Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

[aleopardstail]

Painted it today.. Woo.. not bothered with a pic as well its the same, but in a slate grey, some brown still to add as well.

also got the first two points modified and droppers etc fitted, these will probably be added tomorrow night, won't be powered up until the supporting tracks are done as there are bridge sections that will need cutting to split the boards and thats coming after the PCB sleepers etc are fitted

also wallet crying after ordering the track for the first phase.. £275...

hurty

[aleopardstail]

more painting

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3083.JPG

bit of brown adjacent to the grey, all a bit of a muchness, also patched where so attempt at track installation went wrong, will try again tomorrow

scenic deck where Leopard Junction signal box will go now installed, as is the lower level behind it

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3084.JPG

the plank in the foreground of the first picture is the second power box, wasn't happy with the first which was more or less impossible to fix screws into without drilling, and couldn't get the drill where it needed to go. sod it, pine board bought, will make another

[aleopardstail]

while waiting for some tooling to arrive, needed to make a box to put the power stuff in, needed to.. well you get the idea, delays

I turned to some bits not strictly needed yet but needed soon, first up I assembled the first of these

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3087.JPG

MERG DTC8, essentially 8 channel block detector, best bit is it can be wired in without itself being powered so can be set up ahead of the track and track added as its laid. this is on a 3d printed frame I designed and printed this morning, makes mounting it easier. Two more needed for the first three boards in total (the other two are in a bag adjacent to the desk).

now thats all well and good, but it needs to talk to the control JMRI computer, thats where this propotype mess comes in

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3088.JPG

this, more or less, works, software is ongoing. This is an ESP32 microcontroller, which can connect to JMRI over WiFi, the WiFi bit works, struggles to connect but where its going is about 6' below the router, the test bench is the other side of the house.

this is set up to monitor 8 inputs, the eight from the DTC8, fed in via the 8 bit input controller, for technical reasons as that chips can shout if something happens so the ESP32 can ignore it until it does.

able to drive 16 servos, though will only have two connected, also able to drive 24 LEDs with variable brightness control (and once connected to the 12v supply each of these 24 can actually be a daisy chain of three). plus its got a 64Kbit EEPROM to hold settings.

software works to a level, can drive servos, play with LEDs and read inputs. needs setting up to talk to MQTT, and the "over the air" update stuff needs properly testing.

this needs a bit more testing (which can be done in this format mostly, the LED and Servo boards are bought in and can be mounted to the layout as soon as some connectors are changed) and then reworking onto stripboard and installing.

[Dad-1]

aleopardstail,

3D printed bits and 'lectronics all beyond my 1940's brain !!
I made a MERG board once, but never used it, can't even remember
what it was for !!

Geoff T.

[aleopardstail]

aleopardstail,

3D printed bits and 'lectronics all beyond my 1940's brain !!
I made a MERG board once, but never used it, can't even remember
what it was for !!

Geoff T.

have used a few of them, some quite clever stuff. previous using sticky pads to mount them, heave learned not to do that again, they dry out and then stuff dangles by the wires

[aleopardstail]

Software more or less working, slight issue on startup with the servos to nail, and of course the exact servo movement will need sorting out and calibrating. however the board can now report 8 sensors, drive 24 LEDs (and with JMRI variable intensity supported as well as on/off which will be useful) plus drive in theory 16 servos, though only two in practice with virtual feedback sensors so JMRI knows when the blades are moving

annoyingly while JMRI sees an "INCONSISTENT" internal state it doesn't report it.. so have created my own feedback channel to do just that (this is so I can eventually have a physical reporting board with BLINKENLIGHTS somewhere.

should have a bit more time this week and next I hope, better do as the track is due to be delivered today so no excuse not to actually get some of it stuck to the boards now

*scary music*

[Phred]

aleopardstail wrote:
Software more or less working, slight issue on startup with the servos to nail, and of course the exact servo movement will need sorting out and calibrating. however the board can now report 8 sensors, drive 24 LEDs (and with JMRI variable intensity supported as well as on/off which will be useful) plus drive in theory 16 servos, though only two in practice with virtual feedback sensors so JMRI knows when the blades are moving

annoyingly while JMRI sees an "INCONSISTENT" internal state it doesn't report it.. so have created my own feedback channel to do just that (this is so I can eventually have a physical reporting board with BLINKENLIGHTS somewhere.

Have you thought about building a space rocket? It would be less complicated and I believe you can rent them out for good money to people who want to launch satellites and stuff. May not be practical in the basement. I don't know. I'm not very technically minded.

[aleopardstail]

Its finally happened!

they said it couldn't be done, they said the overweight larda&^e would never get round to it, some claimed it was actually a physical impossibility..

they were wrong

now have the first bits of track down!

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3092.JPG

naturally its not much track...

but it is fixed in place, and fixed in the right place, and unpowered stock rolls through just fine

[aleopardstail]

more track.. one whole length.. woooo

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3093.JPG

one length is pathetic, had hoped to get six down tonight, however (there is always something), the gradient is not right, some of the supports have been cut to start to correct this, needs a bit more work but worth doing to avoid a "hump" in what should be a reasonably constant 2% incline.

anyway the bit down has got the various droppers for either side of the baseboard join (not yet soldered to the sleepers though or actually cut).

another issue with the flipping power box, the digital current & voltage meters I have are not compatible with a common ground for current measurement, for now just not connecting the current sensor and going with just the voltmeter side while I ponder how much this bothers me. however

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3094.JPG

it does work, no magic smoke escaping and produces 15v, 12v and 5v outputs, two meters to wire in (delays caused by the JST type connector kit with crimping tool being supplied with a useless crimp tool that basically just crushed the connector and cuts the wire - having to crimp with pliers

does at least mean I can now power the layout up as and when there is enough of it to be worth powering, and the various bits of detritus being used to hold track while the glue sets is removed hopefully things can start to speed up a bit now

[aleopardstail]

more progress

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3095.JPG

another length of flexi, two sets of droppers, not yet soldered to the sleepers for the cut.

amazing how %^%$$$&ing awkward soldering droppers to flexi is when it needs to be on a curve to get the damned rails to stay in place, anyway that bit is done and thats the end of the tighter curves for a while. have run two long coaches and while its tight they don't touch. Mk3 or longer would probably be "one train at a time" though (18" & 20" on 2" centres)

while that was drying at the opposite end there was a board that didn't really fit, well that has now been replaced by one that does (off square by about 22mm)

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3096.JPG

figured yes I could work around it, but better to actually fix it. also took the chance to drop one corner 3" for the scenic area to continue, I need to get this boards track base down (which is level) so the one in the corner (with a gradient) can be set up properly. also needs the bus wiring etc extending this far.

more tools, track cutters this time, on order, along with a bit more wire, more terminal connector blocks.. there really is no end to it

jobs for the coming week:
- fit the final electrical panel
- finish the bus wiring all round
- finish the plywood deck for the lower level and incline as far as its going for now, plus various scenic areas
- complete the power box and test the bus wiring to all panels

in theory I can hook up the two tracks on the board carrying the curves to try and drive a train, think its worth waiting a bit to have enough track to test the inclines though

[aleopardstail]

the penultimate board for the first phase is now done

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3099.JPG

the panel is wired (retracted in the pic), connections to either side done and tested, deck fitted, scenic deck added. happy as progress for an evening. still have the old one to cut up to save space.

the whole rear of the layout now has bus wiring done, just two more boards to do with that and thats finished.

tomorrow:
http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3100.JPG

this area to progress, need to get the incline trackbed to the rear done first, basically for sanity, quite a bit to do and likely to take a few days while glue cures, four sets of uprights to go in and the deck itself to install as this track continues to climb round to the eventual station - in practice the track bed finishes here as beyond this is goes above other tracks which need adding, testing etc first.

nature of the beast is it will take a bit of time, plan is to progress that and go back to the other end and add more track, and potentially start to actually hook a few bits of it up so I can power the layout power bus up and then see if it actually works

in unrelated news, a Hornby Q6 in LNER black is on its way to be one of the lower level freight locomotives, decent price so why not? already have an 8 pin decoder waiting and it will be the 8th locomotive and 3rd to be chipped ready.

[aleopardstail]

It Lives!

http://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3102.JPG

First powered movement on the layout, ok it only has a little over one length of track to run on as the pointwork is not yet powered up, however the bus thats installed powers up, the DCC-EX unit works, the arduino power switch works, WiThrottle works and most importantly the Scottie can trundle back and forth and does so nicely.

bit more in the far corner, progressing slowly but it is progressing..

tomorrow should be a bit more on that board and hopefully a bit more track

[Dad-1]

Always gives you a buzz when something becomes 'live'

Geoff T.

[aleopardstail]

Always gives you a buzz when something becomes 'live'

Geoff T.

have to say the curious electrical burning smell gave quite a buzz until I found the jumper lead wired backwards.. (this was before the trains went near it)

have a "new" loco arriving tomorrow and once its chipped I want to be able to move it about a bit

may even get the next board hooked up reasonably soon

[aleopardstail]

New arrival

[urlhttp://www.aleopardstail.com/IMG_3105.JPG[/url]

shes beautiful, needs a test run then chipping, won't have time until tomorrow but now have something to haul a nice block freight train

when I finally get one

and have somewhere to run it

8th Locomotive in the fleet, by far the newest (if still a second hand one) and also the most detailed