Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

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aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

Unpacked a few arrivals that turned up after lunch
IMG_3169.JPG
another covered van, this time a foreign one to break up the block train I'm gradually building. a second brake van for the second block freight train and a loco coal wagon for the local freight as and when that starts.

have some more coal wagons on order which will be the second block freight
IMG_3168.JPG
also started to plan out the return loops, mostly so I can work out where the pointwork needs to be
IMG_3170.JPG
laid the cork base and some pointwork fitted - though not installed just laid there without wiring etc
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the same for the inner tracks that will be the other end of the return loops, suicide sidings for a while (in practice the long one may get laid, the others probably won't as they are too short to be useful.

and finally the London North Eastern Railway would like to apologise for the delay...
IMG_3172.JPG
benefits of another hobby...
Phred
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by Phred »

aleopardstail wrote:
and finally the London North Eastern Railway would like to apologise for the delay...
Yeah, tanks a lot!
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joshv8
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Location: QLD, Australia.

Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by joshv8 »

Those last few shots of your trackwork look good, its flows very well.
Good to see you progressing.
Cheers,
Josh
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

joshv8 wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2024 9:52 am Those last few shots of your trackwork look good, its flows very well.
Good to see you progressing.
Cheers,
Josh
I have gone with PECO large radius points throughout, has meant a couple of compromises - e.g. the incline climbing out of the hidden area past the signal box is an 18" radius on the inner climbing track. required by the location of the points for the storage yard to avoid them being over a board join.

Medium were considered but don't save all that much space, would have opened the curve to maybe 19.5", figured wasn't really worth the change.

do love how the large points look, will be mostly out of sight eventually here, aim to use the same for the higher level terminus eventually though

so far its mostly unpowered rolling testing, all seems to work, a few slight doglegs where flexi joins to flexi via plastic connectors on a curve nothing too bad - more testing due and if this becomes a serious issue I will relay these bits using soldered rail and sleepers to force the curve
Screwdriver
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by Screwdriver »

aleopardstail wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 9:00 pm and finally the London North Eastern Railway would like to apologise for the delay...
Blimey, how much did you shell out for that lot! :D

The layout is looking very good.
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

Screwdriver wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2024 6:04 pm
aleopardstail wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 9:00 pm and finally the London North Eastern Railway would like to apologise for the delay...
Blimey, how much did you shell out for that lot! :D

The layout is looking very good.
the tanks? less than you may think, thats not even half of the stuff I have for that game (Clash of Steel)..

today I haz gotten the programming track hooked up, just programming mode so far - there is a temporary link that will be replaced by a DPDT toggle to swap programming and main feeds. Took the excuse to get the three chipped locomotives I have into the roster for JMRI on the PC that lurks in the dark depths. let the Q6 run back and forth a bit as well just because.

very slowly starting to move towards powering more of the layout up
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

phase 1 track laying complete!
IMG_3175.JPG
now have the two complete loops, each with a bypass loop and the DCC programming kick back.

lots of wiring in the near and not too near future...
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

Reversing loop entry pointwork now properly installed. for now I have left the springs fitted and not cut the tiebars, this is a non-scenic area and both can be done later as required.
IMG_3176.JPG
also, iffy soldering is iffy
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need a bigger soldering iron tip to rework this slightly but for now its working. central track not yet done

the plastic to act as a base for the next set of board joins is drying now, need some more sleepers (the PCB slabs are too much of a heat sink to work sadly, good for curves though) and have to order them, however the track can be laid and the PCB sleepers added later and likely to get the track down tomorrow. gives me a triplet of 3' sidings, about 2'6" or so usable and can then bring the rest of the coaches down to the cellar
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

ok, all the track thats down is now soldered with the exception of one board join (need to move a few bits for access there), marked up the track feeds etc ahead of wiring. also have a switch mount printed for the DCC Main/Programming option, all small stuff but its progress.

could now in theory dismantle one end and all the boards that rest upon them, which is good as thats how they will be wired up.

think I'm going to stick more of the incline down first and carry on with "bits", have various control module kits etc to build and the idea is to dismantle once to wire it up as much as possible.
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

More progress, only slight, firstly the DCC programming siding now supports running trains, a DPDT changeover switch installed to swap between the two input sources, or indeed "off". tested and it works nicely.

secondly, this:
IMG_3178.JPG
the prototype for the board controller on the first board, slightly modified - both the boards that drive the servos for the points and the board that drives the LEDs have a useful "Output Enable" connection. essentially tie that to ground and the outputs are "on", tie it to the supply voltage and the outputs are "off".

by default both boards tie them to ground with a 10k resistor, thus by default the outputs are on, but you can turn them off.

trouble is the servo outputs if you are not careful go live before they are configured, which can cause burnt out servos, wreaked signals etc.

I've modified both boards by removing the pull down resistors, and added 10k pull up ones on the breadboard - thus the outputs are off until told otherwise. still have the issue of the damned thing won't connect to the wifi in the office upstairs (stead as a rock on the layout which is a lot closer to the router though)..

currently re-installing linux on the PC that lurks down there, the one I put on it being the "i386" version not the "x64" version

apparently this does actually matter, still easily sorted as hadn't actually configured the thing yet anyway.
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

janine05 wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2024 10:31 pm This is really clever. I am not very logical so couldn't ever build a board like that. Do you mind if I download the photo of your board to show my neighbour? He builds sets and will probably be impressed by your new board.
feel free, there is not a lot to it really
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

Has been a quiet week at Leopard Street, working on other things - however some progress has been made.

- XPS foam has been laid on the remainder of the incline thats down, and also for the part of the reversing loops that still needs it - this is ahead of a delivery of cork strip that will allow the track here to be laid.
- the final electrical panel board has been assembled and is ready to install, hopefully tonight, and then to wire the power feeds to it. this will leave just a single board to still connect to the power bus.
- one rake of four coaches has been modified with DCC concepts resistor fitted wheelsets on one axle, has allowed a bit of shuffling so the whole rake has metal wheelsets and the four plastic axles "retired" - this will be to support the block detection system testing.

various bits have arrived for other parts of the layout - e.g. 16 line I2C port expanders which will be useful on boards with more than 8 blocks to wire to a detection and reporting controller plus the parts for the reverse loop modules such that this system can be assembled to test on one track
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

final power board now at least connected physically, if not electrically.. one of "those" issues again so its got glue curing overnight

did however get round to making these
IMG_3182.JPG
Metcalfe interior kit for the signal box. not bothered with the ships wheel as its not near a river

can fit once they have a bit of paint, I think the stove can gain an orange LED, will be adding lights to the building itself and won't be much to add another control line to have the fire there - likely set by the control system to be on/off, but flickered a bit by the control board, figure and ESP32 should be more than capable of flickering an LED
Screwdriver
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by Screwdriver »

Lovely work, very nice. :D
aleopardstail
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Re: Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

Post by aleopardstail »

Slowly getting there, bit more prep work for what I hope will see more progress tomorrow. now have cork laid on virtually all the board I have down, there is a bit on the incline corner lacking cork, though it will be lacking track until the next bit of board is done so not too worried - does mean all of the boards that need to be removed have the cork though.

also track cork for the reverse loops is laid as far as possible - this is so I can get one of the tracks down, specifically to test the location detection sensors - need to wire the power bus to that board to get the 5V feed for it, this is not a massive job thankfully then a bit of breadboard can be added to experimentificate with, the only fixed part of this being a pair of 3mm Infra Red LEDs and associated resistors which have to go in before the track is glued. will worry about supporting the sensors as "thats a problem for tomorrow me", it will likely involved cardboard or a 3d printed mounting.

main incline having its cork has also gained the paint so track can be added - proper incentive to get the power box mounted to the wall as its currently in the way.. I want this boards track down so when its all in bits I can get it wired up. Has to be the hardest part of all this every single job has another thats ideally done first and it goes in a circle.

Everything except some small PCBs has arrived to start actually powering the layout up - these boards being small ones that take a 2 wire DCC feed in and are designed to power a turnout - three wire terminal block to go to a frag polarity switch, the another that goes to the frog and the actual point feeds - with the ability to also power the adjacent length of track using two wires into a single ferrule. I am trying to avoid anything needing to be soldered after its installed - the only soldering is three wires to the turnout polarity switches, which can be done away from the layout then trimmed and crimped as needed.

I am hoping that once the wiring starts it can progress reasonably quickly around the back of the layout (three boards with no pointwork) then work back around the front
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