Rabs

Ah, that's what those wheels are for!

Can I suggest that you add some small holes in the corners of each layer? You can then put a bit of plastic or brass rod through to help you align the layers together neatly.

I really like this layout. I think that with 4 wheels for each of the two power lines you should be fine. You could also add additional pickup skids under the middle of the traverser, between the wheels, if needed. You may want to make the traverser easily removable for cleaning its wheels and the rails though.

I wondered that too. I think there was a post which has since been deleted

Agreed, I'm also an electronic engineer and this looks pretty standard for my lab! It all depends on what's at the other end of those cables. If they all go to mobile phone chargers, nothing is getting overloaded. If each one is going to a kettle then you might blow a fuse when you decide you want 2 cups of tea simultaneously.

I had the same problem with my laser cut baseboards that I designed in sketchup (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/72424-bath-spa-high-tech-modelling-bringing-1947-into-the-21st-century-3d-printed-scenery-cnc-milled-track-laser-cut-baseboards-and-computer-control/) . I eventually found this plugin for SketchUp: https://code.google.com/p/sketchup-svg-outline-plugin/ This exports .svg files, which most vector grahpics programs can open and then, if needed, resave as .dxf for the laser cutter. It's not very well documented, but it can do the job.

Oh, very interesting. I've not seen any photos from that sort of angle before so that's a huge help. Thank you. If you have any others then I'd be enormously grateful. Can I offer you something 3d printed for your layout in return for all the help you've been giving me on the research for this one?

I'm certainly no expert, but it looks a little tall to me. Maybe it's just a trick of perspective on those photos. I know on most GWR wagons the height of the rail was such that, when folded down, it was about the same width as the wagon (so that it wasn't out of the loading gauge) - so a pitch of about 45 degrees would follow.

This one? That's a proxxon multitool (http://www.proxxon.com/en/micromot/28485.php) held in a modified toolholder in the boring position of my quick change tool post. I use this as a poor man's live tooling in my lathe for slitting, circular drilling and (in the other position on the toolpost) keyway cutting and cross drilling. It isn't very stiff so it wouldn't be any good for steel but it's adequate for non-ferrous. It doesn't have active height control yet so I can't use it for general light milling and grinding but I am planning to add that soon. Then I will be able to use it for milling spokes and turning wheels without re-chucking the workpiece.

Wiring begins with attaching the control modules: I've got an 8 core cable joining the modules. This will carry DCC+,DCC-,CBUS+,CBUS-,GND,5V,12V and a spare.

I'm glad you all encouraged me to varnish the layout - aside from the protection it makes it look much better. Here is one module part way through a first coat with a walnut combined stain/varnish. Getting down into the bottom of the boxes was a pain, I had to use a brush lashed to a broomhandle. I'll know to varnish before assembly for the other modules. A sand down and another coat on the bits that will be visible and this job will be done.

Yes, it was just the first one I came to on the 3d warehouse and I wanted to check the rough scale. It won't be making an appearance on the layout! There's a lovely old jaguar on the other side of the bridge.

Good suggestion Tim, thanks. I've got some gloss white from recent DIY, so that should do it nicely on the underside. Just in time to do that before I go any further with fitting the droppers. I finally managed to get my hands on a decent resolution signal box diagram for Bath, courtesy of the Cambridge University Library. It clears up a couple of points that my guess had been wrong for on details like facing point locks, ground signals and trap points. Hopefully I'll get the varnishing and painting done this week and can get back onto the interesting bits. I've been doing the detail planning of the structures, working from period photos and projecting them onto the CAD. I've had to shuffle and scale some of the buildings to get them to fit. For example, the convent school on the right here has been truncated so that I don't have to break it at the board edge. This image is the outline, looking south along the Pulteney road:

Ok, thanks for the advice. It's not much work to do and better safe than sorry. I'll grab some polyurethane varnish next time I'm in town. The only tricky bit will be getting a brush into the far end of the boxes that I've already built - my arms aren't quite long enough!

Not sure why you think that! While I do have some fancy tools, I have them mainly for work. Actually, being able to make almost everything myself means that I spend relatively little because raw materials are pretty cheap.

All very true. Unfortunately I have an HP printer and I'm not going to get a different one just for this. Ordering them as photo prints from Photobox is definitely going to be easier and cheaper than finding a shop to do it I think. And for the price of one bottle of that UV varnish I can have over 6 square meters of photos professionally printed (and that's before we account for the fact that the first 100 or so prints are free if you pick the right offer to pounce on).

Yep, good idea - I'd already planned to do this for the track bed for the other boards but you're right, there is no reason not to mark out the buildings, roads and so on as well. The reason I didn't do it on these ones is that I built the first two modules before I had finalised the layout. They started off as test modules but when they worked I decided to convert them into the real thing.

I should have mentioned that, thanks for the reminder: the ink is official HP ink (dye, not pigment - there is no pigment option for my old printer) on official HP satin inkjet photo paper. I thought I'd give it the best possible chance of working!

Thanks. I wasn't going to, no. I spent a while reading up about people's experiences and the conclusion seemed to be that if you use decent quality ply and don't incorporate any softwood into the design then moisture shouldn't be an issue. Do you agree?

Yesterday I added the stepper motor drive for the traverser module: This involved turning a little coupler to adapt the shaft of the stepper motor onto the leadscrew and then a delrin bush bearing for the other end: In other news: I've been planning to use printed photo scenery (similar to scalescenes by from my own artwork). However, I was concerned about the fading of inks from my inkjet printer. To test this ,back in August, I printed some sections of wall. One of these I sprayed with matt varnish and one I left uncoated. I then left them both on a south facing windowsill for ~3 months. Yesterday I also printed a fresh copy with the same settings for comparison: As you can see, the one without the varnish has, as I expected, faded badly. Particularly the red tones have been lost. However, there is also noticeable fading of the varnished one, relative to the fresh print. Now, this may be because I only did one coat but it has made me quite hesitant to use my printer. I'm going to look at using the low cost photo printing offers from companies like photobox, as they use better, archival quality inks and should survive better.

With help from my wife and despite 'help' from the cats today I got the first scenic modules mapped out. This involved setting up a digital projector with the sketchup plan projected onto the boards at the other end of the room. We then traced the outlines for the buildings and the roads. To be honest this might not have been all that useful because it took a while to set up and the transcribing probably wasn't that accurate. Also the plan isn't all that detailed yet so what we have drawn might not even be all that accurate. It was fun but I think I'll stick to printing and gluing plans for the other boards.

In that photo they are just resting in place for a test fit. I'm going to use a thin layer of epoxy to join the aluminium to the ply.

I finished the test cassette yesterday. I had planned to use track on these, but decided that aluminium angle would be a better bet. This will be stronger, easier to clean and also helps to prevent rolling stock from making a bid for freedom when I'm moving these around. A cassette in the storage area: In transit with the doors closed: Doors held open magnetically and stock ready to roll:

Do you have a lathe David?

I think that my method still works though - just use a metal rod. The paper will all be at the bottom, just up to the top of the taper,so unless you are soldering it to your board...