Semaphore kitbashing begun

This week in between other commitments I made a start on adding a working lamp to the Ratio semaphore. In hindsight and on future conversions I will do the following actions BEFORE assembling it! Retrofitting is a tad problematic.

I started by drilling out the lamp 'lens' straight through to the back end. Then taking the knife I started opening up the round drill hole into a rectangle to accept the SMD LED I had purchased from LedBaron. I was working with the magnifying glasses headband but after a while of being EXTREMELY careful with the razor sharp knife I was getting crosseyed trying to see what I was doing. There had to be another way? The next day I thought of using a rotary burr in my rotary tool. That night I checked what I had but the smallest burr I had was too big. I needed something 1mm or smaller in diameter to fit into the drilled out hole with sufficient room to carve out more material. The following day a bit of research on the Dremel page (my rotary tool isn't a Dremel but I was hoping for maybe a 'standard' amongst these tools?) and I found too bits that fitted the bill. Both were 0.8mm in diameter. One was a round burr and the other a straight sided cutter. The latter one was sounding really promising. I picked these up from Bunnings that night after one of my commitments. By the time I got home it was too late to do any modelling. The following night I was going to give it a whirl. When I got to it and went to insert the straight sided bit into the collet, the shaft was smaller than what the collet would accept. I rummaged amongst the bits tray but nothing smaller. I needed a 3/32" collet. Back to the Dremel site and they had such a beasty. I was able to pick up said collet from a hardware in the city on Friday. A quick check Friday night and the collet fitted the shaft and the bit went in perfectly. I'd had a few reds Friday evening so wasn't going to tempt fate on something so small, so I would have to wait until Saturday night. 

Saturday night came and so did a reasonably sober Greg ;-) With magnifying headband on, and the tool spinning away like a mad thing, it was time to make a start. Ever so carefully I sliced away plastic a fraction at a time and tried the LED fit bit by bit. I finally got to a point where the LED fitted into the space. A dabs of superglue and the LED was installed. I forgot to mention that earlier in the week I had applied some Tamiya Clear Orange onto the LED lens to imitate a incandescent lamp.

Tonight I temporarily wired up a 9V battery and resistor to the lamp and it worked. A bit too bright in my opinion so will need to tinker around with the resistor to really crank the brightness down to something more prototypical. I'm pretty sure that semaphore lamps were fairly dull in brightness rather than spotlight bright!

I had taken some photos to put up but just found that they were out of focus ever so slightly. I will retake this with another camera through the week and upload. Maybe I will complete the kitbash by gluing down the wires along the post, paint white and black where required, and glue the other fixtures (ladder, hoop, etc) to the post. Then it should be ready to connect to a servo and test this feature.

So that might be what the upcoming week will be about. Still no progress with the Pi and JMRI. Having too much fun with the modelling at the moment, which is the purpose of the hobby is it not?

Not much this week

This week has been busy getting over the events of last weekend, otherwise known as The Big Blow ;-)

I did purchase some tins of Humbrol paint, epoxy filler (just in case of poor fitting), and some paint brushes ready for when I glue up the Dapol kits purchased awhile back.

I posted an earlier update to my written articles page, and that was about it.

Hopefully a better week this week re modelling or getting back to the Pi.

'Articles that I have written' page updated

I have been a bit tardy re this page and only just realised that I hadn't updated with respect to the article I wrote for Continental Modeller back in 2011 on installing a Loksound Select into a Trainorama NSWGR 44 Class!

I have updated it with a copy of the article, which looks so much better than my submitted notes to the magazine!

Servo module works!

Not much this week. I was able to solder up the MERG CANACC8 module and do the necessary conversions to make it a CANSERVO8 server driver. After confirmation of a suspicion I had by a fellow MERG member here in Brisbane I had to make up the servo plug board from a piece of veroboard / stripboard. I did this today. I then connected it up to my experimental CBUS network and reprogrammed the PIC with a new driver file for the first time. I connected up a servo to the plugboard and was able to set the servo travel points. Yes I did every thing correctly and it works!

The other thing I did was raise a problem within the MERG Forum about the ability to broadcast the DCC stopping/braking bit in order to protect points/turnouts, similar to the commercial products available from www.dccbitswitch.com. It was a discussion point a number of years ago but didn't really get resolved with any standalone circuits at the time, however I have stirred up the hornets' nest! Lets see where this goes. The other option is to use JMRI to do the approriate monitoring of sensors and issue the relevant commands. Further research into this.

While I am typing this blog we here in the south east of Queensland are experiencing cyclonic winds and driving rain from ex Cyclone Oswald. Apparently going to get much worse tonight. I've spent the afternoon clearing yard drains and watching one of my trees slowly split down the middle of its trunk and have a very large branch perched precariously over my little garden shed. Hopefully it gradually gets closer to the ground and may just need a little encouragement to go the rest of the way.

STOP PRESS
As I was compiling the above blog late this afternoon (around 5:30pm) there was an ungodly crack from the back yard. I thought there goes the rest of the split trunk, but upon saying that to the missus she looked out the kitchen window and said "The whole tree has come down and hit the garden shed!" Out I went to survey the damage. What an impressive sight! Basically the centre of the tree trunk has exploded. Fortunately it fell into our yard and not into one of the neighbours' and caused damage. Unfortunately the 3x3m garden shed which I put up in 2011 will need to be replaced. Fortunately though it looks like the big shed survived without damage. Tomorrow will tell when I get out there with the bow saw and make start on the branch reduction in order to get to the door of the garden shed so as to clean it out! Hopefully the winds will have died down during the night and I can get on with it.

Earlier in the afternoon Lachlan and I put polytarps over our layouts in the big shed just in case the rain got up under the eaves.

So this week Lord knows now! Maybe I'll put together the servo mounting bracket and investigate further JMRI (semi) automation. Also the Raspberry Pi beckons but I am pretty sure I won't have time this week.

Kensington Hill Stockyard platform done!

This week I spent modelling the stock yard platform for the Kensington Hill yard. Basically the same method as the goods platform with a plywood support covered in Scalescene's brick and bitumen paper. This was followed by two coats of Dullcote to hopefully set the paper's ink. Not sure if this works or whether I should have used a Matt Finish spray, but I am pretty sure that is what Dullcote is anyway!

While this was drying one night, I then took a Ratio Concrete Fence Posts kit and painted up 20 of the concrete fence posts, along with the gates, hinges, and some signs, ready for placement towards the weekend.

Friday night I drilled the holes in the platform to accept the fence posts. These were then glued in.

Saturday I woke up feeling RS as I had been progressively coming down with something from about Wednesday. Probably the virus that was going through the family and I was the last one to accept the baton! So while waiting for the doctor's appointment to come at 2pm I was fortunate to spend the morning on the model. While the children were conveniently watching a movie I spent an hour or so threading fine copper wire through the fence posts. These looked good but could be better as the copper colour wasn't right. I then remembered I had purchased a metallic silver paint pen ages ago. I painted this over the copper and it now looks right (like barbed wire). I then went around and touched up the gray of the fence posts. The gates were superglued to their posts. One set looks a bit skew if but I am putting that down to wear and tear on them! I then used a couple of paper staples bent to the desired form to use as the gate hasps. These were superglued on and then painted gray. Looking really good now.

Sheep were superglued in and the appropriate droppings painted on the bitumen floor. There was also a few plastic poos in the Ratio kit so these were added to give a 3D effect ;-)

Nothing else was done other than a casual glance at the Raspberry Pi forum and reading the MERG Journal.

I read over at Mr Mackie's blog that the Auscision 73 Class is due sometime in February but isn't DCC Ready. A bit of a disappointment and I may have to wait to see if he can hardwire a DCC decoder in or whether there is no room. If the later is the case, then I will probably not be buying one of these for the future Narromine layout.

Not sure what the upcoming week will be devoted to. Maybe solder up that MERG kit for something different.

Here are some photos of the stockyard (the Blogger problem with upload looks to be still there!).

Stockyard in position on the layout

Side view

Corner view

Close up of 'dodgy' gate with detail of hasp, hinges and 'barbed' wire

Aerial view

Position with respect to sidings

Another view

Reverse view

Side view with truck

Aerial view with truck

Kensington Hills Goods Platform Done!

I was able to get the Goods Platform at the Kensington Hills Yard done this week. Basically a piece of 16mm thick ply covered with Scalescenes brick and bitumen paper hit with Dullcote. Came up pretty good. I've included some photos below.

Other than that this week saw the arrival of the MERG kit that I will be converting to a servo controller, as well as the 10 servos from China. These are of the SG90 micro servo type. Today I went to Hobbyrama to get a length of 1/32 dia spring steel (piano) wire that I will use to actuate the Ratio semaphore from the MERG/servo unit. While I was there I couldn't go past purchasing a bottle of Tamiya Clear Red (for painting over LEDs for red lighting) and two Dapol kits. One was the Platelayers and Coal Offices which will hopefully complete the Kensington Hills Yard buildings, and a set of Shops which should place well in the space to the left of the Terraces at Kensington Hills.

So this week I aim to complete (or partially depending on time!) the Kensington Hills Yard livestock platform. If I get a chance also some research into Staging/Fiddle Yards designs that we could possible use on the Club's HO layout.

Goods Platform placed at intended position

Not too shabby!

Close up of brickwork

The square area behind the left buffer is the location for the stock platform

Terraces in position

Birds-eye view of Terraces. Shop will hopefully go to the left. Bus stop to the right.

Last day of holidays and I finally get Shed Time!

Yes my two weeks leave is at an end. Back to the asylum, oops meant grindstone tomorrow. It has been a busy two weeks sorting out a few of the items off the Things To Do List, as well as one or two unexpected problems to be sorted out. Most of the days were right royal stinkers with the summer heat and humidity as only Brissie can do at this time of year. The times I ventured into the shed to get tools it was like an oven! As a result not much train time, except for this afternoon when the weather was OK and I spent a few hours on Illavearf, which had been neglected of late. I measured and cut down some timber for the goods yard platform and livestock platform. I then scraped out the scatter that had been glued in sometime during 2012. I positioned the terrace houses and drilled the holes for the LED wires. Yet to connect these up as I am looking at connecting these to a PCB with PIC to provide some lighting effects.

Yesterday I had to repair the set of shelves I use for my hobby materials storage as the read panel warped in the heat and buckled out. Fortunately I had some thicker MDF offcuts that I glued into position. Much better.

Three of my purchases from two weeks ago were delivered during the week. The yard lamps, the street lamps and the SMD LEDs. All tested OK and feedback provided back through Ebay. Unfortunately at least two of the four yard lamps suffered some damage thanks to Australia Post and their infernal use of rubber bands around mail! A pox on them! Nothing serious that some glue won't fix.

I was all ready to get to the Club on Wednesday when Murphy raised his ugle mug! Tuesday night the missus comes to me and says "We have a water leak in the bathroom". Oh joy. On looking it was more like a high pressure spray coming from the flexi-pipe going to the vanity cold water tap. Gaffer tape was no good, so the water mains was turned off, and a plumber summoned Wednesday. He was prompt and decided to sort my problem out first so was at my home mid morning. After this the vacuum cleaner decides to play up so a potential shop for a new one to replace the twelve year old one was on the cards, but after researching a couple of the better ones, the missus was no nearer a decision on which one to buy, so she decided to park the decision for later. So by the time all of this was done, there was no time to venture to the Club. Typical!

No further progress with the Raspberry Pi this week as it was too hot in the downstairs part of the house where my study/hobby room is located (even with A/C upstairs, not much was coming down the internal staircase).

So this week with things back to normal, I might be able to start sorting things out. At least two model structures to knock up (mentioned above), investigate the SMD LEDs installation into the semaphore signal, and maybe back to the RPi.