Please help me decide

I'll go and search for it now, before the boss comes on and tells me off for not looking in the index. Back soon!







Phew! I found it here.

Chinchilla dust is fine for N gauge a lot cheaper than ordinary model shop ballast

Brian

[user=52]henryparrot[/user] wrote:

Chinchilla dust is fine for N gauge a lot cheaper than ordinary model shop ballast

Brian

How do you make dust out of a chinchilla and how many chinchillas would I need? Sounds messy to me! :hmm

You get a chinchilla a cute looking one you slit its throat dry it out in the oven then you grind up the remains into dust

Alternatively you go the pet shop and buy the ready made chinchilla dust.

Brian

I suppose it was obvious really wasn't it? Would that be on gas mark 5 or is that too high?

Seriously though, I will look at these options soon(ish) but I do need to make room in the loft first, you've seen what a mess it is up there!

[user=427]Trainfish[/user] wrote:

How about Minitrix? Is this any good?

Give that a good leaving alone too. Not as bad as Lima, but the new Farish and Dapol models are better.

Thanks Ian, will do. I have got a few Minitrix platform sections on their way (141 to be precise) because I like those. They will be perfect for my station especially once I have painted and weathered them etc. I just hope I have enough as they don't make them any more. I did do a bit of research on Minitrix and it seems they have been about 6 different companies over time so their stuff seems quite varied. Either way, I'll stick with their platforms for now and leave the rolling stock alone. Thanks again.

Well, 2 weeks on since my last post here and I've bought a few bits and pieces to commence 'testing' once I've got rid of the OO stock and lifted the track. I'm not exactly starting a layout yet but will start a thread in the appropriate place once I do.

However, I have a question (or two) which has been covered a thousand times before and I still don't understand all the different answers so maybe if I put my question my own way I'll understand any answers folk are able to offer. Have you guessed what the question is yet? I bet some have. Surprise surprise, it concerns electrofrog points! I've just spent over an hour reading up on this on this forum and the links provided from it too.

I have picked up some really good condition (they look new to me) medium radius electrofrog points, 22 of them for £55 :shock:

Now as far as I can see all that needs doing with these is to put insulated fishplates on both sides of the V. Surely that's it isn't it? There's talk of switches to change polarity etc but I can't for the life of me work out why. To be fair I've only played with a set in front of me and a multi-meter and in theory this should work fine. I will have various droppers on the layout so that won't be a problem. Will someone please tell me, "Yes John, that's all you need to do". If they don't then I'll look again during the day to see if it's a tired mind getting easily confused. I may well regret saying in an earlier post "I am a qualified electrician so if I can't work that out I need shooting", you'll have to supply the gun though. I'm positive that electrically it will work but maybe I'm missing something on the operational side of things, maybe I've missed something with wheels bridging/shorting rails or something.

[user=427]Trainfish[/user] wrote:

I have picked up some really good condition (they look new to me) medium radius electrofrog points, 22 of them for £55 :shock:   that is a good price indeed

Now as far as I can see all that needs doing with these is to put insulated fishplates on both sides of the V. Surely that's it isn't it? yes  There's talk of switches to change polarity etc but I can't for the life of me work out why. mainly so that blades are not just relying on contact to stock rails to pass power To be fair I've only played with a set in front of me and a multi-meter and in theory this should work fine. I will have various droppers on the layout so that won't be a problem. Will someone please tell me, "Yes John, that's all you need to do". If they don't then I'll look again during the day to see if it's a tired mind getting easily confused. I may well regret saying in an earlier post "I am a qualified electrician so if I can't work that out I need shooting", you'll have to supply the gun though. I'm positive that electrically it will work but maybe I'm missing something on the operational side of things, maybe I've missed something with wheels bridging/shorting rails or something. While this thread mainly refers to 00 , it can be used for N as well  http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=1645&forum_id=6

The story of modifying points for DCC - the process can be used for DC as well - the mod takes away the power routing through blades problems that may &  sometimes , does occur.

I suggest you have a read through the Forum index on Points, etc .

Thanks Ron. I do find that an answer is far easier to understand if you (me in this case) have asked the question in the first place as everyone has a different way of asking it so appreciate your time in doing so.

So, electrically I am correct but it would seem that some people aren't confident in relying on the contact between rails to pass the power onwards. I can understand that and can now see how to eliminate it. I suppose on new points it's not generally a problem but maybe over time it can be especially if the spring in the point weakens, or have I missed the 'point' here?

I had already been through the link you suggested, thanks. I also read through about a dozen other pages and I think I have been suffering through a bit of information overload to be honest. I suppose if I'm fitting a switch to change the polarity then I could also tap off this to power signals too on each side of the point, that's probably on one of the pages I've read tonight too.

Anyway, it seems a lot clearer now Ron, thanks very much for that and especially for the way you answered each part.

TF, we are here to help mate ( though to some it may seem like hindering).

Points not only get weaker springs in time but crap/dirt/ whatever gets between blade & stock rails & funny enough, electricity don't like that ! So providing a switch, overcomes crap/dirt/whatever problems.

I appreciate that Ron. I just hadn't thought long term, as you say, "crap/dirt/ whatever gets between blade & stock rails". I was thinking too logically and with perfect conditions etc etc which is what confused me as drawn out on a diagram there will never be a problem. Unfortunately trains don't run on those kind of diagrams.

I want to get this right first time as I don't want to be taking track up again to fit droppers, switches etc. I will be using SEEP PM-1 motors which have switches on already so half the job will be done for me :cool:

One of the lads, sorry can't remember who, Geoff R maybe, was saying that the SEEP PM1's can be a little tricky to fit in respect to getting the polarity switching to work.

Basically the travel of the point throw bar in N gauge is smaller than that in OO (of course) and the smaller travel only just allows the contacts on each side to be reached. The comment was to loosen the screws holding the SEEP to the base board to allow for a bit more movement.

 This comment was posted AFTER I had fitted SEEP PM1's to most of the points on my Henllan station board. As yet I haven't done anything about wiring up the polarity switching but when I do, sometime in the distant future, I'll post up the results.

The only two draw backs that are a personal challenge to me so far are 1) the need to change couplings to allow for shunting without resorting to the hand in the sky and 2) having to retrofit DCC decoders to space limited steam engines.

Problems that can be overcome from what I've read but so far are in my too hard basket.

For the "railway in the landscape" feel they are drawbacks that I can live with.

cheers

The best thing with the SEEPs is not to screw them to the baseboard but use a piece of wood as a spacer so that you have a longer point operating arm. This then allows the arm to travel a bit further than the point tiebar, allowing the built in switch to actually switch.

Better still - ditch the SEEPs and use Tortoises or Cobalts!

My plan with the SEEPs was/is to put a short length of wire (12") on each terminal before fitting. Then to have a small test box with 2x sprung push buttons and 2 LEDs. I can then connect each point to the test box during fitting to make sure they work correctly before final fitting. That could even be my first tutorial if nobody else has done it before :shock:

Marty, there won't be any smelly kettles on my layout, just proper trains, blue with yellow ends so I won't have the problem with retro fitting decoders to those :cool:

Couplings aren't a major issue either at present as I only have passenger coaches which will be fixed formations. In time that may change to include wagons too so I'll need to re-visit that when the time comes. I have bought a 'trial kit' of various pieces of setrack, uncouplers, etc for planning purposes so we'll see how things go with those too.

Ian, that appears to make sense to space the point motors off the board to give a bit more flexibility on the operating arm. I'll also look into tortoise and Cobalts (never heard of those) to find out the advantages of those.

Thanks again to everyone who has responded, you've all been a great help :doublethumb

SMELLY KETTLES,SMELLY KETTLES????
 Shame on you,TF!!!
:It's a no no
:Red Card
Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

I find if you just ignore them, they usually go away John ....................:roll::cheers

I suppose it could be possible to see a smelly kettle on a special excursion at some point but that's a long way off (probably years away).

I have had one small re-think and have decided to wire it all up so it can be either DC or DCC. Shouldn't be particularly difficult to do as I did that with the OO version too. A bit more wiring to sidings and a few switches but that's all that's needed.

I  would say yes! n is a challenging and head aching reward:thumbs