eldavo

The DC aspect does look interesting. I might just have to update my own setup and see what it can do. Cheers Dave

I'm guessing you are talking about DCC-EX. The website for these have pretty detailed instructions for getting up and running. You don't have to "program" these system as such, just download and install a pre built project. I've done it myself and although it wasn't simple it wasn't too tricky although I do have a lot of experience with Arduino systems. I noticed on the DCC-EX website there is at least one UK supplier of ready configured systems. Pushes the price up but might be an option. The websites also have forums where you can ask questions. Feel free to PM me if I can help. As you are aiming to use the DC capabilities I suspect there will be very limited experience as this is a newer feature. Cheers Dave

The prototype setup having a test run on the Winchester Railway Modellers Redbridge Wharf layout. Cheers Dave

The liquid is simply water, preferably distilled to avoid limescale buildup blocking the microscopic holes in the piezo disc. Cheers Dave

Some while back as part of the work on the Winchester Railway Modellers Redbridge Wharf layout we decided to add smoke and steam effects to a model of a TID tug. After a bit of research we harked upon cheapo piezo electric mister units as used in humidifiers. These can be obtained in various sizes and with various control boards from all the normal sources. The unit we settled on was a 16mm disc connected to a control board that takes a 5v input. This was rigged in in an old plastic bottle, fed by a wick and supported by a 3D printed contraption underneath the baseboard. Fed with 5 volts from the layout and set on it's random setting it gives a quite pleasing effect and certainly catches the attention at exhibitions. Of course it was never going to stop there! Would it be possible to do something in a loco? Others have done it so it had to be done. I happened to be respraying a model of the A4 Mallard to create a model of Sir Nigel Gresley as running in 1967. An obvious candidate for running on a model of the ex-LSWR mainline to Weymouth! Quite a lot of space in the smoke box of an A4 so with a bit 3D printing a mounting and water tank was produced and all I had to do was figure out the electrickery bits. It's currently very much a prototype but it seems to work... The loco is fitted with an ESU loksound micro decoder but that isn't man enough to drive the mister circuit which needs 150+ mA. To get round that I've rigged up a rectifier and voltage regulator to provide enough 5volt oomph. That feeds the supplied control board but with a slight twist. Giles of this parish produced a chuffing narrow gauge radio controlled loco and poked around in the control board mechanism. He found that in order to get the mister to chuff reliably you need to trickle 2 volts or so to it all the time then when you give it a squirt of 5 volts it responds immediately. Very very useful info. In my case I have a solid state relay controlled by Aux 1 on the DCC decoder. This function output is turned on by function 4 and is defined to trigger on every sound chuff. The relay effectively switches the power supply to the mister control board from 2 volts to 5 volts. The problem at the moment is that all the control gear takes up rather a lot of space... I have my work cutout to miniaturise all this. Cheers Dave

Take a look at the link below. Cheers Dave

Well done Nick. The layout was certainly looking good when I stopped by. Cheers Dave

The Winchester Railway Modellers are looking forward to attending with Redbridge Wharf. Having recently lost our permanent clubroom let's hope it all comes out of storage safely and behaves itself! Cheers Dave

Another hot glue gun dabber here. The key is to be organised and don't be afraid to redo joints or trim back overly long wires. My work isn't pristine but it's neat enough to make problem solving and repairs easy. Cheers Dave

The curves into the fiddleyard are back in place and seem to work much better. It's still a tight turn being under 6ft radius but the Flatiron, which has a longish 6 coupled chassis, and other locos seem to be able to cope. My favourite compound managed to haul a rake of 54ft corridor coaches in and out of the yard so being my normal inpatient self I started ballasting! Of course with my mojo in place the house guests arrived and work stopped. Hopefully the mess of latex glue will set.

I've fitted a compact worm and spur MSC box which sits down low and drives the leading pair of drivers. There's a bunch of lead in the ash pan and space above the motor for more lead. Hopefully with the compensation the little engine should pull a decent load. Of course this has developed into another of those almost complete projects. The tender is pretty much complete but the weather hasn't been good enough to contemplate getting it into primer. The loco needs the fiddly bits like handrails and details. It runs but the tender hasn't got pick ups yet and there's no linkage between the loco and tender. Cheers Dave

After several months of working on other things I actually got on and started to sort out some of the layout problems. Some while ago I had to relay the rather tight curves leading to the fiddleyard. I thought I had nailed it but after a while I realised I had somehow managed to create a distinct kink in both lines leading to problems with some of my locos. There was nothing for it but to try and lift and relay some of the curves. A lot of water and scraping allowed me to unseat the track without damage so I should be able to get things relaid. It's all pretty messy! The fiddleyard board link tracks will have to be revised but hopefully this time I'll get it right. Cheers Dave

I realise this is an old thread but if anyone is still interested here are couple of shots of a stay alive install I've just completed in a Hornby class 08 with a Loksound 3.5. The basis was the information referenced elsewhere: https://www.sbs4dcc.com/tutorialstipstricks/esuloksound52400v35keepalive.html I've used a Kung Fu 2 wire stay alive for the traction. For the decoder I've used a 5.5v 0.47f super cap wired with a 47ohm resistor and a diode. I couldn't get the traction stay alive to work with with the 2 wires soldered directly to the poles of the big capacitor but when the +ve is soldered to the diode as shown it works fine. The yellow wire in the pic below is connected to the 5.5v super cap and the blue to the Kung Fu stay alive. The stay alive unit and the super cap are crammed into the cab. It should be possible to disguise the gubbins with a bit of paint and maybe a driver. It will run for a few seconds and there is no interruption to the sound. More than good enough. Cheers Dave

If the DNO believe their infrastructure can't cope with the export levels they may require you to install a G100 compatible export limitation scheme. When I installed my batteries I was required to do this and fortunately my battery charger/inverter is able to control solar inverters either directly through comms protocols or by messing with the mains frequency. Cheers Dave

Having battery storage is continuing to be a bit of an eye opener. In the last 30 days our solar panels have generated 647kWh of which we have exported 200kWh. We have imported 0.48kWh. Keep the sunshine coming. ;-) Cheers Dave