All change - a small OO roundy

[fourtytwo]

All I can say is I'm astounded by your understanding of electronic systems.

Yes but my scenery and scratch building is pants!

[Dad-1]

Well we all wear pants most of the time !!

Yes I know what you mean, but I've always wanted to be able to do everything - life though 'aint that kind !!
The hours I used to spend trying learn the 'Tin Whistle' NEVER managed it.

Geoff T.

[Phred]

Dad-1 wrote:
Well we all wear pants most of the time !!

Not since I retired.

[fourtytwo]

Continuing without closet naturists! I started track laying in the station again today, passenger platforms, first job modify the new points to my preferred standard that is with blade & running rails bonded to protect against shorts in the flangeway and avoid reliance on the blade contact.

As can be seen the platforms are comfortably long enough for 4 coaches plus loco at each end (allowing the arrival loco to be left in the platform when a new loco is attached ready for departure). This system obviates the space consuming loco release crossover.

[fourtytwo]

My back aches to much to fit those point motors & finish wiring the station so I had a code bashing day instead!

I reckon all the software required is now complete and the central controller now amounts to over 1700 lines of code (in C & excluding any libraries).
Well over half of that is in the block signalling module for 10 sections.

Some of it as yet untested, bit hard with an incomplete layout as most of the new stuff has to do with auto/manual operation of the station including auto-shuttle operation of the terminus platforms.

Now back to the hardware and back ache!

[fourtytwo]

Chaos rules in the station area as wiring is underway! At least the point servo's are fitted and "tuned".
Sorting out the final circuitry is challenging as not only is the station fully automatic it also splits into two separate manual zones.
Once again the control panel is upended for ease of wiring, if you think this pictures a mess you should see the underneath
Of course once it's all tested & working it gets neatly loomed (that's what they all say)

[aleopardstail]

Looks very nice, and 100% feel the pain of working under the boards. designed mine to be easy to split and work on them on their backs. forgot I don't really have the space.

and any control panel has to have a way to get at the "worky bits" if only to save your sanity.

its good when servos behave

[fourtytwo]

Just for fun here is the schematic of the station signal box interface to the layout along with related control panel switches.
It was nearly complete before but whilst wiring I realized I had not quite sorted out all the subtleties of the auto/manual areas so had to stop and think
Ohh no pdf's here, ok wait...........

[aleopardstail]

at least you get decent schematics, I use various modules, essentially none of which have footprints in most of the packages I have, "design" gets very firmly on the fly here.

does look very impressive though

[fourtytwo]

at least you get decent schematics, I use various modules, essentially none of which have footprints in most of the packages I have, "design" gets very firmly on the fly here.

does look very impressive though

I use Kicad ITS FREE, not too bad to use but like all CAD systems has good & bad points. It is very very easy to create your own schematic symbols so you don't have to rely on the libraries although in this case I did not have too. Rather than use the library relays that insist on lumping the coil and all the contacts together making an unreadable birds nest I simply used inductors for the coils and SPDT switches for the contacts. It allows you to use any designators you like so there are no problems with your own preferences. Having said all that it would be different were you to want to turn it into a pcb, but all I want is a readable schematic.

In the meantime station wiring is notionally complete except the goods yard 3-way so onto the testing!!

[aleopardstail]

have KiCad and like it, Fritzing is ok too, just it has the various ICs but not the modules, so end up with a plan thats basically just connectors which isn't that helpful.

pen and paper works though

[fourtytwo]

have KiCad and like it, Fritzing is ok too, just it has the various ICs but not the modules, so end up with a plan thats basically just connectors which isn't that helpful.

pen and paper works though

When CAD was still outrageously expensive I used to use pen & paper then photograph it into the PC for permanent storage.

[fourtytwo]

Nasty hardware bug found this morning, a failed relay! coil operated but contacts did not, weird! Of course right in the middle of a block of 7 glued on there backs inside the station signal box so quite an exercise to remove it and get it on the bench for investigation.

Opening it up I discovered a misplaced floating actuator (brown piece) with apparently nothing but lady luck to retain it!

Correct position

So I glued a retainer on top

Sadly this box has another 6 of these buggers so I live in hope the rest stay in place OR it's buy something more robust. In the days of yor I used surplus post office relays that never failed BUT signal boxes were in frames either under or over the layout such was the space required!

[fourtytwo]

Progress!! Well at least on the control front, all the automated functions work including goods yard & passenger platform auto-arrive, auto-depart and shuttle modes together with all the storage & reverse loops and there many modes like swap, reverse every n, random reverse etc. In total this is nearly 4000 lines of code in 3 processors in which 40 software and 13 hardware bugs were found! I don't think I will ever get around to counting the number of wires and soldered joints
Meanwhile the club has been absorbing a lot of my time, the latest being the color balancing of tricolor leds when displaying yellow (searchlight signals) lots of fun.

Ohh I almost forgot, re-wheeled that rake of coaches from peters-spares and no more derailments on those curved points, mixture of nonadjustable back to backs and flanges to large is my guess.

[fourtytwo]

Platform fettling underway, especially difficult with all these tight radii, backwards & forwards to the garage where the workshop is located (that a few days ago was too cold to work in).

Thickness came from what I had in stock, 12mm & 6mm ply that actually measures a bit over 17mm when screwed down. Of course part of the equation was what to finish the surface with, there are many possibilities but I decided early on embossed plastic is to expensive.

I think I will probably go with wet-n-dry paper as a close approximation to asphalt and either paint on white edges or glue on printed paving slabs (along the edges). I thought simply printed slabs for the whole platform without any embossing would look very wrong. What have other people come up with here ?

The station building is supposed to go across the platform ends but as usual it was not planned in, rather shunted in afterwards, favorite at the moment is the larger Metcalfe except it is about 30mm too deep, £20 is a lot to chop up! The Superquick one has there usual quirky built in platforms that I don't care for. I wonder what else there is ?

Hmm something my side seems to have messed with the aspect ratio of that picture, I used Shotwell for cropping ..... I wonder!
No settings for that BUT save-as instead of save seems to fix it-