Greg's Railway Modelling Musings

Friday, July 7, 2017

July 2017 update

To begin with sorry for no updates in May and June but have been rather busy at work and haven't been doing much in the way of modeling. I did take the gas tanks diorama to the Club at the May monthly meeting, took some photos, received some compliments. When I went to the phone to retrieve the photos tonight not there. It has been playing up lately so I can only assume perhaps they were zapped. Since then the only thing I have done was get the fence and gate parts for the diorama made and painted but yet to put these together and install. Plenty of time before the Modeling Competition!

What I have been spending my time on is getting my head around the esp8266 wifi devices that can be used as IoT devices within JMRI. ESP-01, ESP-12E, NodeMCU and Arduino Pro minis can all be connected to these or have the wifi chip onboard (NodeMCU). I received one of these today to play with, but I have connected up a ESP-01 (2 GPIO port) into a test rig with a switch and using the onboard test LED. I was able to set this up in JMRI and control the LED via the switch using JMRI Logix. What it proves is that these devices can be used in place of a wired layout control bus or DCC stationery decoders. All done over wifi. It doesn't have the full JMRI tables integration, only Turnout (ie Outputs) and Sensors (Input), but if you get your head around the basics of outputs and input controls, then the potential exists to control many non DCC devices. All it is passing is the IP address of the wifi chip, the GPIO port number, and whether Input (Internal Sensor - IS) or Output (Internal Turnout - IT). I have yet to fully test operability wit say pro minis using Geoff Bunza sketches, but with a few coding changes can't see why not. So you could have a few of these spread around a layout controlling a number of local outputs &/or receiving sensor/switch inputs and sending to JMRI to process if required, without the need for a separate LCB. Power and Ground could be sourced from the track with a AC-DC converter, or standalone with a separate power supply.

ESP-01 test - programming rig. ESP01 chip in the middle

Modified ESP-01 with the pins splayed to fit across the breadboard channel

An early birthday present arrived through this week in the way of the QR wagons I had ordered from PGC Models nearly two years ago. Just enough to make up one or two branch mixed traffic trains when I finally get the QR diesels I have ordered.

CMN refrigerated wagon

FGM wagon

FJS wagon

Guard's - 1st Class carriage

HO wagon

KKB Guard Cattle wagon

KSA Cattle wagon

QLX wagon

And today the family gave me on my birthday a few more BR vehicles for the layout. I must get back to that sometime this year!

Bob's Hot Dogs

BR Fire Truck

BR lorry

The Tour de France is back on so another distraction!

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

April 2017 update

Over the last month or so the gas depot has come along nicely. I just have to add some finishing touches like a side fence/gate to the office shed, some workers, gas cylinders, and weeds/errant grass. Then spray the lot with dull coat.

Depot pipe work. This had to be remodelled to fit the base board as the 'kit' setup didn't fit correctly. I added rust runs from the service platforms to the tank sides. For the yellow safety lines (and white parking lot lines below) I used Posca arcylic paint pens, available from Officeworks, art shops, etc. The tarmac is a Scalescene paper. The baseboard is 4-5mm black foamboard.

Outbuilding door rust washed.

Siding loading/unloading platform and pipework upper left and main pump house. I added the side pipework to the pump house and siding platform. Pump house roof and siding platform rust washed.

Office Shed - parking lot side. Rust washed. The plan is that an access road will come up to the edge after placement on the layout.

Office Shed - depot side. Roof and sides rust washed.

Outbuilding with my weathering efforts trying to mimic water damage to the timber. Roof lightly rust washed to give the impression of surface rust.

Aerial view of gas tank service platforms and my addition of the checkerplate walk way at ground level. Platforms and filler caps microbrushed with the rust wash I have been using.

Siding side of depot.

Office Shed - depot side

Aerial view. Have to work out how to hide the edge between the two parts.

A surrounding fence would be great but as this is going on a club layout I will not add the fence to the aisle side of the diorama as this has the potential of getting caught in clothing, knocked about, etc. We might add one 'inboard' to the layout that also surrounds the future fuel depot which will be on the opposite side of the sidings.

On another note, the local hobby shop at North Lakes that I mentioned in January is no more. I drove past it on Saturday on the way to a BBQ and noticed the 'For Lease' signs. Thinking the owner may have gone back to being just an online store from where he started the business, I checked the web address and it isn't showing up either. Gonsky!

Friday, March 17, 2017

March 2017 update

Just a quick update as to some work done on 19/2 as a result of staying in doors due to a heatwave that came through. I am looking at replacing the baseboard with foamboard as the wood is warping due to the high humidity we have had. As you can see I have repainted the tanks white and have added the service platforms. The positioning of the buildings, tanks and pipework is still being worked out. I may have to scratchbuild some pipework as the kit pipes are not lending themselves to the positions I am thinking about.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

February 2017 update

For those not following my Facebook page (which isn't updated that often!), a quick update.

Back at the start of the year I bought myself a cheap Chinese airbrushing booth to give it a go. Until today it has been safely in the box. Today I decided to give it a go as the temperature in Brisbane was forecast to be 39C (but only got to about 37C) and I elected to stay inside most of the day (apart from having to do some chores)

The LPG (propane) tanks I am painting are the kit PK gave me to do for the Club layout. So here is how I went.

Tanks to be painted however I need to mask up and remove the platforms

Platforms removed my using glue to 'melt' the bonds

Tanks masked up ready for painting

Booth setup in the laundry with exhaust tube out the window

Tank ready for airbrushing on turntable

Tanks airbrushed in Tamiya white acrylic

On another note yesterday was also very hot and I decided to go to the Banyo Library to a MERG presentation by Davy Dick, over from Scotland on his annual holiday to the Sunshine State. His talk was on layout sound and the various ways to enhance a layout's animation. Very informative as always and a hell of a lot cooler with the a/c than RMCQ's monthly meeting in the tin shed yesterday (36C)! (Sorry RMCQ but Davy only comes out once a year).

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

August update

I thought it might be time for an update as I have done a few things in the last couple of months.

On the modelling front, I have been continuing EVER so slowly on PK's gas and fuel depot kits for the Club HO layout. Not as fast as I would like as work and family seem to keep getting in the way ;-) Whether I get to finish these for judging at the Club Xmas modelling competition is another guess. The project that I am working on will be gearing up again for some fun (read hectic) times so more than likely I'll be stuffed by the end of the day and not have much time for the modelling side of things. Weekends might be a go now that my son's soccer commitments on Saturdays is over for the year, but I am sure the missus has that 'things to do list' to show me. She mentioned something about bathroom and laundry renos, which after 18 years in the same house are probably well overdue!

The June-July school holidays saw the family go on a road trip through NSW and to Canberra to visit the national monuments and places of interest. Enroute I was able to call into Thirlmere railway museum which was great. In Canberra we went to the Canberra railway museum, which isn't as big as Thirlmere in its collection, however it does have Garrat 6029 which is operational compared to Thirlmere's 6040 which is static. The boys and I were even allowed to venture into the cab of 6029. (Took away a piece of coal as a souvenir from its tender!). Photos below.

On the electronics front, I have been reading and researching Geoff Bunza's articles about how to use Arduinos (in their various forms) as DCC decoders. Very interesting. So much so that I sent away for the particular opto-couplers from China (via Ebay) as I couldn't source them at either Jaycar or Altronics. These arrived last week, so now to find time (ha ha!) to put the electronics together, at least on a prototyping breadboard, and see what can be done. I see some immediate possibilities such as building and street lighting control and effects which one decoder using various functions to control these. Also servos for crossing gates/booms or industrial site gates. Just need to experiment a bit.

On the computer front I have been mucking around with Linux Mint as an alternative OS for some old PCs with out of date Microsoft OS (Win XP, Win 95, etc). The Raspberry Pi side of things has been fairly stable of late, just keeping the OS up to date.

On the Internet side of things, two big decisions made in the last week. My website "GB's Shed" is no more. I didn't have the time to keep it maintained and having documents in various locations was becoming annoying. So I shifted all the documents to my Dropbox account and re-linked them on my Blog site. Having them on Dropbox allows me to maintain them in the one location. Then I deleted the website.

The second big decision was, after many years of baulking at the idea, I have joined the Facebook community, but only for modelling, prototype railway articles, and things that interest me (electronics, etc) purposes. No family posts or joins on this account. It might also be an easier medium for sharing progress photos of the modelling. So if you are on Facebook, look me up if I haven't already requested being a "Friend" of you. The link is on the "My Facebook site - Greg's Shed" link in the side bar. Hopefully I have set it up correctly, but please feel free to provide any guidance to this FB newbie.

So the rate I am going, the next blog update may be over the Xmas holidays, so maybe best to keep track of what I am doing via Facebook ;-)

Some photos from the road trip for your visual edification.