Wire in Tube help needed

[nimbamoss]

Hi,

Doing some surface mounted point motors on my fiddle yard, planning to use MP1 type but due to having limited access to the underside I am mounting the motors on the top and planning to use wire in tube method to operate them (PECO code 75  OO gauge) I have removed the springs but look for su[[liers for the wire in tube, does anyoe have any suggestions? theay are only straight line to points.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Ian

[John Isherwood]

1 minute ago, nimbamoss said:

Hi,

Doing some surface mounted point motors on my fiddle yard, planning to use MP1 type but due to having limited access to the underside I am mounting the motors on the top and planning to use wire in tube method to operate them (PECO code 75  OO gauge) I have removed the springs but look for su[[liers for the wire in tube, does anyoe have any suggestions? theay are only straight line to points.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Ian

 

Google PTFE micro-tubing, then Google spring steel wire to match the ID of your chosen PTFE tube.

 

CJI.

[nimbamoss]

Just a thought, can I use 4mm airline?
TPE, PE or polyethylene?

 

Ian

[John Isherwood]

1 minute ago, nimbamoss said:

Just a thought, can I use 4mm airline?
TPE, PE or polyethylene?

 

Ian

 

Far too big - mine is 1.0mm. OD; the steel wire is 0.5mm. dia. - works a treat!

 

CJI.

[figworthy]

https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/signals/wire-tube-control-pack-sm4/

 

Nickel Silver wire with PTFE tube.

 

Adrian

[John Isherwood]

1 hour ago, figworthy said:

https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/signals/wire-tube-control-pack-sm4/

 

Nickel Silver wire with PTFE tube.

 

Adrian

 

Depending on the quantity needed, online purchase of generic product is much cheaper.

 

Spring steel wire is far more resistant to kinking / distortion, too.

 

CJI.

[The Bandit]

Radio controlled model aircraft suppliers have tubes and wire combined. It’s not that expensive and the wire is robust - I cut mine using a dremel. Hope this helps.

[T0ny]

How about that old fashioned curtain tube? It's a bit like the cable tubing used for bicycle brake cable.

[John Isherwood]

12 hours ago, T0ny said:

How about that old fashioned curtain tube? It's a bit like the cable tubing used for bicycle brake cable.

 

Far too bulky - fine bore PTFE tube and steel wire is the way to go, and very cheap, if bought as generic material rather than as a proprietory point operating kit.

 

CJI.

[Bristol_Rich]

Bike gear cable is finer than bike brake cable…can be bent and negotiated with ease.

[stewartingram]

Try electronics suppliers for polythene tubing. The likes of RS Components, Farnell, etc.

[John Isherwood]

11 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

Try electronics suppliers for polythene tubing. The likes of RS Components, Farnell, etc.

 

Stewart,

 

Polythene is horrible, sticky stuff.

 

When I did my recent layout build, I had to hand a sample pack of a certain (expensive) proprietory brand of point control comprising, nowadays, of PTFE microtubing and matching steel piano wire. It used to be steel wire in copper tubing - Mercontrol?

 

As I needed quite a bit, I sourced the PTFE tubing via a Google search - dead cheap; and the steel piano wire via a school science equipment supplier - also dead cheap and via a Google search.

 

It is entirely successful, being stapled beneath the baseboards, and is very low profile. I picked-up some brass bell-cranks for 90 degree bends, also via Google.

 

John Isherwood.

Edited December 1, 2023 by cctransuk

[stewartingram]

That may have been a glorious typo! When I was working for Pye/Philips, I acquired a stash of tubing which I used for point control (& still have some). I typed polythene without thinking - just substitute PTFE! Used as wire insulation at work, that fact is also useful if you wish to feed it between the sleepers to cross tracks.

[LSWRArtilary]

Hi John,

I have just picked up this thread as I am starting on a new layout.

You said "The PTFE tube is entirely successful, being stapled beneath the baseboards", so a few questions:

- At the turnout what did you do?  Did you just put a right angle bend in the steel wire to engage with the hole in the tie-bar?

- Didn't the staples squidge the tube?  I'm assuming you used a staple gun to drive them direct into the wood?

- What did you use at the baseboard edge to operate the point?  The old GEM point levers were good, but are now difficult to find, although sometimes you seem something similar for a fiver on Google.  Peco SL-928 looks OK, but at £11.50 list is ridiculously expensive.  I don't like the modern GEM ones which stick up, as I am likely to knock and break them if I put them along the front of the layout, so interested to read what you used.

My other idea was to position servos along the front edge of the layout with just the crank appearing above the baseboard surface.  I don't really want to put servos under the points as I find crawling under boards increasingly difficult.

Steward - where did you work at Pye?  I was at TVT '71 - '83.

Regards to all,

Arthur

 

[John Isherwood]

3 hours ago, LSWRArtilary said:

Hi John,

I have just picked up this thread as I am starting on a new layout.

You said "The PTFE tube is entirely successful, being stapled beneath the baseboards", so a few questions:

- At the turnout what did you do?  Did you just put a right angle bend in the steel wire to engage with the hole in the tie-bar?

- Didn't the staples squidge the tube?  I'm assuming you used a staple gun to drive them direct into the wood?

- What did you use at the baseboard edge to operate the point?  The old GEM point levers were good, but are now difficult to find, although sometimes you seem something similar for a fiver on Google.  Peco SL-928 looks OK, but at £11.50 list is ridiculously expensive.  I don't like the modern GEM ones which stick up, as I am likely to knock and break them if I put them along the front of the layout, so interested to read what you used.

My other idea was to position servos along the front edge of the layout with just the crank appearing above the baseboard surface.  I don't really want to put servos under the points as I find crawling under boards increasingly difficult.

Steward - where did you work at Pye?  I was at TVT '71 - '83.

Regards to all,

Arthur

 

 

Not sure about connection to tie-bar - poor memory, and I am currently in Greece! (Probably just a bend).

 

Staples, via staple gun, did not adversely affect tube.

 

Baseboard edge - cheapo slide switches from electronic suppliers. Drill slider to take soldered connector - which I made up from brass threaded inserts from Aliexpress and matching steel bolts / nuts. This allows fine adjustment of the length of the wire / throw of the tie-bar.

 

The slide switches alter the frog polarity - all nice an mechanically simple!

 

I've a feeling - without checking - that there is a diagram in this thread somewhere.

 

CJI.

 

Sorry - it would seem that my layout build thread has been deleted / lost. Contact me in a couple of weeks if you need further details.

Edited July 5 by cctransuk

[John Isherwood]

17 hours ago, LSWRArtilary said:

Hi John,

I have just picked up this thread as I am starting on a new layout.

You said "The PTFE tube is entirely successful, being stapled beneath the baseboards", so a few questions:

- At the turnout what did you do?  Did you just put a right angle bend in the steel wire to engage with the hole in the tie-bar?

- Didn't the staples squidge the tube?  I'm assuming you used a staple gun to drive them direct into the wood?

- What did you use at the baseboard edge to operate the point?  The old GEM point levers were good, but are now difficult to find, although sometimes you seem something similar for a fiver on Google.  Peco SL-928 looks OK, but at £11.50 list is ridiculously expensive.  I don't like the modern GEM ones which stick up, as I am likely to knock and break them if I put them along the front of the layout, so interested to read what you used.

My other idea was to position servos along the front edge of the layout with just the crank appearing above the baseboard surface.  I don't really want to put servos under the points as I find crawling under boards increasingly difficult.

Steward - where did you work at Pye?  I was at TVT '71 - '83.

Regards to all,

Arthur

 

 

Connection to tie-bar - remember now, it is a device fabricated from half a small brass hinge.

 

Details when I return home.

 

CJI.

[LSWRArtilary]

Thank you.  That is really helpful and I like your solution for point operation and switching - , cheap, neat, low profile and reliable.

If you could post the tie-bar info and, if possible, a photo of the switch and its linkage when you get home that would be really helpful.

Have a great holiday. We are looking forward to Crete in September.

All the best

Arthur

[John Isherwood]

3 hours ago, LSWRArtilary said:

Thank you.  That is really helpful and I like your solution for point operation and switching - , cheap, neat, low profile and reliable.

If you could post the tie-bar info and, if possible, a photo of the switch and its linkage when you get home that would be really helpful.

Have a great holiday. We are looking forward to Crete in September.

All the best

Arthur

 

Arthur,

 

With help from AndyY, I have located my layout build topic -

I would recommend reading the whole thread for context - the point control diagram is on page 3.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[DCB]

  I am not sure     @cctransuk   needed a tube,   His wires ran straight so just needed a rigid rod or wire .   Likewise a short push pull rod between a point motor and a point does not need much tube if its rigid enough.   Piano wire or small bore brass tube  doesn't need much support, soft iron, bowden cable, copper or brass wire rely on the outer tube so I would avoid them of straight runs.  Curves are a different matter.  I would copy the full size, very gentle curves with bell cranks for more substantial direction changes

On 15/11/2023 at 16:12, nimbamoss said:

I have removed the springs but look for su[[liers for the wire in tube, does anyoe have any suggestions? theay are only straight line to points.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Ian

 I am not familiar with the MP1 motors but if they are not stall motor types I would use the points built in springs to ensure the blades don't move under trains.  My experiences with points without springs have not been good, there is always too much slop in the mechanism to keep the blades hard against the stock rail.  Peco point springs used outside don't like cold damp English winters (and Cold Damp English Summers / Spring / Fall) so my experiment have been towards avoiding the tedium of changing the springs ) 

[John Isherwood]

10 hours ago, DCB said:

  I am not sure     @cctransuk   needed a tube,   His wires ran straight so just needed a rigid rod or wire .

 

Not so - it may appear thus from the plan, but some curves proved necessary in practice.

 

CJI.

Edited July 7 by cctransuk

[CloggyDog]

My standard is 1/16" square brass tube (KSMetals) with 0.7mm brass wire. 

 

At the tiebar end it's simply bent 90deg through one of the tiebar holes. As I use manual operation, at the other end it has the innards of a 'chocbloc' screwed on to form a handle of sorts. 

 

 

Edited July 9 by CloggyDog

[LSWRArtilary]

On 07/07/2024 at 06:59, cctransuk said:

 

Not so - it may appear thus from the plan, but some curves proved necessary in practice.

 

CJI.

Thanks John,  Most interesting.  A really enjoyable read and helping to incentivise me to get on with mine.

At the moment I have to move a lathe to the garage (brick built and dry) and I am also chucking out hundreds of old railway magazines to give me some space to actually erect a new layout.

Arthur

[John Tomlinson]

On 15/11/2023 at 19:00, figworthy said:

https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/signals/wire-tube-control-pack-sm4/

 

Nickel Silver wire with PTFE tube.

 

Adrian

 

I've used this, works a treat!

 

John.

[John Isherwood]

52 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

I've used this, works a treat!

 

John.

 

You'll find that the generic materials, sourced as in my linked post, is MUCH cheaper.

 

CJI.

Edited July 8 by cctransuk