Here's the result of the process, just so you know what we are aiming for:
So now for a bit that I am not comfortable with - I have a real dislike of 'bashing' stuff I buy. However, in this case, there is no alternative to get a smooth moving point.
Firstly, let's just be sure that we can see the spring. You can see it quite clearly at the bottom of the blades sticking out like a little elbow.
Next, use a jewellers flat head driver to lever up the metal tabs in the large sleeper at the bottom of the point.
Now, turn the point over and flip the metal plate up so it's standing up on it's own.
You can see the spring revealed quite clearly.
Use some bent nosed pliers or tweezers to remove the spring.
There it is! Now close the lifted metal tab, turn the point over and fold the small tabs back to hold it all together.
See how the blades are now sitting comfortably in the middle of teh turnout?
But be careful now as the blades easily slip away from the frog!
One of the biggest issues I've had with previous model railroads is getting switches / points / turnouts (whatever you call them!!) to move electrically.
The normal switch machines sold by Peco are pretty hefty and draw a fair bit of current - up to 2A. This means that you need a Capacitor Discharge Unit and some heavier electronics to make switch motion happen under computer control.
Also, these solenoid point motors are really 'snappy' in their action. Partly this is driven by the fact that the Peco points have a spring in them which holds the blades against the track in either position to ensure electrical contact and to ensure derailment does not happen. This means you need a hefty point motor to overcome the spring. Also, the motion of the point looks crappy, not like a real railroad at all.
The circle shows the spring in the Peco point. It has to go!
So, you have to remove the spring. I'll show you how I did this in my next blog post.
The video below shows the snappy movement of the switch.
I'm working on a nice test layout that I made to allow for experiment. A photo appears below.
I've made this from 6mm foam core and it is mounted on 50mm wide strips of foam core that run the length of the layout. I mount the tracks on 3mm foam core to allow for under track devices like sensors etc.
What we are looking for is nice smooth motion of the blades of the point like this...
Basically, the best way to achieve this without going to a tortoise machine is to use servos motors. I get my servos from DealExtreme.com along with some nice servo extension cables. I paid about $4.50 including postage!!
The movie below shows the same point from under the bench and you can see the servo moving - this time under manual control.
Now, you can see that at the extreme ends of travel, the servo can make quite a racket so you need to tune the positions of the servos. I do this using software and this allows me to mount the servo with a certain amount of error.
Note that once you remove the spring from the point, you need to use the servo mounted spring wire to hold the blades into the frog.
You can see my simple mount in the movie above. This movie shows the normal controlled motion of the servo.
Just for completeness, I've put a few photos below of the point with the spring removed and the servo mounted underneath.
So, get yourself some servos and an Arduino and start making it happen!
More on removing the spring and the actual electronics in a future blog post.
So I needed a few new engines for the layout - I was after something leaning toward a diesel if I could get it btu I did not want to spend a fortune on new equipment. What to do? Well, how about eBay, I thought?
Local stuff selling in Oz was going for far more than I wanted to spend so I bid on a few items in the UK - and won them for about half what I'd pay here.
When they arrived all was perfect and they run beautifully. Scroll further down for some video.
The one shown below is a Minitrix and this runs well but is comaratively noisy.
The photos below show my Fleischmann and this is smooth and quiet - almost perfect. Both can run from overhead caternary.
So whilst I was at Train Trader getting my steam engine fixed I noticed they had a whole pile of second hand stuff on a shelf at the back of the shop.
One Saturday I noticed a very nice collection of German buildings had magically arrived so I pounced. This will be perfect for the little town I plan to build at the top of my layout that will be serviced by the tram coming up from the railway station.
I also purchased a nifty hotel that will be down near the station.
Naturally, eBay has a stack of these - just search for the makers: Vollmer, Faller and Kibri. I note that the USA seems to have a lot of second hand stock but the postage out of the USA is prohibitive - not sure why. The UK is much more reasonable.
In order to get back into the hobby I decided to rock up to the Epping Model Railway club's exhibition on the June long weekend. This was a lot of fun, surprisingly crowded and had a great second hand stall. I'm not usually one for second hand kit because you don't know the provenance of the kit and if it's dodgy then there's no comeback.
However, when it comes to rolling-stock, who cares provided it looks in good condition. I ended up bagging some bargains. I checked prices on eBay when I got home and found I had saved a fortune!
The riskiest item I got was my tram! Yes, there was a pretty crappy San Francisco tram set for $20 which I have now repainted into German colours.
This is sitting on one of my test tracks. You know, it's not as smooth as a Fleishman model but it runs fine and will be great fun on the new layout.
Here are the nice DB Fleischmann coaches I got. notice that they are lit internally!
Just got home from the Sydney Marklin Modellers show at Beecroft. Nice little show with some very nice layouts. A couple of Aussie ones in HO which were excellent. There was one large US layout in N which was totally DCC and run by a very nice bunch of chaps. Great second hand stall but mostly HO :-(.
Notably of interest to me were 2 German layouts, one HO and one in N. The HO one was very well modelled but also very very basic - a loop with a fiddle yard. Nice scenery, though. The N layout was more complex, urban and had a tram, which was of interest to me but I don't think done too well - there was something a bit too twee about it - more a train set than a model railroad, perhaps?
And now the grand Australian layout - just lovely modelling work...
