Leopard Street, LNER 1930's

[aleopardstail]

Best laid plans..

run out of rail joiners, more on order.

*kicks cat*

[joshv8]

Best laid plans..

run out of rail joiners, more on order.

*kicks cat*

That ol' chestnut. Thats quite a frustrating thing with flexi track. Should come with rail joiners for what you pay for a box of it.
Was a few posts back but I know what you mean about the flex track wanting to dog leg on a curve.
Ive been playing with this myself recently on some 3rd and 4th radius curves and even, doing as some suggest, slightly tweaking the end of the rail with some pliers, doesn't quite get the perfection one may want. And the sleepers dont follow the curve fantastically either.
As long as youre playing with code 100 using flex track for such building definetely gives you more design control but seems like it's just as well off to fork out for set track curves if 4th radius or under.
I agree with you on the points to. If space permits, the medium really dont use up much more room than the small and then the larger dont use up much more than the medium. Yeah the departure angles change.
Playing with a small fiddle yard inside a dogbone, I found no space saving advantage to small points and ran mediums, they flow so much better!

Good to see you're having fun.
Cheers,
Josh

[aleopardstail]

Best laid plans..

run out of rail joiners, more on order.

*kicks cat*

That ol' chestnut. Thats quite a frustrating thing with flexi track. Should come with rail joiners for what you pay for a box of it.
Was a few posts back but I know what you mean about the flex track wanting to dog leg on a curve.
Ive been playing with this myself recently on some 3rd and 4th radius curves and even, doing as some suggest, slightly tweaking the end of the rail with some pliers, doesn't quite get the perfection one may want. And the sleepers dont follow the curve fantastically either.
As long as youre playing with code 100 using flex track for such building definetely gives you more design control but seems like it's just as well off to fork out for set track curves if 4th radius or under.
I agree with you on the points to. If space permits, the medium really dont use up much more room than the small and then the larger dont use up much more than the medium. Yeah the departure angles change.
Playing with a small fiddle yard inside a dogbone, I found no space saving advantage to small points and ran mediums, they flow so much better!

Good to see you're having fun.
Cheers,
Josh

one of the advantages of using C75, the crossing angles are all 12 degrees, the disadvantage is the flexi has a mind of its own, though the track spacing if you use two back to back is only right with the large size ones, the switch rails are longer or shorter though so is what it is. given even a large radius one is tight by prototype standards its down to what fits.. I had space for the large ones so went with them

if I had more curves of a set radius I'd print myself some suitable tracksetta things, as it is I have one for 18" and straight and "make do".. its all a bit iffy but so far everything runs through fine

[Phred]

aleopardstail wrote:
*kicks cat*

I have at times been accused of kicking the cat. The wretched thing would sit still, apparently half asleep, until I walked past it. At the last moment it would suddenly scoot across in front of me so that I tripped over it. With a shriek and an aggrieved glare, it would convince everyone that I had deliberately kicked it out of the way. Manipulative little brute.

[aleopardstail]

aleopardstail wrote:
*kicks cat*

I have at times been accused of kicking the cat. The wretched thing would sit still, apparently half asleep, until I walked past it. At the last moment it would suddenly scoot across in front of me so that I tripped over it. With a shriek and an aggrieved glare, it would convince everyone that I had deliberately kicked it out of the way. Manipulative little brute.

the two here do furry landmine impressions on the stairs

[Phred]

aleopardstail wrote:
furry landmine impressions

[aleopardstail]

Delivery arrived, firstly, I now have some fishplates so can get back to track laying, but also have these:

not yet assembled, fresh from Aisler in Germany for the board and China for the connectors. as the label suggests a connector for turnouts. Idea is track bus goes into A & B, then one of the three pin blocks goes to the A & B feeds to the track, and "F" for the frog, the other three pin goes to the switch. yet this could all be wired directly, this is aimed at avoiding ever needing to solder under a board. one of these can be fitted under or near a turnout and the turnouts wires fed and terminated at it and then connected to the power bus - with the servo and frog switch connected as an when.

can of course also be used to split a single feed into two - e.g. where a block has two lengths of track each with their own feed - reasonably common on this layout due to the modular design

[Bigmet]

...As long as youre playing with code 100 using flex track for such building definetely gives you more design control but seems like it's just as well off to fork out for set track curves if 4th radius or under...

Peco effectively said as much through their 'mouthpiece', ('The Toddler' as it was referred to at my first MR club) when it was newly introduced. (There was a wall in the club premises allocated for posting the pronunciamentos of the modelling press. The good, the dubious, the downright ugly, and the recognisably evasive: often with handwritten headings pinned above, supplying useful commentary for the less experienced such as my teenage self. ' 'This K'sit maker should be frequently K'sicked in the BollocK's' was a real eye opener.

And Flexitrack is a lot better - more cooperative and flexible - if code 75 is used. Essentially the rail cross section is half that of code 100, and a 24" radius curve has joints that don't dogleg effortlessly. There is a caveat, the sleeper base has to be treated carefully. Don't even think of wearing an Arran or similar pullover while laying it, one snag on your sleeve and the entire yard of rail ripped out of the sleeper base can occur - effortlessly.

[aleopardstail]

...As long as youre playing with code 100 using flex track for such building definetely gives you more design control but seems like it's just as well off to fork out for set track curves if 4th radius or under...

Peco effectively said as much through their 'mouthpiece', ('The Toddler' as it was referred to at my first MR club) when it was newly introduced. (There was a wall in the club premises allocated for posting the pronunciamentos of the modelling press. The good, the dubious, the downright ugly, and the recognisably evasive: often with handwritten headings pinned above, supplying useful commentary for the less experienced such as my teenage self. ' 'This K'sit maker should be frequently K'sicked in the BollocK's' was a real eye opener.

And Flexitrack is a lot better - more cooperative and flexible - if code 75 is used. Essentially the rail cross section is half that of code 100, and a 24" radius curve has joints that don't dogleg effortlessly. There is a caveat, the sleeper base has to be treated carefully. Don't even think of wearing an Arran or similar pullover while laying it, one snag on your sleeve and the entire yard of rail ripped out of the sleeper base can occur - effortlessly.

Agree on C75 being a lot more fragile, it can be bullied into being curved though, Leopard Street is the first time I have used it, had I known then what I know know I would still have used to but laid it differently. specifically removing sleepers, probably one every 6" or so to replace with copper clad ones soldered to the outer rail initially, and the same at the end - outer rail picked as the inner will be trimmed once laid. then form the shape and solder to the inner rail to basically hold the desired curves prior to laying the track.

I's also, and I'm thinking of this for the station section, have some sleepers custom made - double sided PCB is not that expensive, solder pads on the top for the rail, and a plated via to the underside with a pad for a wire to solder to - potentially the via large enough a wire can poke into it to be soldered and avoid faffing with soldering to rail directly with wires.

still pondering in a few places if track testing prior to painting shows issues I may lift some sections and retrofit a few PCB sleepers

[aleopardstail]

Current layout state is as follows:

the two bottom left boards both have power, but are not yet connected to each other to complete the bus ring, there is also more track bed than shown on the incline to the rear, which will hopefully gain track this weekend preparing for the right hand centre board to be removed to fully wire up

[aleopardstail]

things have been quiet recently, house prep for Mrs L's niece to move in while she is at University not too far away, various bits of prep on going for future work though.

Meanwhile this beauty arrived

Technically slightly out of period as the A2/3 was 1940's but she looks the part and the price was right (sub £100, inc. delivery). has been given a Zimo MX600R and a short test and worked perfectly.

lovely looking model too, to say "second hand" I don't think shes been run in, or indeed really out of the box, so proper testing will have to wait until she can be run in with the track wired up..

[aleopardstail]

just had the notice these are due to arrive next week

Woo!

While trying to contain me excitement, these are power connectors. I have an earlier design here already that works - these are power connectors for a turnout, the two port connector gets the track bus, then one side three port goes to the frog switch, the other side to the frog and turnout feeds.

this newer design is for ones where there is also a feed to the track leading into the turnout so that can be powered as part of the same electrical block. basically saving another terminal block somewhere to hook it all up. both types being useful on Leopard Street, both also useful for powering lengths of track that have two or three feeds to the block on any given board.

"da plan" is to make a short video about the layout today or tomorrow to sort out and publish and then to actually get back to starting work on the wiring. which now I have drawn out the first board isn't as scary as it first seemed.. seven feeds, two points and a diamond so four polarity switches. using the terminal blocks makes it a lot easier when as will invariably happen one or more gets wired backwards.

the next few weeks will hopefully see about half the boards actually powered up and trains able to run on them

[aleopardstail]

video of this mess finally up

https://youtu.be/vohx9kb846M

just a quick overview of the mess

[Phred]

Thanks for the very informative video, although it gave me a fright at the start. As you didn't begin speaking for a few seconds, I cranked my speakers up to full volume to see if there was something wrong at my end. When you suddenly said 'Hello!' at full volume, I nearly leapt out of my chair! No mean feat as I haven't done any leaping for a very long time.

[aleopardstail]

Thanks for the very informative video, although it gave me a fright at the start. As you didn't begin speaking for a few seconds, I cranked my speakers up to full volume to see if there was something wrong at my end. When you suddenly said 'Hello!' at full volume, I nearly leapt out of my chair! No mean feat as I haven't done any leaping for a very long time.

LOL, sorry about that, stayed quiet as wasn't sure how long the title card would be. may start humming next time