New Railway Modellers Forums

I suspect that they built the prototype and then realised that the (white) LED would not work on 3.3V since its forward voltage is higher than that. They should of course have used a yellow LED to get proper oil lamp colour which could run from 3.3V with a resistor.

Dapol are quite insistent that their signal is perfect in every way and is just what the customer wants. You should be able to operate the signal on a voltage as low as 6V DC if required to reduce the brightness to sensible levels. While the LED is run from the supply voltage via a 820R resistor, so...

Don't use DCC directly it will cause damage, and 16V AC will cause excessive heating. Regardless of what it says on the packaging you should use 9v DC for Dapol semaphores. Use of anything over 9V will just cause more heat to be dissipated, and the LED to be brighter (if the signal has one). LED sho...

That would work.

The Pi will run JMRI which is jolly handy. Anything you can do in JMRI can be done on a PC and then run on the Pi, but the Pi is a fully featured device so you can plug in a mouse and keyboard, or run a remote graphical terminal session. There is no need for a cross-compiler because JMRI is in Java ...

A chain of inverse parallel diodes would do it, but it might be easier to run the motor from 6V! Would they be linked between the two wires, and would the motor tap half way along the chain? Would it work with reverse voltage? I'm struggling to see how this would all wire up! Just wire pairs of dio...

A chain of inverse parallel diodes would do it, but it might be easier to run the motor from 6V!

Christmas has been a bit busy with extra work and broken cars to mend, but hopefully I will get back on schedule soon and get it built!

Heat shrink tube generally comes in two types - 3:1 and 2:1

For a nice tight fit on 1mm wire you will need something about 1.5mm diameter in 2:1, but can go up to 2.5mm diameter in 3:1

Something like Rapid 03-2340 will probably do the job.

You use the Dremel cutting disc to make a slot. The faller wire is just plain steel wire with a bit of spring to it so it bends smoothly (probably piano wire) that needs to be protected with paint or varnish to stop it corroding. The wire needs to be level with the top of the road surface - it won't...

I think that JMRI will be best for those requirements. It is free to download so you can at least try it and see if you like it anyway. If you don't like it don't expect that paying a lot of money will get you anything better! The PanelPro feature will allow you to make a mimic diagram in Layout Edi...

Hi End... The road just has to be wide enough for the vehicles you are using. It needs to be flat from wheel to wheel, and you will need wider clearances on bends of course. The Ford Transit is as British as it gets, but you can put other bodies on a Faller chassis from your favourite vehicle suppli...

What do you want the software to do?

Suzie x

I will have a go for you.

They are very easy to convert, but you might need new wheels.

Get a decoder with a big stay alive (plenty of room for the capacitors) and fit a set of Ultrascale wheels and you will have a usable loco.