394646363659?hash=item5be2c19e0b:g:YLwAAOSwlPlkbsvI&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8KgmLQpTk5PLMlpSEgtp3hwQLIxeVEGPbGpRELw1S8GR2aDf5Vnj5vxSMe9f4en%2F3SqLEraSec3gWR2rxzKc54YHUprx4Px4fMa27BVk8qQAFay4KdYn7Sk99psMnuvVYRpROqPWZSDoDGN3SmmzriJB1eNVWSKpDsV%2BbC2KoAqMXLUNPijAXdUPNkr4sLOqYxKanGHXBI88Qlzu1f5uzBaZlWwOVCX5n9qHRBaIQvPZlYaTkAsNJ2GsipKRcWWlP6ZSWKPpCrk%2FmLGUHqwUo5xH%2BDZxuMbrEneF1VMXuLA67Itetk3pWUGH0x%2B4Dlf3mw%3D%3D|tkp%3ABFBM7rLE_dxi

third party inks are OK but they are "watered down" and so the quality is definately not the same. It will be OK for normal printing, but they really are not good enough for my scalescenes printing where i want the best quality. I have used third party in the past, but they fade quckly and are susceptible to damp. when it takes so much effort to make a decent scalescenes building that might be in the layout for years, its worth paying the extra for OEM cartridges.

I can help you here. If interested, contact me private message. Ian

Hi Andrew, i learn something everyday. On my layout i have 18 MERG servo 4 boards running approx 50 servos for points, signals and LC gates. These are analogue servos and work very well indeed. I was confusing the servo4 board control mechanism. When the input terminal on the board is shorted to 0v, the servo is triggered. when the short is removed, the servo goes back to off. I don't know what is happening to the signal voltage during that operation. Ian

But servos don't work like that. They don't "fire" like a solenoid. They are either switched on or off. They need the signal voltage continuously to remain in the "on" position. As soon as the signal voltage goes to 0, the servo goes to the off position. Ian

I do wonder how much of the other figures that been forced down our throats will also prove to be wrong. I note, for example, the Irish government proposal to cull 200,000 cattle because cattle contribute "38% of Irish greenhouse gas emissions", a seemingly unbelievable figure and when no thought about how the lost milk and meat production will be made up...presumably by importing and therefore just moving the carbon emissions elsewhere. One might imagine that the 38% will, in future, prove to be wrong. Diesel emissions scandal? Ian

Hi all, next week we are having a railway week visiting the Bluebell, KESR, RHDR, Spa Valley. We are staying in Crawley. Please can you give me any model shop recommendations within that area? Places we can pop into when going to one of the railways. Or indeed, model shops at the railways themselves. Ian

Interesting concept! You want reliability, correctly, yet you have made no mention of track or baseboards, but you have waded straight into locos and stock. For reliability, you really must have decent baseboards, made from decent material. You cannot go wrong if you use 9mm ply. Brand new stuff these days is gold-impregnated, so you need to hunt for second hand or offcuts. Scour your local timber merchants and see what he has hidden away that you will get at a reasonable price. Or trawl through skips etc. Without decent baseboards, you are doomed to fail. For legs, look at Screwfix trestles. Next is your trackwork. You seem to have three options: 1. Buy commercial track brand new. Expensive, but reliable. 2. Buy second hand commercial. A lot cheaper, but more problematic wrt reliability. 3. Build your own. Much the cheapest option, even with the cost of copper clad strip, and you get really good looking, very reliable track. My choice has always been to make my own, largely because of cost but also because I wanted the proper, scale look. With your stock, look at kits! You can still get the old airfix kits at very reasonable prices on eBay and they really are good. They need new wheels and couplings, but you get a good range at a very reasonable price. eBay or local exhibitions are good hunting grounds for unassembled kits. Coaching stock, I would avoid the toy train coaches because they just look horrible. You are building a model railway, not a train set. There is a difference! Again you can get the old triang mk1s cheaply and with a bit of care these can be upgraded and repainted. They then look good too. I recently picked up some kitmaster mk1s for £5 each. Locos, you really do want to be careful here if you want reliability and you can't beat the more modern ones! I would go for fewer, but more expensive rather than buying loads of cheap locos that will disappoint you. I spent my entire childhood with just two locomotives and didn't branch out until I had my own job and could buy what I wanted. Buildings etc....go for scalescenes every time! Cheap and excellent products, I cannot speak highly enough of them, but they do involve effort to assemble. What I am really saying is that you can make very significant savings on costs if you can do things yourself. Build kits, repaint stock, repair things and upgrade them. It's what used to happen and we are in danger of losing that approach. My layout is extensive and runs very reliably, yet I have made or modified virtually everything myself, including things like the controllers that I handbuilt for less than £5 each one. Good luck, an excellent idea, try to avoid a twee trainset and build a model railway on the cheap! I look forward to seeing the outcome. Ian

The exact chemistry eludes me, but i always buy butanone in 1l bottles. Does exactly the same job as the stuff I used to buy from slaters in the small bottles.

I would pop into Timpsons. You are local, so if you go and see Nobby in the Taunton town centre branch, he is always incredibly helpful. Ian C

Hi Paul, that's a good solution and one that I hadn't thought of. I can't use it though because I am already using a two-pole rotary switch. One side operates the servos, and the other side operates the relays for crossing polarity. So what I will do is to rebuild the switch panel with dpdt relays. I can energise these through a diode matrix operated from a single pole switch on the panel. Then one side of the dpdt relay can run the servo and the other side can switch the crossing polarity. It's what I have done elsewhere and I don't know why I did this one differently! I have started making this. Here's the detailed drawing and the embryonic panel. R3 and R4 (and R8 and R9) are crossover pairs so the two turnouts are linked at the servo4 board, hence only 1 relay needs the dpdt function for the servo. R6/R7 is a turnout and catch point so only one lot of polarity changing needed! Tomorrow I'll finish the wiring on this panel. Ian