Giraffe's workbench
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Im keeping my fingers crossed for ya! We all spend too damn much on this hobby for it to not play the game.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Close inspection of the piece of (steel) track that I've been using as a test track revealed that it was pretty dirty. I've been taking it to and from work, and it has been living in the boot of my car and getting cold and damp overnight. Trying to run the loco up and down it had made the wheels pretty filthy too. Plus I tried running it on my clubs DCC running track which hasn't been cleaned since a load of ballasting, which probably added to the filth on the wheels. So: long story short, it turns out that my problems all along have been down to dirty track!
So: disassembled the bogies again and took the wheels off for another good cleaning, and gave a thorough going over of the nickel silver track with a track rubber. Success! Although a couple of spots where momentary contact lost, so decided to wire in the Stay Alive unit that came with the decoder too.
I've also wired up an 8pin socket with appropriate length wires so I can put the decoder in the diesel loco with the body on. I added wire for the forward/reverse lights while I was at it, with plenty of length because I don't know exactly how long they'll need to be, so I can't put the outer shell on as there is a big coil of wires sticking out of the top until I find some LEDs to put in. I need to have a look at the voltage supplied and so on, and also figure out how the forward/backward lights work on the decoder.
The other thing I've managed to do over the last couple of days is reassemble the motor on Flying Scotsman with the replacement armature. Motor now runs dine on DC power. Connected up the decoder I had attached to it, and can't get that working. Tried programming it and that worked fine, I could see the motor spinning as part of its programming, so presumably the decoder is fine? Will try a factory reset on my next maintenance session. I had been trying all sorts of CV tweaks to get it running before, so could quite believe I put it in a totally inconsistent state where it didn't run at all
So: disassembled the bogies again and took the wheels off for another good cleaning, and gave a thorough going over of the nickel silver track with a track rubber. Success! Although a couple of spots where momentary contact lost, so decided to wire in the Stay Alive unit that came with the decoder too.
I've also wired up an 8pin socket with appropriate length wires so I can put the decoder in the diesel loco with the body on. I added wire for the forward/reverse lights while I was at it, with plenty of length because I don't know exactly how long they'll need to be, so I can't put the outer shell on as there is a big coil of wires sticking out of the top until I find some LEDs to put in. I need to have a look at the voltage supplied and so on, and also figure out how the forward/backward lights work on the decoder.
The other thing I've managed to do over the last couple of days is reassemble the motor on Flying Scotsman with the replacement armature. Motor now runs dine on DC power. Connected up the decoder I had attached to it, and can't get that working. Tried programming it and that worked fine, I could see the motor spinning as part of its programming, so presumably the decoder is fine? Will try a factory reset on my next maintenance session. I had been trying all sorts of CV tweaks to get it running before, so could quite believe I put it in a totally inconsistent state where it didn't run at all
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Have found spare time to work on the engines became less easily found over the last month: busy time at work and with buildup to Christmas.
Class 25 is working rather happily now. I have wired up two yellow LEDS in place of the original bulbs (one of which had blown at some point in the past - I do have a faint memory of only one light working when I was a kid, but as it never ran very well I didn't use it much back then). They are wired to two separate light functions, and the decoder will turn on either forwards or backwards light depending on direction of travel.
In addition, internal wiring got tidied up considerably. I ran into an issue that it had a tendency to derail on curves. I realised that the wires I was using to connect the decoder to the motor (on the bogie, of course) were fairly heavy-duty and non-stranded, so were stopping the bogie turning freely. I chopped the ends off a couple of my breadboard jumper wires that are nicely flexible and soldered them as a short section at the end of the wire, to allow it to happily turn again. Unfortunately, I got confused with the motor polarity so the loco drove in the wrong direction! The shorter wire was not long enough to reach the far connection point so I needed to solder in another short section to increase the length sufficiently
This engine is now running nicely on my test loop with my DCC++ controller. I dug in the garage and found amother adapter that pumps out 16v which is probably helping too. I can see it running at a decent top speed.
However on my club's DCC running track it only crawls. I'm the only member working on the running track layout with DCC loco, so there's no other loco around to check whether they also see the same issue. I have spent too much time researching DCC power issues, but have at least found how to measure DCC voltage properly and wired up a very makeshift rectifier (literally twisted the wires on 4 diodes together and bent them into an appropriate shape), I can see that we are getting a consistent 13.something volts all the way around, so I'm slightly confused. We are having a running night the first session back after New Year so we will hopefully have some other members turn up with DCC locos.
Flying Scotsman has been put on the slight back-burner. I had it running on the club layout too, and it was performing similarly to before with the decoder behaving as though it was constantly resetting, despite having the stay-alive wired in. Towards the end of the evening, however, I picked up the tender and one of the wires for the stay-alive fell out of the sleeving around the decoder, so whether it had ever been attached on that chip I don't know. I will be getting in touch with DCC Concepts to see what they say.
The other thing I have been working on is servicing a couple off the club locos (DC! ) in preparation for our running night. I've brought an Airfix Class 31 and a Bachmann ... B12? home over Christmas. I've had a chance to clean and lubricate the Class 31 and it is a lovely little model. 5 pole motor so it can crawl along on low speed amazingly well compared to all my 3-pole models
I left the circle of track with the DC controller out, and when my boys came down the next morning they had a lovely couple of hours running my old Jinty and the new Percy tank round and round pulling a couple of 4 wheel carriages. My wife said she really didn't see the appeal!
Class 25 is working rather happily now. I have wired up two yellow LEDS in place of the original bulbs (one of which had blown at some point in the past - I do have a faint memory of only one light working when I was a kid, but as it never ran very well I didn't use it much back then). They are wired to two separate light functions, and the decoder will turn on either forwards or backwards light depending on direction of travel.
In addition, internal wiring got tidied up considerably. I ran into an issue that it had a tendency to derail on curves. I realised that the wires I was using to connect the decoder to the motor (on the bogie, of course) were fairly heavy-duty and non-stranded, so were stopping the bogie turning freely. I chopped the ends off a couple of my breadboard jumper wires that are nicely flexible and soldered them as a short section at the end of the wire, to allow it to happily turn again. Unfortunately, I got confused with the motor polarity so the loco drove in the wrong direction! The shorter wire was not long enough to reach the far connection point so I needed to solder in another short section to increase the length sufficiently
This engine is now running nicely on my test loop with my DCC++ controller. I dug in the garage and found amother adapter that pumps out 16v which is probably helping too. I can see it running at a decent top speed.
However on my club's DCC running track it only crawls. I'm the only member working on the running track layout with DCC loco, so there's no other loco around to check whether they also see the same issue. I have spent too much time researching DCC power issues, but have at least found how to measure DCC voltage properly and wired up a very makeshift rectifier (literally twisted the wires on 4 diodes together and bent them into an appropriate shape), I can see that we are getting a consistent 13.something volts all the way around, so I'm slightly confused. We are having a running night the first session back after New Year so we will hopefully have some other members turn up with DCC locos.
Flying Scotsman has been put on the slight back-burner. I had it running on the club layout too, and it was performing similarly to before with the decoder behaving as though it was constantly resetting, despite having the stay-alive wired in. Towards the end of the evening, however, I picked up the tender and one of the wires for the stay-alive fell out of the sleeving around the decoder, so whether it had ever been attached on that chip I don't know. I will be getting in touch with DCC Concepts to see what they say.
The other thing I have been working on is servicing a couple off the club locos (DC! ) in preparation for our running night. I've brought an Airfix Class 31 and a Bachmann ... B12? home over Christmas. I've had a chance to clean and lubricate the Class 31 and it is a lovely little model. 5 pole motor so it can crawl along on low speed amazingly well compared to all my 3-pole models
I left the circle of track with the DC controller out, and when my boys came down the next morning they had a lovely couple of hours running my old Jinty and the new Percy tank round and round pulling a couple of 4 wheel carriages. My wife said she really didn't see the appeal!
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Sounds like our wives should get together haha. Seems less and less people get the appeal of the hobby now.
Glad to hear you sorted some issues albeit running into more. You will soon sort them!
Glad to hear you sorted some issues albeit running into more. You will soon sort them!
Re: Giraffe's workbench
I suspect many spouses/partners don't get it, although this was more about it being a circle of track laid directly on the floor (and literally a circle - 8 pieces of 3rd radius setrack). When I have dragged her along to proper model railway stuff, she can appreciate the skill and effort thats gone into the models, and has gone as far as to say she likes some of them!joshv8 wrote:Sounds like our wives should get together haha. Seems less and less people get the appeal of the hobby now.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Giraffe wrote:.....and has gone as far as to say she likes some of them!
I suppose when your a lad you still have excessive amounts of imagination. I started with an oval on the floor and I could play with that for hours.
Its nice when the brides take enough of an interest in your hobby to get dragged along to the events. Ive been fortunate enough for years we have a big show in Brisbane and mines been there with bells on. Not to mention the odd club open day and the historical railway and railway museum
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Have just spent the last two evenings working on DCC conversions.
Flying Scotsman got its socket rewired so the chip sits neatly inside the space in the tender. The tender doesn't shut yet though, because there are some coils of wire hanging off the socket for lighting functions. I have purchased a set of the DCC Concepts lamps of which I will put two on the front of Flying Scotsman. I'm having a think about the best way to transfer power back to the loco from the tender. I have a few socket and plugs but not sure if any will be small enough. Will have a rummage through my electronics bits box and see what I can come up with.
At the same time as buying the lamps I picked up two more decoders and have converted my two remaining loco, an old LMS Jinty that I've mentioned before and a new Percy (of Thomas the Tank Engine fame). The Jinty was a bit of a pain to squeeze the chip into, but I managed to shuffle things around sufficiently to het things in. Percy is showing his wiring a bit, if you peer inside the cab, but it's not the sort of model that that particularly detracts from it!
So main things left on the conversion front is to get in touch regarding the stay alive wire on FS's decoder and figure out what I'm doing with the lamps!
I will probably add lamps to Percy and the Jinty at some future point, but that will wait. The next project is to do some improvements to the rake of coaches I bought for FS to haul: interior detail plus lighting. I'll also try and retro-post some photos of the conversions in progress.
Flying Scotsman got its socket rewired so the chip sits neatly inside the space in the tender. The tender doesn't shut yet though, because there are some coils of wire hanging off the socket for lighting functions. I have purchased a set of the DCC Concepts lamps of which I will put two on the front of Flying Scotsman. I'm having a think about the best way to transfer power back to the loco from the tender. I have a few socket and plugs but not sure if any will be small enough. Will have a rummage through my electronics bits box and see what I can come up with.
At the same time as buying the lamps I picked up two more decoders and have converted my two remaining loco, an old LMS Jinty that I've mentioned before and a new Percy (of Thomas the Tank Engine fame). The Jinty was a bit of a pain to squeeze the chip into, but I managed to shuffle things around sufficiently to het things in. Percy is showing his wiring a bit, if you peer inside the cab, but it's not the sort of model that that particularly detracts from it!
So main things left on the conversion front is to get in touch regarding the stay alive wire on FS's decoder and figure out what I'm doing with the lamps!
I will probably add lamps to Percy and the Jinty at some future point, but that will wait. The next project is to do some improvements to the rake of coaches I bought for FS to haul: interior detail plus lighting. I'll also try and retro-post some photos of the conversions in progress.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Good to hear your moving foward. Im yet to tackle a dcc conversion but I do really like the whole idea of dcc. Some great things were achieved with good old dc once you run isolated track sections and multiple controls but you didnt have that option for switching sounds and lights etc.
Whats your overall experience with tight spaces and the chips? Im not up to date with whats currently available but I used to read about guys using N gauge chips in OO locos. Is this still a thing?
Im awfully interested in the thought of switching running lamps on and off. Ill have to have a look through dcc concepts website.
Whats your overall experience with tight spaces and the chips? Im not up to date with whats currently available but I used to read about guys using N gauge chips in OO locos. Is this still a thing?
Im awfully interested in the thought of switching running lamps on and off. Ill have to have a look through dcc concepts website.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
I've also heard of putting N gauge decoders in OO, but have not gone this route personally. All my decoders are Zen 360 which whilst they claim to be quite small, they don't have a plug on wires coming off the decoder, the pins come out the bottom of the decoder, and the whole decoder sits on top of the socket, so you can't snake it off to a covenient space somewhere else in the body.joshv8 wrote:Whats your overall experience with tight spaces and the chips? Im not up to date with whats currently available but I used to read about guys using N gauge chips in OO locos. Is this still a thing?
On top of that, I've got some gauge master sockets that are themselves quite tall, so I'm starting on the back foot on terms of squeezing into tight spaces given my product choices! However, I've managed to do it, and when I get around to uploading my photos you'll get a better sense of how I've got on.
What has been more of a problem for me is the wires I've used. I have some 22awg jumper wire from my electronics projects that I've been using, and it's noticeably thicker than the wires I've been taking out, plus I'm often running more wires through the same places (pickup to decoder plus decoder to motor terminal rather than just pickup to motor). Great on a breadboard, bit of a pain inside a model loco!
If you were happy to hardwire a decoder in and skip the socket, using the wires on the decoder chip, I think you'd have an easier time with fitting things in, but it would of course depend entirely on what space you've got inside your loco. I think I've been lucky to a certain extent that there have turned out to be suitably sized/positioned cavities for what I was trying to fit in. It certainly wasn't planned out beforehand!
Re: Giraffe's workbench
In the earlier days of DCC when decoders designed for N gauge first came on the scene it was the only option to convert a few 00 gauge models to DCC.joshv8 wrote:Good to hear your moving foward. Im yet to tackle a dcc conversion but I do really like the whole idea of dcc. Some great things were achieved with good old dc once you run isolated track sections and multiple controls but you didnt have that option for switching sounds and lights etc.
Whats your overall experience with tight spaces and the chips? Im not up to date with whats currently available but I used to read about guys using N gauge chips in OO locos. Is this still a thing?
Im awfully interested in the thought of switching running lamps on and off. Ill have to have a look through dcc concepts website.
Which ever decoder one fits ensure the decoder can handle the locos stall current. N gauge decoders generally handle less current then 00 gauge decoders so only the 00 gauge locos which have low current drawing motors should be fitted with decoders designed for N gauge use.
Practically, I don't thinkmof decoders as N gauge or 00 gauge etc. I think of them as "Will they fit in the space available" "Will they handle the stall current (Which is the max current) that the loco uses?"
Modelling On A Budget ---》 https://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/F ... 22&t=52212
Re: Giraffe's workbench
I've finally got around to sorting some hosting for images, so here's a quick shot of what my "workbench" (aka the dining table) has looked like for several evenings of the last couple of months:
Sometimes the glass of wine has been swapped for a mug of coffee
That was possibly the first evening I set about cleaning up my old locos. The chassis on the board is from the Jinty (you can see the body behind the soldering iron stand)
The bottle to the right is surgical spirit, that I've had good success using to clean up around the metal and plastic parts. (Someone is now going to come along and tell me it's irreparably degraded the plastic bodies, aren't they?)
The soldering iron was out because... well... did you know if you poke too hard at the sort of carbon brushes that go on that motor, that the contact block will ping off the arm? Turns out you can solder them back on... and they still just about work...
Sometimes the glass of wine has been swapped for a mug of coffee
That was possibly the first evening I set about cleaning up my old locos. The chassis on the board is from the Jinty (you can see the body behind the soldering iron stand)
The bottle to the right is surgical spirit, that I've had good success using to clean up around the metal and plastic parts. (Someone is now going to come along and tell me it's irreparably degraded the plastic bodies, aren't they?)
The soldering iron was out because... well... did you know if you poke too hard at the sort of carbon brushes that go on that motor, that the contact block will ping off the arm? Turns out you can solder them back on... and they still just about work...
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Flying Scotsman conversion:
Starting point of the cleanup:
There had been some build up over the years of little bits of track rubber into the mechanism that need wiping out:
Wiring up the socket for the decoder, part 1: attached some spade connectors to some appropriately coloured wires. The red wire was to attach to the little lump on the motor block that the existing spade connector attached to, but it turned out to be a more open connector than this one, so I ended up swapping for a male spade connector to attach to the other end of the existing wire.
part 2: soldering up the socket
Test attachment of socket (you can see the red wire attaching to the existing black wire on top in this photo)
Test runs not so sucessful (see previous posts), so tried cleaning up the engine to run more smoothly:
DCC Concepts lamps for (hopefully) fixing to the front. They really are tiny!!
The disaster that befell the stay alive wire to the decoder! (This is in the process of being resolved with the retailer from whom I purchased it)
However I could still get on with tidying up the wiring so it will fit in the tender cavity once I've dealt with the extra light function wires:
Starting point of the cleanup:
There had been some build up over the years of little bits of track rubber into the mechanism that need wiping out:
Wiring up the socket for the decoder, part 1: attached some spade connectors to some appropriately coloured wires. The red wire was to attach to the little lump on the motor block that the existing spade connector attached to, but it turned out to be a more open connector than this one, so I ended up swapping for a male spade connector to attach to the other end of the existing wire.
part 2: soldering up the socket
Test attachment of socket (you can see the red wire attaching to the existing black wire on top in this photo)
Test runs not so sucessful (see previous posts), so tried cleaning up the engine to run more smoothly:
DCC Concepts lamps for (hopefully) fixing to the front. They really are tiny!!
The disaster that befell the stay alive wire to the decoder! (This is in the process of being resolved with the retailer from whom I purchased it)
However I could still get on with tidying up the wiring so it will fit in the tender cavity once I've dealt with the extra light function wires:
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Class 25 conversion:
Starting point: needs a good clean and service before attempting any conversion
First step is get access to the motor bogie:
I have no idea what these fossilised creatures once were, but ewww.
Ringfield motor in pieces to be cleaned internally:
Soldering up the decoder. I knew this one would need the light functions early on, so wired in those extra leads from the get-go:
First test fit, wired up to the motor, but leaving the lights for now:
Connected to the motor, attempted to give some play in the wires by putting a kink in that could flex. That didn't work too well. Also note that I had to bend one spade connector to avoid fouling on the cab walls.
Those wires ran to... this mess
Some time later I got all the wiring tidied up. The light function wires hade spade connectors on the outside of the inner plastic shell so that the leads can be disconnected to allow the inner shell to be removed without having to detach all the LEDs from it.
The socket and stay alive unit are mounted on sticky foam squares to hold them in place:
The thicker wires have been cut shorter and soldered to some more flexible wire near the motor in order to allow the bogie to turn freely. I don't have any heatshrink so have just wrapped the solder joins in electrical tape
The LED legs wrap around the existing structures, but the wires are not held in place there, I soldered those directly to the legs, the far side of the hoop it wraps around so that I can detach the LED if necessary without having to desolder anything.
Starting point: needs a good clean and service before attempting any conversion
First step is get access to the motor bogie:
I have no idea what these fossilised creatures once were, but ewww.
Ringfield motor in pieces to be cleaned internally:
Soldering up the decoder. I knew this one would need the light functions early on, so wired in those extra leads from the get-go:
First test fit, wired up to the motor, but leaving the lights for now:
Connected to the motor, attempted to give some play in the wires by putting a kink in that could flex. That didn't work too well. Also note that I had to bend one spade connector to avoid fouling on the cab walls.
Those wires ran to... this mess
Some time later I got all the wiring tidied up. The light function wires hade spade connectors on the outside of the inner plastic shell so that the leads can be disconnected to allow the inner shell to be removed without having to detach all the LEDs from it.
The socket and stay alive unit are mounted on sticky foam squares to hold them in place:
The thicker wires have been cut shorter and soldered to some more flexible wire near the motor in order to allow the bogie to turn freely. I don't have any heatshrink so have just wrapped the solder joins in electrical tape
The LED legs wrap around the existing structures, but the wires are not held in place there, I soldered those directly to the legs, the far side of the hoop it wraps around so that I can detach the LED if necessary without having to desolder anything.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
"Percy" conversion
As this little loco was new and bought mostly for my youngest son's pleasure, I was a little hesitant to start butchering it, but after he saw Flying Scotsman and the Class 25 running on the track together and couldn't understand why Percy couldn't join them I thought I'd better get on with it.
Wiring in the socket. This was pre-soldering, just to check which way around I needed the motor wires:
I was brave on this one and soldered the wires from the socket directly to the pickups and motor!
Looking down into the body, you can tell there's a handy space for the stay alive and socket/decoder:
And here's what it looks like with shortened wires. I couldn't take the body off when I was taking these photos as I didn't have a screw-driver handy, so you'll just have to imagine the internal layout. Essentially the stay-alive has slotted into the coal bunker, and the decoder sits mostly inside the cab space.
The view from the side. As this is a "fun" loco rather than a serious attempt to model a real-life prototype, I'm fine with wires being visible. You have to peer in a bit to see them, so I'm happy.
As this little loco was new and bought mostly for my youngest son's pleasure, I was a little hesitant to start butchering it, but after he saw Flying Scotsman and the Class 25 running on the track together and couldn't understand why Percy couldn't join them I thought I'd better get on with it.
Wiring in the socket. This was pre-soldering, just to check which way around I needed the motor wires:
I was brave on this one and soldered the wires from the socket directly to the pickups and motor!
Looking down into the body, you can tell there's a handy space for the stay alive and socket/decoder:
And here's what it looks like with shortened wires. I couldn't take the body off when I was taking these photos as I didn't have a screw-driver handy, so you'll just have to imagine the internal layout. Essentially the stay-alive has slotted into the coal bunker, and the decoder sits mostly inside the cab space.
The view from the side. As this is a "fun" loco rather than a serious attempt to model a real-life prototype, I'm fine with wires being visible. You have to peer in a bit to see them, so I'm happy.
Last edited by Giraffe on Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Giraffe's workbench
Jinty conversion:
Here's what the finished Jinty looks like - the decoder wiring is reasonably tight up against the sides of the body compared to the old wiring:
This one shows how the various components fit in: stay alive unit sliding up into the coal bunker, the decoder sitting between the cab wall and the motor unit. As the motor block is connected to one set of wheels, there's a slab of electrical tape to cover the bottom of the socket where the solder points are exposed.
A makeshift way of isolating the motor from the pickups. The spring that is connected to the motor block gets wrapped in electrical tape, and half a female spade connector is slipped over it, to which the motor wire is soldered.
The decoder has to be angled slightly to fit in correctly. The top of the cab wall angles in slightly in the cavity that means having the deoder straight up doesn't fit. In order to get down low enough, the lug that the black wire is connected to on the chassis needed to be turned through 90 degrees, you can just see in this picture that it's pointing towards the camera, whereas normally it was pointing towards the rear of the loco, directly away from the motor. (You can also see this in the first photo)
Here's what the finished Jinty looks like - the decoder wiring is reasonably tight up against the sides of the body compared to the old wiring:
This one shows how the various components fit in: stay alive unit sliding up into the coal bunker, the decoder sitting between the cab wall and the motor unit. As the motor block is connected to one set of wheels, there's a slab of electrical tape to cover the bottom of the socket where the solder points are exposed.
A makeshift way of isolating the motor from the pickups. The spring that is connected to the motor block gets wrapped in electrical tape, and half a female spade connector is slipped over it, to which the motor wire is soldered.
The decoder has to be angled slightly to fit in correctly. The top of the cab wall angles in slightly in the cavity that means having the deoder straight up doesn't fit. In order to get down low enough, the lug that the black wire is connected to on the chassis needed to be turned through 90 degrees, you can just see in this picture that it's pointing towards the camera, whereas normally it was pointing towards the rear of the loco, directly away from the motor. (You can also see this in the first photo)