davetheroad

It seems to me that any substitute type of motor has to be a plug and play replacement for the traditional DC motor, and run on traditional 12V DC. that is not going to happen anytime soon as there is no commercial advantage in introducing such a motor. The hobby has the 12V DC base specification and that is how it will remain for the foreseeable future?

Isn't this going off topic? Not that BlueRail is on topic as far as DCC concerned as it has nothing to do with DCC and would be better located in the radio control special interest section!.

According to the manual if you select advanced cutting options you can cut by line colour. Have all your vertical lines in one colour and the horizontal ones in another. add a small horizontal line in another colour and set the cut order so the 3rd line cuts before the horizontal ones. That should rotate the blade, in theory!

Should I upgrade to the latest version? After a year or so break i have been playing around with Inkscape and tried producing some coach sides. It worked well or at least i think so. The image does not look as good as with the naked eye, especially my old ones!. I used some old and curly gloss vinyl with a mirror like surface, or that's the excuse for the reflections. Would matt vinyl be better or stay with gloss and use a satin varnish? I am using an ancient version 0.48 so would there be any advantages in upgrading? I searched online yesterday and the Inkscape site had a banner over it claiming it was not the real site- argh. Is there a 'safe' source out there. I am going to have a go at cutting vinyl using a silhouette cameo cutter, hopefully with nice window openings for all those coaches which are not available commercially.

I just have 2 markers in my through fiddle yard. A train that takes 8 seconds to travel between them is going 60mph. A marker half way gives 30mph in 8 seconds. No need to be exact, I use a little bit slower for 25mph and a little bit faster for over 60mph. Eventually you learn to judge the approx speed by eye.

Would that include any LNWR or MR or LMS vehicles

This is also impressive! I wonder how cheap Android devices with suitable bluetooth can be? Maybe a separate device for each loco!.If you only have 3 or 4 locos 'on' at the same time it might be doable?

That video is impressive. I especially liked the simplicity of setup and operation. What is needed now is an Android App.. If a loco is not too expensive and available in the UK I might well try one! Thinks - that would mean adding back DC on part of my layout as I have no wiring at all at present but still have a Gaugemaster controller somewhere!

For me it does not really matter which system 'wins' if my system is delivering what I want. This is how it is, if my system choice ceases to be available can still run trains for years especially as I have stockpiled a few 'spares'. I could even buy the transmitter core including software for £12 and source all the other components from my friendly online electronics retailer.Then I can have the option of adopting another system for additional locomotives, all of which will run happily together on the same track, as long as I don't want to consist them. This would work for bluetooth as well, I could run a couple of those locos on my layout which uses the 2.4Ghz spread spectrum technology. The one problem appears to be saturation of the 2.4ghz band and that only at large consumer shows. Apart from this software driven radio control systems seem to be more flexible as you have no need to put all your eggs in one basket hardware wise.

How do you define the upper limits of the 'toy end' of the market? Is a double track 16' x 7' roundy-roundy with a branch line, loco shed and small goods yard at the toy end of the market? I have such a layout with approaching 30 locos all on radio control using battery power and it works well for me. Cab handover is possible as long as you stop the loco first, this is prototypical I think, at least for steam locos. There are options for controlling up to 45 accessories such as points, signals (with bounce) etc if you want to add the complexity of a multplexor, or just use a single 'throttle' for up to 7 devices. I use hand of god for my points but if I wanted remote control I would probably opt for wire in tube or similar, or electrically radio controlled servos or a simple radio controlled peco point motor. The Deltang system I use is based on the world wide 2.4Ghz radio controlled protocols. Basically you take a model plane control system and produce a train variant. This IMO was a good business decision as far as investment was concerned as Deltang did not have to re-invent anything and had considerable experience with planes. You can even control a loco with a plane throttle!. It is not propriety as all the 'throttle' is doing is transmitting its ID and the values of several different channels. The receiver interprets those values and controls the loco. The Apple/Android app for bluetooth removes the need for any throttle hardware which is potentially even better but the problem may be that the receiver may be a propriety device and the control protocols are not universal. Maybe someone should develop an app that transmits DCC commands and a receiver that takes power from whatever source and uses those commands to deliver to an existing DCC decoder, eliminating the need for base stations and re-chipping locos!.

OK, this is how i see it all ending up. Blue rail eventually introduce their DCC interface which sends commands to the decoder from the handset using the rails to provide the power or a battery if you desire or a combination of both. Other manufacturers follow suit. This eliminates what for me seems to be the main problem with DCC. That horrible wheel rail interface and its arcing generating spurious signals that confuse the decoder. This results in a more stable system for the benefit of everybody. The manufacturers might not like it as there is no need to buy those expensive base stations. All you will need is a good AC or DC power supply and the advantages will drive the market. They will have to reduce the size of the receiver/decoder to the size of present day decoders to pass the Terrier test.

That control board is huge!. they need to shrink it a lot as it certainly won't pass the Terrier test. 2.4Ghz radio receiver boards are available down to 22.5 x 11mm or even smaller if your loco can handle 6V. ps - as this topic is not about DCC would it be better to move it to the special interest radio control section?

Glad you brought this subject up! I am building a layout who's shed is loosely based on the one at Penrith in steam days. They had about 4 locos allocated plus plenty of visiting ones. Examining all the photos available shows no sand drying facility and if they got it from elsewhere, e.g, Carlisle Upperby where did they keep it?

Truly remarkable!

thanks, I can see the logic of that

The protocab website is down. Anyone know why?

Batteries are suitable for 00 scale. I am commissioning a radio controlled Bachmann 4MT 2-6-0 and today hauling a 25 wagon freight at a scale 30mph the 160mAh test battery lasted 43minutes and 51 seconds before the receiver low voltage protection circuits cut the power. The battery was a single cell lipo delivering a nominal 3.7V to a voltage regulator that boosted the output to 9V. The loco can haul 8 coaches at scale 55mph using 9V. There is room in the tender for bigger batteries.

Perhaps the problem will be the loco control units are apparently designed to deliver 12 volts from a single battery through i think an integrated voltage regulator which boosts the battery voltage? Some of my locos when under full load draw over 400mA so the initial loco control unit release won't be suitable for those. For me the key is better battery technology, not surprisingly large capacity batteries that can run a loco for many hours but smaller batteries that can last a useful length of time, in my case 20-30 minutes.

Thanks, thats really helpful, i think my cameo software is an older version but I presume I can download the latest version. Another approach is to inkjet print the coach sides onto either gloss or matt white self adhesive film. Eventually i want to end up with semi matt to match Bachmann Stanier porthole crimson and cream. Anyone know the best film to buy

Cutting 00 scale coach windows I am hoping to modify some 00 scale coaches to give types that are not available and want to use a cameo cutter to make the window openings etc. On the attached sketch image there are 4 small openings and a large one, overall size about 16mm x 13mm. My question is, does the cutter software allow you to cut the openings in sequence A, B, C, D, E ? It seems to me that cutting the small windows first would maximise the amount of 'grip' the material would have on the cutting mat. a 2nd question - when cutting rectangles is it better to use 4 straight lines rather than have the cutter cut 'round the corner' ? 3rd question - if cutting styrene sheet what is the maximum thickness for a good clean cut?

Thanks for the replies. Removing the speedo is easy but do i need a shorter screw bolt and if so where do I get one. Removing the AWS battery box looks difficult, i guess I will stare at it for a week or so! sorry to be thick but what is a AWS bang plate? i tried removing the flashes etc with T-cut, it works well, so well that I partly removed some of the tender lining.

Apologies for resurrecting this thread again! I have a second hand 72008 'Clan Macleod' which is a late BR model and want to convert it back to early emblem days. What needs to be done? I will remove the electrification flashes and change the emblem on the tender but what about the speedometer crank? Early photos of Clans and Hornbys early BR Clan Buchanan model do not have the crank fitted.

Try http://www.protocab.com/products I find the site does not work well if using microsoft explorer but chrome is fine.

Another promising technology that might be available in a few years. What we can be certain of is the desire for light, high capacity, small batteries to power all those billions? of electronic devices. The first to market with a suitable product could make billions of pounds!.

It is possible for a small manufacturers to avoid the patent and licencing issues but it means not using bluetooth!. You can use the same 2.4Ghz band as bluetooth with model plane/drone/car/boat technology. The problem is it is not bluetooth which, of course, is the big idea that Bachmann grabbed.