Mostly Electrical Work or Let There be Light

After completing work on Wednesday afternoon I started doing some modelling.  This included a styrene box shed that will have corrugated card glued to its outside.  This will be placed over the motor that runs the Murwillumbah turntable.  So I scratch build a box for the shed and aquadhered some corrugated card onto the box.  This has been painted an appropriate corrugated iron colour and is ready to fit over the turntable motor.

On Thursday I then started to cut up some styrene sheet into the shape for the base coal load of 5 of my QR coal wagons.  I test fitted the sheet styrene so that it could easily be inserted into the coal wagons and removed from the coal wagons.  These bases were also fitted with five legs (2 at each end and one in the middle) about 10-12mm high to enable the load to sit proud of the coal wagons opening, but below the lip of the wagon.  I then super-glued two metal washers under each end of the wagon load.  These bases were then painted matt black, as an undercoat before the fitting of some white glue and some coal to form the load.  I have found one coal wagon had a dodgy coupler at one end.  So I will need to fit a new KD spring to ensure that the wagon does not get failed when we operate that coal train.

I decided to do some electrical work on Friday.  I purchased some components from Jaycar.  When I got home I soldered everything together and I connected it to a 12V transformer.  I connected a multi-meter to the output of the components, and when I powered it all on, I got a 9V supply.  Just what I wanted.  That was tested on my layout headset system.  This will mean that I wont have to keep buying 9V batteries.  I also spent some time trying to find what is causing the awful noise in the headset system.  I failed.

The next task was to splice in a flashing arrow onto the back of a truck in a road works site.  I purchased this from Gwydir Valley Models at the Armidale Convention.  This flashing sign is controlled by an on/off switch on the layout fascia.  The item is powered by a rectified circuit from the track bus.

I also found out that 5 of my yet to be used power supplies that takes the track bus and rectifies it for use in DC power supplies, had a capacitor connected in reverse.  That was going to be an interesting occasion if these ever got powered up.  I have fixed them all now.

One thing that had been causing me some issues, was the lighting circuit to the Park Road Transhipment Shed.  The lights just stopped working.  I was connecting a battery direct to the building and it all worked.  But It would not work from my rectified power supply straight from the track bus.  I checked things.  I replaced things.  I swapped things around.  I had no success.  But it looks like the real reason was the plugs I have imbedded in to the baseboard.  These plugs allow my good shed to slot into to get a power connection, but it must have been a bad connection.  After almost two days of work on this project, it is now working.

I then started work on adding two switches to the light circuits at Cassino overbridge.  My street lights were put on one circuit and car lights on another.  I am considering adding a few more lights in some surrounding streets.

I am also starting to deploy lights to The Risk Station precinct.  More work to follow here tomorrow.

Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope the big fella in red provided some much wanted items for the layout.  The cricket stars again tomorrow.

Murwillumbah Turntable Completed

Saturday I decided to remove 5 of the eco-lids off of my 12mm grains wagons, turning them back into coal wagons.  I grabbed 5 and completed that task easily while watching the cricket.  Once I had the lids off, I realised that the assembler of these kits had cut holes in the floor near the bogies, to allow the bogies to turn and rock and roll.  So that called for a new base layer of styrene in the hopper to cover those holes.  One of the wagons when I removed the lid, had the inside of the wagon was painted black.  Hmmmm!  That got the brain going.  I was going to paint the new styrene base in the hopper silver.  But now, black seemed to be so much more appropriate given that they would have been used in coal traffic for many years.  So I made up a paint mask, that would allow me to just spray inside the coal hopper and the white styrene floor of the hopper.  The mask prevented any over spray from going on the wagon sides, that had been nicely graffitied.

Simple task, quickly done, and now 5 wagons have moved into Fisherman Islands Yard, and all I need now is a 12mm loco to have then configured as the number two coal train.  Who knows I might do the same work to the other 5 wagons later this week.  I can then split the wagons over the two coal trains.  I do have to still make some coal loads for these wagons.  But that is a task for the Christmas hollidays.

Today I went down to the shed and turned the TV to the cricket.  I connected the track to the turntable at Murwillumbah, and connected the track bus to the turntable.  I cleaned the track on the turntable bridge, and the lead into the turntable, and the loco (X207 – close enough to X217) ran well onto and off the turntable.  I should try and 48 and maybe a 44 or Jumbo during the week just for fun.

I then connected my power supply which produces a rectified 12V DC from the track bus, to the turntable direction switch, replacing the 9V battery which was now only putting out about 6V, and was almost dead.  The power supply drove the turntable well.  Just like a bought one.

I still have plenty to do before next Tuesday but I have plenty of time to do it in.

Murwillumbah Turntable

A few weeks back at a local model train Buy and Sell, I purchased a second hand turntable.  It looked to be about 60’ in size and would have been perfect for placing at Murwillumbah on my layout.  It looked like it had a mechanism, but the sign on it said that the motor was not working.  Well that would have been an easy fix, just replace the 12V motor.  The turntable scales out to about a 64' turntable.  I can put up with that.

On Friday after I finished work, I sat down at the kitchen table and started working on the turntable.  It was well assembled in between a couple of sheets of wood.  I realised that I could remove four screws and the top piece of ply would come off.  Then I saw that there were 4 screws underneath.  That allowed the bottom piece of ply to come off.  Further inspection showed that there were another four screws now revealed and that allowed the styrene outside rim of the turntable to also be removed.  Bit by bit I could peel back the layers.  I was looking into how I could apply power to the rails.  As I dug into it, it became obvious that I could solder wires to two points on the turntable base and that allowed power to be presented to the top rails.  What was interesting with this turntable, was that the whole pit turned with the turntable road.  It turned inside this styrene outer rim.  Not sure people will notice this as it is located in an interesting position on the layout.

As I was pulling the turntable apart, I was looking at how I could apply power to the turntable motor.  It became more accessible whenever I removed a layer.  Eventually the motor came to life.  I used a 9V battery.  There were a few cold solder joints and these were hit with the soldering iron and made good again.  I attached a DPDT centre off switch to the 9V battery and then to the turntable.  The turntable was working in both directions.  Although one direction was very noisy.  I might be able to oil that later.  I was very impressed by my Friday effort.  Everything was re-assembled and it was ready to take back down the shed.  One of the future plans is to remove the battery and replace that with a direct 2V feed from the layout track but which I will rectify.

The other week, I had already marked out where the turntable was to go in Murwillumbah.  I had already drilled a few pilot holes for my jigsaw, and on Saturday at midday I went down to the shed and continued working on the turntable.  I cut out the base for the turntable.  I had to adjust some of the cut lines slightly, and also cut the fascia of the slightly raised section for Murwillumbah around the turntable location.  This fascia was painted up and has started to be glued to the outside of the turntable.   So now it sits nice and snug in the baseboard at Murwillumbah.  I have also mounted the DPDT centre off control switch on the fascia near the turntable to allow operators to control it.  Next weekend I will try and run a loco onto it and off of it.

So today I had no idea where to start.  I made up three wooden buffer stops.  I cut the scale wood, stained it, and when dry, I glued it together.  These were later added to three locations at Murwillumbah.  The head shunt near the Cement Siding.  The Banana Siding got one, as I was sick of people running off the end of that siding, and now the turntable siding got teh last one.  The track leading to the turntable was reattached but one track feed came off when I was moving the track out of teh way to jigsaw the hole in the baseboard.  So that is a job for during the week – one afternoon.

I decided to bite the bullet and investigate why I was having trouble throwing accessory 1223.  This was the crossover on the narrow gauge from track 5 to track 6 in Clapham Yard.  I replaced a point motor and that provided no change.  I then started tracing wires, and it seemed that one of the two Peco point motors, had lost its common connection.  It was just sitting on top of its supposed connection to other common wires.  So I resoldered that back up and Voila, everything started working perfectly again.  I have no idea why this was the case.  The other point motor should have been working correctly.  But no.  Sometimes wiring does my head in.  This issue has been haunting me for over 12 months.  A really simple fix in the end.

Bit by bit, I am ticking off the tasks required to be completed before the upcoming December Operations Session.  I’m still waiting on a few operators to confirm their attendance.  However, the crew roster is starting to fill up.

Careful Planning

On Tuesday 9 of the Tuesday Nighters crew came over.  We start up in the shed, and they grab a yea or coffee and walk around seeing what has changed.  After a while I point out a couple of things that are different.  We then exit the shed and head to the pergola for supper.  It was a good night.

Apart from that, I did not visit the shed until late this arvo, after the cricket finished today.  I spent the weekend, watching the cricket, world cup soccer and V8s.  I ran a few trains, in particular the steel train from Grafton all the way to Acacia Ridge and back again.  I also ran a light engine, a stock train, and a shunt train.  This is just to identify any issues for the upcoming running session in late December.  One wagon has had its bogie adjusted slightly, another loco had its wheels oiled.  I still have about 12 trains to run complete the test run of the timetable.  Hopefully that will be next weekend’s activity. 

I am starting to create a list of tasks to complete before the Operating Session.  So far that consists of only a couple of simple tasks, including clearing the dispatcher’s desk, which doubles as my modelling workbench in the shed.  But it has a whole stack of half completed projects sitting on it.  I also have another list of tasks to complete post the Operating Session.  Some of these will include significant changes to the layout, so I do not want to risk changing something and not having it complete before the Operating Session.  That list includes adding a turntable to Murwillumbah.  But first I will need to fix up the turntable’s motor.  That list also includes some track work at Acacia Ridge Yard.

I will need to change some signs on the various layout fascias before the Operating Session.  I will print these soon.