RMweb Premium polybear Posted June 16, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 16, 2020 On 14/06/2020 at 10:54, 84f said: Hello Gordon, wow I have just finished working through to the end from page 1 over a series of lockdown binge reading sessions! Your joinery and trackbuilding are a real inspiration and I intend to adopt many of your methods, so thank you for documenting. Especially pertinent as I have been refining my Templot plan ready to start ordering timber, etc. for my new layout which will be to 00-SF standards I have built PCB track to 00-SF and EM standards in the past and I intend to continue with that, as I much prefer soldered construction. I have made some test builds using Masokits etched chairs from Michael Clarke, although fiddly to fold up and build (read, therapeutic), I am very pleased with the appearance. As my layout will centre around a goods station I think the lack of chairs will be more noticeable than on a sweeping swathe of mainline. My only concern is that it is more difficult to tweak. Anwyay, I do have one question for you if I may. I was rather taken aback by the current price of pcb strip from the main suppliers which works at around £10 per yard of plain track. Although my layout will not be in the same league as ET, the expenditure will be significant, withe 20 turnouts iin the scenic section. So I have been experimenting with cutting the strip from 100 *150 mm board using a Proxxon FET table saw, and the results are now promising, after some initial failures and a modification to the table to stop the cut sleepers falling through. I am using the resin coated paper board, rather than glass fibre, but the dust and fumes still need some PPE. The cost is about 20% of the ready cut stuff. I did note that you seemed quite happy cutting your own at one time, but have gone back to buying strip from Marcway, so my question is, what was your rational for that? I am also considering experimenting with my band saw if I can work out the best blade for the purpose, I have a 14tpi blade, but I suspect 28 tpi maybe better. Cheers Robin Is there any chance you could expand a bit on the method, blade etc. you use when cutting pcb please - do you have any special jigs, fences etc. to assist you, or is the standard Proxxon Fence fine? Are Masokits still offering their etched chair system - the last time I saw their Catalogue I could find no mention of them. I have experimented with them before, but did find them very time consuming. Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
84f Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 18 hours ago, polybear said: Is there any chance you could expand a bit on the method, blade etc. you use when cutting pcb please - do you have any special jigs, fences etc. to assist you, or is the standard Proxxon Fence fine? Are Masokits still offering their etched chair system - the last time I saw their Catalogue I could find no mention of them. I have experimented with them before, but did find them very time consuming. Thanks I use the Proxxon 28630 250 tooth blade raised to the highest level so it gets a good bite. There is no splintering of the copper and after cutting 30 metres there is no noticeable wear. Blade is available on Amazon for £17.40. Mind you it might be a different story if cutting fr4 glass fibre boards, I am using fr2 standard SRBP paper based board. And they are cheap - those 30 meters used up 10 x 100mm * 160mm boards at about £12.50 total cost from Rapid. Still need to use PPE precautions to protect against dust etc. The Proxxon has a plastic plate inset in the table around the blade with a 4mm gap on the cutting side to allow for the blade to tilt for mitre cutting, a bit of an issue when cutting strips of 4mm or less. I made a replacement plate from aluminium with a 1mm gap which solves that one, albeit at the cost of not being able to fit the safety guard. I use a length of hardwood to hold down the work and the supplied Proxxon pusher, so keep my fingers well out of the way. I do use the standard fence, but it is not the best design as it is only attached to the front of the table. It is fiddly to get right, I use a set square to line it up and tighten down really firmly. And check it hasn't moved every 10 or so cuts. Once set up my results are are +/- 05 mm at each end - good enough for my eyes. Hope this helps, do let me know if you want any more details. I have just sent Michael Clark a cheque for a new batch of etchings so I hope he is still supply, otherwise I will need to find a plan B. Last lot I bought was in 2018, but they are still listed on the Masokits product catalogue currently available to download from the Scalefour website. I just checked that and it is dated 2017, so fingers crossed, will update further when I hear from Michael. Cheers Robin 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium polybear Posted June 17, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 17, 2020 Hi Robin, That's excellent - many thanks for taking the trouble to give such a detailed answer As regards Masokits, I'd missed the entry in the Catalogue for track chairs so hopefully they are still available after all... Cheers, Brian 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 18, 2020 Author Share Posted June 18, 2020 Hi Robin Welcome to the strange world of ET.... Sincere apologies for not replying earlier as to be honest I hadn't seen your post until a few minutes ago. One of the downsides of RMweb is that the throughput of posts is very rapid indeed and posts can be off the first page in 30 minutes. I've had my head down working on several projects, more of which later, and whilst I have checked in a couple of times each day, your posts had long since gone and it wasn't until I came to update a few minutes ago, did they appear. I will need to revisit cutting PCB material as I had several saw blades for my small Proxxon saw and can't recall which gave the best results. I only returned to pre cut strips as I had some on order, but have to agree the price is now eye watering and cutting it yourself has to be the way forward. One of the things I have been working on is my idea of a mimic panel for ET, so that I may have some idea of what is going on whilst trains are trundling around, four at a time. I've had various thoughts about how to create such a panel and the obvious answer was do it in Templot. I was fascinated by the maths calculations of how to draw the plan on screen which would then reduce to a reasonable page size, yet still give you the required track width and parallel track spacing that was dictated by the led bezels. After looking round various designs, I came to the conclusion that red/green led's would be so much better than the plain green ones I had purchased from Hatton's some weeks earlier. I must say Hatton's were brilliant as I explained that they hadn't been touched since delivery and Covid lockdown and a dozen other things had stopped me using them. Despite having a 14 day return policy, they happily took back the plain green ones and changed them over. It's always nice to sing the praises of our suppliers as they've had a difficult time and yet, customer service from some is still outstanding. Another RMwebber (Grassinthesky), very kindly pointed me towards this video where the guy was building a similar mimic/control panel with an ECoS controller. It really was a very well put together video and helped considerably. Inspired by this, I started playing around in Templot and over a two or three weeks, Martin W made various updates to Templot that allowed the generation of a mimic panel. I've spent many hours clicking away on screen exploring various options and something is starting to appear that could be workable and achieve my goal of being able to set routes through ET station that are clearly visible to anyone operating the layout. I hope to have tracks 1-4 with numerous arrival and destination points. The Holy Grail will be to identify routes in and out of the various parts of the station, sidings, diesel shed, traverser and main loco shed to any other part of the layout. I feel fairly confident that I can cover 90% of the options with just 10% being hand selected. The big plus will be all the wiring within the control panel is plug and play and the only connection to the layout proper will be two wires to the main operating bus. Here's the schematic as of this afternoon. I now need to spend another few days playing around with the aesthetics and then I'll build a dummy panel to make sure there are no clashes between switches and led's in the heavy populated areas. Interesting times ahead, although domestic demands such as raised flower beds and fitting windows to a shed will probably take precedence.... Not to mention the odd game of golf... 6 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted June 18, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 18, 2020 2 minutes ago, gordon s said: ........ and fitting windows to a shed will probably take precedence.... .... so you are finally letting Sam have some light? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 18, 2020 Author Share Posted June 18, 2020 She still looks as fit as ever. Not aged a bit in all those years...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted June 18, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 18, 2020 ..... but nothing grows in the shade. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 18, 2020 Author Share Posted June 18, 2020 (edited) For those of you new to ET, you probably don't have a clue what we're talking about.... After I retired, I met a new fishing buddy named Sam. Sam loves to fish as much as I do. My wife has never met Sam and always feels that I spend too much time fishing. The other day I took a picture of Sam holding up two nice bass that we caught, I showed the picture to my wife. Now my wife says that I can't go fishing with Sam anymore and wants me to sell the boat. Guess she doesn't like me enjoying myself with my fishing buddy! Maybe it's because Sam is a better fisherman than she is, I don't know. What would you do? Tell her to forget it and continue fishing with Sam, OR Quit fishing and sell the boat? Please help me out. Scroll down to see the picture of Sam, and the bass we caught. Edited June 18, 2020 by gordon s 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted June 18, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 18, 2020 A nice pair, I must say. 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwordsmith Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 33 minutes ago, gordon s said: For those of you new to ET, you probably don't have a clue what we're talking about.... After I retired, I met a new fishing buddy named Sam. Sam loves to fish as much as I do. My wife has never met Sam and always feels that I spend too much time fishing. The other day I took a picture of Sam holding up two nice bass that we caught, I showed the picture to my wife. Now my wife says that I can't go fishing with Sam anymore and wants me to sell the boat. Guess she doesn't like me enjoying myself with my fishing buddy! Maybe it's because Sam is a better fisherman than she is, I don't know. What would you do? Tell her to forget it and continue fishing with Sam, OR Quit fishing and sell the boat? Please help me out. Scroll down to see the picture of Sam, and the bass we caught. I used to partake in sea angling many years ago When we had a house in a County Cork, and came second in the Munster open sea angling competition with a pair of fish. one of them was a 12.5 Lb Sea Bass, the other was a 1lb mackerel that it had eaten. I would have come first, had a friend of mine not kicked the bass in the stomach forcing its dinner to regurgitate. It was the only time I’ve ever won a fishing trophy, and got to eat the winnings! mind you my mate Sam didn’t look like yours! 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted June 18, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 18, 2020 On the subject of fishing, have you sorted the heron, problem? A nice pair, by the way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted June 18, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 18, 2020 (edited) Sadly no. I investigated electric fences and whilst they appear to be a solution, they work by tracking the voltage back to earth and any overhanging plants, bushes or trees etc that touch the wire, track the voltage to earth and effectively make it useless. I did suggest to my wife that we cut down a lot of her plants around the pond, but that fell on deaf ears...... Next thing was to put up a wi fi camera which I have done. It saves me having to get up and wander to the back of the house, but the first few days were spent watching the live stream on my iPad to see what time they came in and what they did. Unfortunately herons thrive before 5am and once my body clock found a trigger point, I was up at the crack of dawn every morning on sentry duty. I'm experimenting now with a combination of fishing wire and screens around the edge made from wooden frames with plastic mesh netting. As always it's a compromise between protection and the visual impact. I will hopefully come up with a solution, but once you start watching herons, you realise just how intelligent they are. The other morning I watched one case the joint for 20 minutes or so, only to disappear behind an iris and a 6" goldfish went. She had been spawning and went behind the iris to get a breather from the amorous males chasing her all round the pond, only to find her life ended there. The tiniest gap and the heron was in so fast and gone. I had to review the recording several times to see what had happened. Losing a goldfish or two is not the end of the world as they breed profusely and I have too many. Losing small, home bred koi is another matter..... I was saddened to hear a couple of days ago that Willie Thorne had passed, just aged 66. We lived in Newmarket in the 80's and there was never a lot to do until Willie opened a snooker club in the town. I played there two or three times a week and my wife did bar work there a couple of evenings. He was a really nice guy and the club was very popular. Just 66, was no age at all. Worse than that though, my BiL who has not been 100% for a while went to the hospital for a review yesterday after some tests expecting to be given the all clear. Nothing could be further from the truth and he was told he has 12 months with chemo or 6 months without....Needless to say, his wife and children are devastated..... These things just put everything in perspective and minor things that seem important or a problem at the time are irrelevant really........ Edited June 18, 2020 by gordon s 22 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_H Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 5 hours ago, gordon s said: Wow, she would certainly give Jessica a run for her money! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted June 18, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 18, 2020 6 hours ago, gordon s said: After I retired, I met a new fishing buddy named Sam. Sam loves to fish as much as I do. Where was Sven when all this was going on? 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 I wonder what shall I have for breakfast this morning?...... Just sat and watched this b*gger land on a 2" diameter post and then survey the surrounds for a full 10 minutes. Can't believe the size of them and their ability to balance on such a small surface area. Thankfully the fishing wire stopped him getting down to water level. Steptoe's Yard on the other side is just a temporary lash up until I have time to build something properly.... Oh well, it's raining and a mimic diagram awaits... 6 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 19, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 19, 2020 https://www.kiteworld.co.uk/acatalog/X-Kites-Bird-Of-Prey-Hawk.html Would one of these or a similar bird help? Someone near us has re seeded his garden and has a large black raven(?) flying and doing an excellent job of keeping the riff raff at bay, looks realistic from a distance. Mike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_H Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 Beautiful bird, Sam …. Heron? … who knows? Perhaps both! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 (edited) Nice idea, Mike, but surely that needs wind and we're quite sheltered. Does it sit atop a long stiff wire attached to the ground? I don't really fancy standing in the garden from 04.30 - 07.00am every day....... Edited June 19, 2020 by gordon s 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 19, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 19, 2020 (edited) They're not supposed to need much wind allegedly, the one near me is tethered to an about 7 or 8 foot high pole on a 3 foot long piece of string type stuff. A flexible pole with some whip in it. Mike. Edited June 19, 2020 by Enterprisingwestern Further clarification. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hitchin Junction Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 On 18/06/2020 at 08:12, gordon s said: Hi Robin Welcome to the strange world of ET.... Sincere apologies for not replying earlier as to be honest I hadn't seen your post until a few minutes ago. One of the downsides of RMweb is that the throughput of posts is very rapid indeed and posts can be off the first page in 30 minutes. I've had my head down working on several projects, more of which later, and whilst I have checked in a couple of times each day, your posts had long since gone and it wasn't until I came to update a few minutes ago, did they appear. I will need to revisit cutting PCB material as I had several saw blades for my small Proxxon saw and can't recall which gave the best results. I only returned to pre cut strips as I had some on order, but have to agree the price is now eye watering and cutting it yourself has to be the way forward. One of the things I have been working on is my idea of a mimic panel for ET, so that I may have some idea of what is going on whilst trains are trundling around, four at a time. I've had various thoughts about how to create such a panel and the obvious answer was do it in Templot. I was fascinated by the maths calculations of how to draw the plan on screen which would then reduce to a reasonable page size, yet still give you the required track width and parallel track spacing that was dictated by the led bezels. After looking round various designs, I came to the conclusion that red/green led's would be so much better than the plain green ones I had purchased from Hatton's some weeks earlier. I must say Hatton's were brilliant as I explained that they hadn't been touched since delivery and Covid lockdown and a dozen other things had stopped me using them. Despite having a 14 day return policy, they happily took back the plain green ones and changed them over. It's always nice to sing the praises of our suppliers as they've had a difficult time and yet, customer service from some is still outstanding. Another RMwebber (Grassinthesky), very kindly pointed me towards this video where the guy was building a similar mimic/control panel with an ECoS controller. It really was a very well put together video and helped considerably. Inspired by this, I started playing around in Templot and over a two or three weeks, Martin W made various updates to Templot that allowed the generation of a mimic panel. I've spent many hours clicking away on screen exploring various options and something is starting to appear that could be workable and achieve my goal of being able to set routes through ET station that are clearly visible to anyone operating the layout. I hope to have tracks 1-4 with numerous arrival and destination points. The Holy Grail will be to identify routes in and out of the various parts of the station, sidings, diesel shed, traverser and main loco shed to any other part of the layout. I feel fairly confident that I can cover 90% of the options with just 10% being hand selected. The big plus will be all the wiring within the control panel is plug and play and the only connection to the layout proper will be two wires to the main operating bus. Here's the schematic as of this afternoon. I now need to spend another few days playing around with the aesthetics and then I'll build a dummy panel to make sure there are no clashes between switches and led's in the heavy populated areas. Interesting times ahead, although domestic demands such as raised flower beds and fitting windows to a shed will probably take precedence.... Not to mention the odd game of golf... Have you looked at JMRI at all? It has a huge following and support group. Pretty much all aspects of model railway control are already covered. Tim 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium martin_wynne Posted June 19, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 19, 2020 A new video is now online, showing how Gordon created his mimic panel diagram in Templot: https://flashbackconnect.com/Default.aspx?id=MK235-KMuTqJodwEqNgimg2 cheers, Martin. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 I think I may be too far down the road now, Tim. I have an ECoS plus 5 NCE Switch 8's and now all the led's etc from DCC Concepts. I'm always happy to listen to suggestions, but my limited understanding is that I'll need block sections and a lot more equipment. I'm happy to invest a few bob, but I get the impression it would be quite an outlay. By all means tell me I'm mistaken....... Hot off the press, here's the first panel of my mimic panel from Templot. Overall I'm pleased with how it's looking, but still much to do. The yellow dots are possible switch positions. I'm unsure about switches at this stage. This is starting out as a mimic panel with all the route setting done within the ECoS. My thoughts are you have lines 1-4 and numerous routes available to each line. The route setting will automatically take care of the turnouts and the mimic panel will let me easily see what is set. The odd few percent where manual intervention is required, can be done via the ECoS. I have had a few words with DCC Concepts re routes as there may be an option to set routes externally and then feed the data back into the ECoS. These notes are from the ECoS manual and may make sense to electronics/DCC experts. It all relates to the s88 contacts. Hopefully it will make sense to someone..... All in all it's been a reasonable day and I hope to get this project under way in the next few weeks. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted June 20, 2020 Author Share Posted June 20, 2020 (edited) Another 5am alarm call..... The b*gger limbo’d under various items of garden furniture and then, believe it or not, stuck his head through the emergency trellis I put up and helped himself. It’s in the first few seconds of the video and you may need to zoom in to the iris......and turn the quality up to 1080HD. Totally ignored the water jet, so that’s useless. I’m gonna need finer mesh and bigger screens......or a shotgun... Edited June 20, 2020 by gordon s 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted June 20, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 20, 2020 BB gun? Won't kill it but will hurt so may disuade them. You can get one ready for action in a nice 1/16 scale radio controlled Challenger 2 tank.. Baz 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 Buy a cat which lives outside but hates fish !! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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