Duvet day

Now the festivities are over its time to start on the other station. MDF sandwich started this morning and lights fitted into the building, it’s a waiting game now until the PVA cures.

At the other end of the layout someone thought the 2CV was cold and laid a duvet on the bonnet!

Phase two

Today I laid the track on the second phase of the layout and fitted the copper clad sleepers where the joins will be soldered and cut the track, next the point motors were fitted and tested tomorrow the last point motor to be fitted and tested

Not to happy with the Chinese marine ply

Its cold outside but I had to cut the side rails for my 8 foot by 18 inch extension to the layout. Not to happy with the Chinese 12mm marine ply hopefully it will pull in when the 18 x 44 mm cross bracing is added he top is made from 48x12" and 48x6" sheeted of ply. when I get the position for the points marked in the board I can mount the bracing there is nothing worse than finding a point motor has to go where the bracing sits!

Ungrateful boy

A small interlude I though I should have a bit of a joke with my boy so I made a skip so he can clear out his building rubble. The ungrateful boy reckons it’s too small. 

Disaster hits my 14xx

Disaster hits my 14xx after a run in in on the rolling road yesterday. Today when it was left on the track white smoke and the dreaded smell of burn PCB wafted from the loco. I have no idea why the decoder went puff I need to check all the wiring in the loco before I install another chip! At first glance there seems nothing wrong with the wiring very strange. That was not my only disappointment today I went to the local model railway exhibition with a shopping list and never hit on one item. I did get a cooper craft AEC monarch tanker and a copy of Historic locomotive drawings in 4mm scale by F J Roche and this wagon book for £12 the pair

Black Friday!

Black Friday! Um internet slow so I though I would finish wiring in the chip into No2 and run it in on the rolling road.

Finished the wiring

Finally finished the wiring, all the decoder ports work and switch the frogs. Mimic board shows the routes and switched the shed and station independently. All I need now is my Gopro back from being repaired and I can get some HD video!

Spaghetti Junction

Getting there all the fly leads soldered on to the underside of the decoder, and bundled shrunk ready to be connected. decoder loosely fitted to  the underside of the base board that will do me for today

Top marks for Hatton’s

Top marks for Hatton’s, a replacement decoder arrived with in 3 days of my posting the defective one back. Over the last few days I manage to set up a small production line to make the LED’s for the mimic board. Progress was slower than usual because we had my daughter and son-in-law stay for an overnight to celebrate my other daughters 40^th um, time flies when you enjoy life. Today the last 2 LED’s were fitted to the mimic board and continuity tested. Over the coming week I shall refit the decoder board and test the whole installation watch this space!

Nothing going to happen now for a few days

Nothing going to happen now for a few days or so  Duff decoder on its way back to Hatton’s for replacement cut the proper mimic board from 6mm MDF to replace the mock-up. 

Primary LEDs in place

Today I mounted wired and tested the primary LEDs in the mimic board, swapped out the duff bank on the decoder. Apart from the 2 duff channels all works well, I must Email Hatton’s after I finish this blog

Photoshopping

An early start today working with Photoshop I produced a “routing table” more work on the mimic board today if I can find my 18mm ply off cuts

Almost 2 years on

It is just over two weeks now until the annual model railway show on the 29^th November that make two years since I posted my first blog, 

I do not seem on the face of it to have achieved much, but I suppose if I look at all the little projects and cameos that I have made I am not disappointed with progress.

Today’s offering were wiring the mimic board tails to the decoder 15 fine wire soldered to the underside of the decoder. That was no mean task my hands are not as steady as they used to be! I finally programmed the decoder last night and set 6 routes for point switching. Who said DCC wiring was a simple two wire connection.

Got Roundtuit

After a long absence I feel the time is right to update my blog, since I retired in January all those little jobs that I needed to get “roundtuit” ar finally done and almost dusted. With the wonderful weather we had it was a shame to scuttle of to the workshop instead I had some quality time with Linda in our caravan first in the Cotswolds the later in the summer Norfolk. All was not lost on the modelling front I manage a two page spread I Vogue (no I'm messing with you).

First off was the rolling road back in June followed by the Chipping of a couple of locos a couple of pullers and presses. Lastly I wired the layout for DCC operation using the new DCC AD-Sfx decoder most impressive makes frog switching a doddle and installed lighting in the shed and station buildings if you want a roundtuit Screwfix are out of stock. 

Tool time

Tool time

I managed to spend a few hours in the workshop making some tools, a wheel and gear puller and a quartering press based on a GW design dummy crank pins and axel spigots to suit my Pug and 14xx which is getting re-wheeled

Western Chip

Big diesel loads of room, pick-up from one side of trailing bogie and one side of power bogie. First off cut power bogie wire and some extra wire.

Attach chip with sticky pad to centre weight.

 Connect the chip cable to the prepared loco cables check on program track to read loco ID=3 if so shrink the insulation over soldered joints test run and set the CV’s

Q1 hamfisted attempt to remove the capacitor

A nice easy one this Hornby Q1 DCC ready
or not my Q1 looks as if it was chipped then de-chipped before it went on eBay!

Looks like a real hamfisted attempt to remove the capacitor

I have had enough of wiring today tomorrow is another day.

Even the DC blanking plug was not in correctly testing time I think..

Chipping a J94

Chipping a J94

Next the Q1

Home made OO gauge rolling road update.

I eventually received my order from Hatton’s today 6 chips and a replacement lead for my prodigy unit

I thought I would order Hatton’s new small 2 function chip and 5 standard ones. As you can see the small (red) chip is badged DCC Concepts. I guess they are all from the DCC Concepts range.

Yep all my range of locos fit the rolling road.

Home made OO gauge rolling road.

The bearing blocks are made from ½” square aluminium and ½” aluminium angle 17mm long held together with 2mm S/S cap head screws.

Holes are drilled and reamed to accommodate the 3/16” S/S rod which forms the guide rails.

Cross drilled and tapped 3mm for the locking screws. NB I inserted a small length 2mm of 2mm diameter plastic rod into the locking screw to protect the guide rails from bruising.

The support blocks are drilled to accommodate the 3/16” S/S rod and finally the holes are marked and drilled for the bearings using the guide rod as a datum. My bearings are 8mm Diameter x 7mm wide salvage from dead laptop hard disk drives. I think an MR83zz bearing would do the trick Outer Diameter 8mm Bore Diameter 3mm Width 3mm.

A quick check to see if my diminutive Pug will fit! 

As all was well I mounted the support blocks on to a 5mm thick piece of clear acrylic 330x 65mm with 3mm countersunk screws.

I sprayed the underside of the clear acrylic base red to make it more visible. 

In order to support longer locomotives a length of Peco rail was screwed to a piece of black Nylon shimmed to bring the height to that of the rollers.

 Electrical connections are fixed on the support blocks and bonded to the Peco rail with 20 gauge tinned wire. The final picture shows my Q1 sitting on the road.

Follow the link for a short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO1xnZpdG_g

As this project requires a metalworking workshop I have just skimmed over the details. I will leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.