E2e's 2017 4 Wheel Coach Competition Entry

[End2end]

Improving the Hornby 4 Wheel Coach will be my competition entry.

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I have a rake of 5 Brown and Cream hornby 4 wheel coaches and want to improve at least 3 of them.
My plan is to install removable units with painted inner walls, seating with passengers and lighting.
Thanks
End2end

[End2end]

First the coach is opened by squeezing the windows in from each side as they are connected to the roof as one piece of plastic.
Then bases are measured and made from balsa that will have everything glued onto them. I've cut a slot in each end of the bases for the wire to pass up vertically to the lighting bar.
Here are the seats I am using from a seller on ebay.

The inner walls are then made also out of balsa and the seats are glued to these.
The walls, which at first I sanded to the rough profile of the roof but after painting and dry fitting into the coach I decided to cut them off straight to give the lighting bar more room for clearance.
To get the correct height I used a sanding block on the inner walls in situ making sure not to sand so much that I would end up sanding down the top of the outer walls of the coach.
Here they are in their rough unpainted state before I trimmed the walls straight

And now painted but unfettled with the curve on the inner walls still.

One thing glaringly obvious is the lack of seating at each end of the coach. I ran out of them. So will need to buy some more.

Next up is the lighting bar. This I cut from some vero board so this can carry the power rather than lots of wiring to make everything smaller.
A peice of 30 x 4 (holes) I envisioned to be enough with the 2 legs of each LED in the middle holes/tracks and the positive and negative power on the outer holes/tracks either side. I have already glued the LED's into thier positions last night so hopefully they should be fully dry to work on now.

Here is where I am upto now.
The straight topped inner walls (unpainted) and the vero lighting bar with the LEDs glued onto it.

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Thanks End2end

[carnehan]

You don't hang around End2end! An interesting project and will no doubt enhance these coaches from the plain off the shelf product.

Paul

[End2end]

Thanks for your comments carnehan.
I actually got a lot further including the resistors but I was using a 2 hole wide peice of vero board instead of 4 holes wide and it just turned into a solder covered mess so I completely scrapped the first attempt.
Thanks
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So...first lighting bus complete and working.

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And on the top side.

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Power on the outer tracks, LED's in the middle tracks.
Positive leg of each LED soldered to a 1K resistor which in turn is fed over and through the power track holes then soldered and twisted back on itself for extra security.
The power wires actually come up onto the board in first hole of the middle tracks at each end and then they are bent over and through the outer tracks holes and soldered on but breaking any connection between the incoming middle tracks first hole and the incoming middle tracks second hole, along on the same track breaking any on-flowing electrical current. If that makes any sense?
This is to centralise the vertical wire ( + & - ) at each end of the coach.

My thinking is that the end seats will not be pushed right up against the end walls of the coach giving clearance for the wire and cutouts on each end of the base. To further try to keep the wire in a vertical position I will use 2 small vertical bits of coffee stirrer either side of the cutout, glued to the base and back of the end seats. These extra uprights will also help support the lighting bar as well as the middle compartment walls.
I need to check my stock but I think I am out of 7 / 0.2 wire which I'll need for the other lighting bars and the seats I bought today have been marked as dispatched.
Now to go and dig up some people.
Thanks
End2end

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Added some passengers and then some more soldering today....

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I made these lighting bars slightly longer then the first one I created which I then placed in situ to mark the outer 2 comparments LED's positions to get them in the middle of each compartment. In the first picture or the lighting bars you can see the middle LED's position marked out with a square.
In the second picture of the lighting bars you can see all 3 squares marked where the LED's go according to the compartments middle position.

I have also cut down the rest of the inner walls to a flat top ready for coach number 4 and 5 and yesterday ordered more seated passengers and 7 / 0.2mm wire for the lighting bars. I need these to carry on but wanted to get as much completed as possible.

One thing that has struck me. If track power is to be used would the coaches only work one way round as LED's do?

The search for power continues and is being discussed on my layout thread - viewtopic.php?f=22&t=48176&start=285
Thanks
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[VerdevaleRailway]

Thanks for the very detailed explanation of your build. Filing it away in gunnagetaroundtoit.

And very neat work too

V.R.

[End2end]

The inside compartment builds have been almost completed although not all the passengers are glued in yet as I am still waiting for them to arrive and I need to paint the wires inside brown but here's some pictures.

First picture you can see 1 coach lit and 4 of the internal compartments made up including the lighting bars that I glued to the middle uprights using gorilla glue (gel type) for a "quick grab" as it were, only taking around 10 to 15 seconds to grab and hold the bars.
Quick positioning needed here
Although the wires look like they are coming out of the bottom they are actually glued vertically between the base end uprights I glued on made from coffee stirrers. The wires were then glued diagonally along the bottom of the bases to the middle of the base ready to be poked out of the holes in the bottom of the coach.

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And 4 pictures of the lit coach.

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On the end seats I diagonally trimmed the rear of the middle leg (leaving the front as it should be), and that plus the slots I cut out on the base ends helped the wire go from vertical to horizontal round an easy bend so it could be glued flat both on the vertical end wall and the horiztonal base bottom.
I will take some more pictures of the inner compartments to explain after this post.
I saw this thread and wondered if something similar could be used to power the lights from the track and yet still fit into the cavaity under the coaches?? - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50798&p=622375#p622375

Thanks
End2end

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In this first end-on picture you can see the wire glued vertically inbetween the coffee stirrer uprights and the diagonal route it takes from the base end cutout to the middle and how it is glued to the base bottom.
Note the whiting on the wire from the gorrilla glue. This must be a chemical reaction as I pushed one of the inner compartments into one of the coaches and left it there for a while and some whiting appeared on the inside of the coach which I wiped off. Hopefully this is only while the gorrila glue cures so I have taken the inner compartment out of the coach for now and I'm hoping it won't appear once the glue has fully dried and I put it / them back in.

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This second picture shows the underneath of the base and where the wire is glued to to line up with the middle holes in the coaches floor.
They do line up properly it is just a bad photo.

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This third picture shows a side on shot of the inner compartment as a whole void of any passengers for now.

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Now I need to work out how to take power from the track to light them all on DCC voltage without a decoder.
I think the DCC Concepts axle springs and conductive paint will need to be purchased...after that god knows what the electronics are.
Thanks
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[Alex3410]

really enjoying the build, looking forward to seeing how you get on wiring them up for DCC and if you use DCC Concepts axle springs how well they work - have spotted them a few times so will be good to know if they are any good

[End2end]

Thanks for your comments Alex.
I just only hope that the seated passengers I bought turn up before the deadline otherwise they will look Southern trains at the moment.... bereft of passengers and going nowhere!
Thanks
End2end

[Teedoubleudee]

Nice project E2E. Can you tell us the eBay seller where you got those seats please?

[End2end]

Sure no problem Teedoubleudee.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/woodworm2014/ ... pg=&_from=
He also sells items in N and 009 as well as OO.
Thanks
End2end

[End2end]

I think I have found some of the componants I need but can other members verify that these are the correct componants please before I go ahead and order them?
The possible 470uF capacitors
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electrolytic- ... 6SjZAMxcnw

The possible 470 Ohm resistors
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-4W-0-25Watt ... xYU9vqtAIQ

I cannot seem to find the correct bridge rectifiers yet from ebay but I'm still not sure how to wire it up on vero board.
Thanks
End2end

[Bufferstop]

E2E you are doing a great job on enhancing those coaches. It would be a shame not to take care of the most glaring fault that can be seen from any distance and looks most toy like. I'm talking about the horrible slab of black plastic that extends down from the buffer beam to support the large D coupler. Just like the one on this wagon

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'orrible 'innit
If you cut repeatedly and lightly with a pointed craft knife blade across the bottom of the buffer beam you can then chop away at the bulk of the plastic with snips and clean up with a small file. Once it's all gone, stick on a couple of those PD NEM pocket mounts that Dad-1 recommends then fit it with whichever NEM coupler you prefer. It will make a fantastic difference to the appearance.