OO Fictitious Layout depicting my boy hood memories of Warrington/Sankey circa1950 - 69

I'll be watching your various Megapoints installations develop Andrew.

I, rather stupidly but based on stock from a previous layout, have 4 systems operating my points.

I use solenoids operated via Lenz LS150 decoders in one area,  Tortoise operated via a mimic panel in another, solenoids operated via conventional switches in a third area and finally (for now), servos controlled via the Megapoints system.

I too will have an upper level on half the layout so am interested in your "low profile"  MTB1 motors.

RR&Co remains but a dream for now ……..

Hi Andrew, This subject is going in an interesting direction and I think it could run and run !  If you want to keep it out  of your general layout thread then pop into   Layout Design, Trackwork and operation  and start a newTopic, I'll then transfer the relavent posts over and tidy this one up.    Eventually. We will be doing some further housekeeping and will look to create a dedicated area for this type of subject and bring all simular discussions under one roof 
Cheers



Matt

[user=2080]Barchester[/user] wrote:

Hi Andrew, This subject is going in an interesting direction and I think it could run and run !  If you want to keep it out  of your general layout thread then pop into   Layout Design, Trackwork and operation  and start a newTopic, I'll then transfer the relavent posts over and tidy this one up.    Eventually. We will be doing some further housekeeping and will look to create a dedicated area for this type of subject and bring all simular discussions under one roof 
Cheers



Matt

 

Thanks Matt,

I have created a new thread as suggested called  Dentith Bridges Underlying Technology.

Cheers, Andrew  :cheers

Hi Andrew, Relevant posts moved to        Dentith Bridges, Underlying Technology
The odd Welcome from a member may have moved too if it mainly referenced the electrical side

Enjoy your stay with us  :Welcome and I look forward to seeing things develope  :thumbs

Cheers

Matt

Thanks Matt,

Cheers Andrew   :cheers

Hi everyone,

Slow, but steady, progress since Easter. 3.5 boards built now. Board, closest to the camera, has about 3m of track laid. Laying the track takes a lot longer than I expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. (You Tube guys make it look so easy  :mrgreen:)

Board 1 is just about ready to be turned on its side and I will begin work on the wiring, but first I will be testing the Megapoints (MP) network set up, with the Cobalt IP DCC motors at least. All of the MP bits have now arrived and I am looking forward to the switch to electronic stuff for a while  

Cheers :cheers

As long as you are having fun… that's all that matters…. oh…. and keeping us posted on progress…. that is important too. 
Good solid start… nice flowing curves, I'm sure you are aware that paying attention now during track laying to getting the track not only aligned but level will save you a lot of frustration later on. 

Occasionally the frogs of the points can sit high and lead to derailments. check with a steel ruler across the tracks and sand the offending high points down. If you can possibly manage it, try and have a straight section of track leading into the toe of a set of points. 

As well as the peco spacers and a steel rule I've found getting the mark 1 eyeball down to track level like the gangers do can spot an unwelcome kink in the trackwork. Running the longest coach and shortest truck you have over the laid track can help show up inconsistencies or choke points too. 

Looking great, crack on. 

I wish I had had such practical wisdom when I started laying my track - I learned the hard way!  Marty is right though, it's looking very good and solid progress.  My track laying was generally pedestrian at best.  Keep the photos and descriptions coming, I do like follow progress, even if relatively small.
Michael

[user=2199]Andrewdonald[/user] wrote:

Hi everyone,

Slow, but steady, progress since Easter. 3.5 boards built now. Board, closest to the camera, has about 3m of track laid. Laying the track takes a lot longer than I expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. (You Tube guys make it look so easy  :mrgreen:)

Board 1 is just about ready to be turned on its side and I will begin work on the wiring, but first I will be testing the Megapoints (MP) network set up, with the Cobalt IP DCC motors at least. All of the MP bits have now arrived and I am looking forward to the switch to electronic stuff for a while  

Cheers :cheers

Totally agree with the comments about time being well spent on track laying. I continue to regret my impatience!

Looking forward to seeing your MP hook up.

Hi All,

A short update on where I got to on the first board before the start of last week:



One point motor installed, three more to go and then some electrics…..



This where I stopped for the break. A cluster of three point motors - very busy. My points will be powered from the DCC Accessory bus - Blue and Yellow wires. Black and Red are the track feeders and the green wires are the frogs. The three small green boards are voltage detectors that will report back the current "real" position of the points. Long way to go…….

Cheers,

Andrew :cheers

:cheers Nice tidy start

Hi all, it has been a busy weekend at Dentith. As you can see from the picture below, I now have the ability to control trains on my little bit of track and to switch the points, at least via DCC for now. What you see on the board is the DCC Concepts Alpha Power and Alpha Box with my NCE Power Cab throttle hooked in.



A considerable amount of work has gone on beneath the board. I go through the details in my technical thread at L Dentith Bridges Underlying Technology

Cheers Andrew  :cheers

Proof of concept achieved?

Andrew,
While I share everyones admiration for those lovely curves, they don't half get close to the edge mate!! Looking at your flooring,I would imagine anything falling off would be shattered to smithereens! Might be an idea to build in a net on the side of the baseboard below eye level to catch any stock that falls over the edge…just to be on the safe side?

Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

Thanks for your comments John and your advice, it is very welcome.

I intend to put a "backing sheet/wall" along the back edge of the layout and, in turn, that edge will be hard up against the wall its self. Additionally, as the layout grows there will be two more "levels" above the fiddle yard, so hopefully, all will be reasonably secure. I suspect my bigger problem will eventually be access to this lower level to recover derailments, breakdowns and so on :hmm I will certainly need to think the upper level construction through carefully.

Cheers Andrew  :cheers

[user=19]Marty[/user] wrote:

Proof of concept achieved?

Absolutely Marty, thanks. I am really pleased with the result so far. Sorry for the late reply, I thought I had posted this last night…….

Cheers Andrew  :cheers

Hi All, Why has he posted a picture of Weldbond and Copydex I hear you ask……..

Well, the left hand (Up) main line leading off the bend has been glued down (track bed and track) using Weldbond. The track on the right (Down) main line has not been glued yet, but the track bed has been glued down using the Weldbond. The sound of a wagon running on the Up line is much "harsher" than on the Down line. So, I decided to invest in some Copydex to see if the sound id deadened by the latex based glue. I did make a couple of recordings of the different sounds, but I don't know if I can upload the files as they are iphone movies files.

Will report back on the experiment in due course.

[user=2199]Andrewdonald[/user] wrote:

Here a couple of picks of Boards 1 and 2.


Sorry about the rotation issue with the pics, don't know how to fix that yet. …….
:cheers

Andrew,
Edited with updates since original post

I'm guessing you're taking the photos with an iPhone in Portrait mode. iPhone has the annoying habit of embedding (somehow in the Metadata I guess) the orientation info, often not the one you want. It may even try to work out the orientation you wanted? Even "rotating" the image may appear to work but end up back where you were, don't ask me why! PITA!

I suggest one of two options.

My solution:

• download the photo to your PC as an IMG_xxxx.jpg file. (I email it to myself or UBS link)
  
• Open it in a graphics software, I use PaintShopPro but whatever you use #. Adjust if required.
  
• Use the selection tool to choose your area, all or a sub-set and "COPY" (Ctl-C)
  
• "PASTE AS NEW IMAGE" (Ctl-V) - this removes the orientation info. Creates new Version
  
• Rotate new image + / - 90 degrees as appropriate and Save

Work out what does work on your iPhone, make a note of it and stick to using that orientaion for your photos, in either normal or square modes

There is image manipulation software on the iPhone. SWMBO uses it but it's above my pay-grade with me as a tech Luddite.

# most useful for cropping, rotating, other image adjustments, colour analysis etc. Sorry if you know much of this stuff already (or it's the Pleeding Obvious; a subject I specialise in on occasions).

Thanks Colin, I am not ofay with digital photography at all and yes, iPhone is the culprit. I will look at the edit process and see if I can fix the issue that way or revert to my little digital camera that is in the back of the wardrobe somewhere  

Thanks for the tip and cheers,  Andrew
 :cheers

Andrew,


Sorry, I'm rechecking what I put in the post so check back in a while for the corrected version  :roll:


Colin