Failure and restarting

[aleopardstail]

...main reason for going with older stuff is basically for the price of one new loco I have bought five, for the price of one new coach likewise bought five - they are no where near the quality of modern stuff, but "will do for now"...

...and since you know how to fix stuff, it will work well.

I am regularly (pleasantly) surprised at what turns up s/h, not long past obtained a Bachmann 57xx 'non-runner' for £20; advertised as 'split chassis' but the photo revealed it wasn't, but instead an early Blue Riband version. No box, but if it had ever been run it was long ago, the gear train was glued solid by the liberal grease application common on these early releases, which was dried out. Already sold on the body, and the mechanism is destined for something of GNR design, as it has the correct Crewe standard wheelbase dimensions.

It's a very agreeable situation, that we are now approaching thirty years production of 'current standard' items from China, and some of it now turning up at properly low prices.

got an N gauge Class 101 that was noted as a bad runner, well yes when someone tries to lubricate with treacle that happens, cleaned up and went wonderfully after. even with all the extra weight someone had soldered onto the poor thing. its not so much knowing how to fix as being willing to try and accepting sometimes its going to end up as a TMD static

[Mountain]

...main reason for going with older stuff is basically for the price of one new loco I have bought five, for the price of one new coach likewise bought five - they are no where near the quality of modern stuff, but "will do for now"...

...and since you know how to fix stuff, it will work well.

I am regularly (pleasantly) surprised at what turns up s/h, not long past obtained a Bachmann 57xx 'non-runner' for £20; advertised as 'split chassis' but the photo revealed it wasn't, but instead an early Blue Riband version. No box, but if it had ever been run it was long ago, the gear train was glued solid by the liberal grease application common on these early releases, which was dried out. Already sold on the body, and the mechanism is destined for something of GNR design, as it has the correct Crewe standard wheelbase dimensions.

It's a very agreeable situation, that we are now approaching thirty years production of 'current standard' items from China, and some of it now turning up at properly low prices.

The other advantage, is that if one buys five non-runners for the price of a new loco, one is likely to get at least two of them running and with spares for others via the non-runners, so one has more than doubled ones value compared to buying new. I am not against buying new, but this aspect of getting better value can't be missed!

[aleopardstail]

there may be a slight case of cart before horse going on here, same happened with the N gauge stuff where I wanted a loco to experiment with, so ordered a few lengths of track and stuck on a few eBay bids thinking maybe I'd get one..

I won all four, nice models as it turned out, a 5th later joined. all going into boxes so in "x" years my offspring can find then and add to the "wtf??" pile

anyway my sum total of OO stuff currently is
- three PECO long straights, one of which has some wires soldered (badly - I forget what soldering to C100 rail is like) - there are some standard straights on order.
- a Mainline J72
- a Hornby J52
- a Hornby B12 (the old trainset one)
- a Hornby A1 (ditto railroad one, loco drive though)
- a Mainline N2 (waiting delivery)
- five corridor coaches (the Hornby railroad type trainset ones, also waiting delivery)

on the plus side I've got a "layout" thats a single PECO straight long that works and two cats curious as to the noise the PWM drive makes before they start moving.

cats like what they appear to think of as electric mice.

plus side, its incentive to get the area of the cellar the layout is planned for cleared this weekend to make a start adding ceiling panels, painting the walls etc

[aleopardstail]

B12 experimentation, runs nicely, gave the brushes and motor a clean and ran better. amazingly noisy with the body on, a lot quieter without, have to check nothing is rubbing.



and also the somewhat rough & ready controller driving it



An Arduino Nano driving a L298N motor board. added a twiddly bit and a couple of buttons for speed and direction (pressing any of these also stops the motor dead). and a little screen showing current setting. seems to work

[aleopardstail]

if the images are not loading, not sure why, if they do load not sure why they don't here

[Phred]

The images look good on my PC.

[Bufferstop]

Check that you are using the public URL for your images. The hosting site issues it under sharing or publishing the image, the URL that you get when uploading the image is private to you, so the image will be available to you when you preview the post, but no one else can see it.
See viewtopic.php?t=51876 and other posts in the same forum for the method of linking images.

[aleopardstail]

Check that you are using the public URL for your images. The hosting site issues it under sharing or publishing the image, the URL that you get when uploading the image is private to you, so the image will be available to you when you preview the post, but no one else can see it.
See viewtopic.php?t=51876 and other posts in the same forum for the method of linking images.

its my own hosting site, images work in firefox but not chrome, I suspect its down to it being http, not https

[aleopardstail]

Bit of measuring up, once its cleared a 12'x7' board will fit, so long as it can be dismantled a couple of times a year.

had a think and this is the rough concept for the lower level, the tracks top right go to an incline that spirals round to a high level terminus (plan up in the air still but more or less a "minories" style station with a small loco turn table and fuel point added and a run round on a goods loop.



what we have is a pair of running lines, clockwise and anti clockwise, each of which has a reasonable length loop - this holds a "through freight" train than can be circulated occasionally through the decently sized scenic area as well as a normal running line. these loops are a good 7' of usable space which is considered to be enough, could be expanded but probably won't be.

there are then three reversing loop storage roads, each of which can hold a pair of four coach trains with a decent locomotive, maybe five when its finally worked out - this being the maximum length for the terminus.

operation is intended, eventually, to be largely automatic on this level. train comes down from the terminus, the auto system takes over, it runs a circuit of the track then gets parked up, another one comes out, does a circuit and goes up to the terminus after, this being in parallel and potentially more than two moving at once.

its kept intentionally simple, will be operated from outside at the edge along the bottom of the image, the central wells being for construction and maintenance only (this area also provides access to a work bench so has to be kept clear anyway).

I did consider a station, maybe just a through one on the scenic side but went with "less is more" and will be just plain running, signalled at either end as a single block each way.

its basic, its intended to be basic - shown with PECO large radius streamline pointwork and crossings, the operational interest is the station, specifically turning trains around to make space for the next one thats due before it arrives, this lower level is really just a glorified return loop with through run options.

I did think about extending the through loops, the outer one is easy, the inner one could be done by changing a diamond to a single slip, however they won't be long enough for two longer trains to be held so likely staying as shown here to make operation easier.

arrival and departure from the loops in parallel is possible and departure can coincide with through running

open to suggestions and comments.

[Bigmet]

...Mainline N2...

That's a brute, overall robust (typically sounds more like a coffee grinder, will likely terrify the cat). The motor is a large open frame five pole job of sound design but low precision manufacture (based on the MW005) which goes on and on with plentiful torque. The N2 body has a great joke built in: the cab roof unclips for the summertime cabriolet version. And yes it's the loco I chose for my moniker, a favourite since early chilhood.

[aleopardstail]

A "layout"! actual progress...



well ok an old shelf, a bit of XPS, some cork, about three and a half foot of track and a bit of paint, but its the principle of the thing.

discovered it won't sit flat on my desk, easy fix, have a pair of brackets printing that will raise the end by differing amounts to make it level, also buffer stops on order.

the cut out is for adding an RFID reader to experiment with.



moody "long road ahead" shot, cellar desk in the background, complete with that most important of things for such endeavours, a fridge for refreshments of the liquid sort.

[aleopardstail]

stands for the test plank to hold it level between the desk and adjacent cabinet

designed in Blender and 3d printed on an Ender 3 V2



"good enough for government work"

need to wait some glue drying and should be up and running later today

[aleopardstail]

It Lives!



level enough plank, powers up and runs well. J52 got the honours needing a little cleaning of contacts but is now running nicely. even crawls pretty well (though with PWM whine to accompany it, need to sort the frequency out, will be fine once on DCC though).

while its not exactly a "layout" I will be able to try getting track painted and ballasted, and move on to RFID experiments.

there is always "but..."..

managed to stick the bit of track with the power wires soldered to it at the wrong end for the desk, not the end of the world, job for another day though to stick them at the other end, just puts the controller near the power outlet it connects to for simplicity.

long enough to stick three coaches behind the J52 as well, heck could take three behind an A1 so long as I didn't want it to have to actually move

[aleopardstail]

Further works, working on clearing the area for the layout, yesterday saw a tip run which got rid of most of the rubbish with the exception of an old coal fired boiler long since disconnected laid horizontally on the floor. no way I can shift that so will be working around it, indeed potentially entombing it in plywood to control the bit gently falling from its rusting carcass.

shelving that needed working on emptied, wall mounted racking removed. today I had hoped to get a rotary wire brush to clean the brickwork but Wickes didn't have any and the queue for Cortonwood retail park was silly, so arriving from amazon tomorrow, along with some decent eye protection goggles. did however get the masonry paint for the walls which though likely to be two or three coats I'm hoping to get done this week, then next week get the shelving sanded and painted since access to it after will be a pain.

then the ceiling needs plywood cladding or the layout will forever be covered in black dirt and dust, also means can install LED lighting so worth doing anyway.

meanwhile RFID experiments are ongoing, needed some Ferrite Shielding, Farnell job, £40 min order so picked up a couple of rolls of 16/0.2 cable in blue & brown to use for dropper wires. always worth making a list of stuff thats likely needed that can be used to make up orders to the min free shipping value (given shipping is a tenner), usually ends up actually cheaper than eBay for electronic stuff unless ordering a really small amount

meanwhile enjoying shuttling locomotives back and forth, RFID identification of coaches is working fine and so far despite their age all four locomotives that have actually arrived (N2 & D49 due soon) are working nicely. the J52 even crawls well and to my amazement does the B12

[Bufferstop]

Check that you are using the public URL for your images. The hosting site issues it under sharing or publishing the image, the URL that you get when uploading the image is private to you, so the image will be available to you when you preview the post, but no one else can see it.
See viewtopic.php?t=51876 and other posts in the same forum for the method of linking images.

its my own hosting site, images work in firefox but not chrome, I suspect its down to it being http, not https

As a work around try using url instead of img
Direct from the editor I've just tried url]http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3004.JPG[/url inside the brackets and get a clickable link which returns directly to the page.
It's something to do with how pspBB creates its code and how the browsers react to it.