S2 E19 Odds and Ends at Bexhill West Model Railway | Lever Frame | Wagons and Turntable Update.
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- Опубліковано 27 гру 2022
- Something a little different for this episode. I show a selection of things I've been working on over the past few weeks.
Sadly I ran out of time to include everything, but at least there will be more for future episodes.
I've been busy in the background also preparing a new studio space which will make making things and filming the process much easier.
Thanks for watching,
James
@BexhillWest - Розваги
This is flippin brilliant. You should get yourself invited to a mechanical signalbox on your nearest preserved railway and have a go at swinging the levers for real - that'd be a good video actually!
All ways interesting watching the detail you go to I do like the turntable thankyou for the video all the best for the new year
Hi James - I like the wagon and the turntable is very impressive as is the signal frame - Brilliant,
All the best for 2023.
Cheers Kev
Thank you Kev and a Happy New Year to you too. I hope all is well with you.
Best,
James
Exhibitions - yes, your layout clearly gona be a highlight at exhibitions (even unfinished),
operating together, like FREMO (manly middle EU) and Free-mo (USA) do, would be another goal for you (as sad before),
what astonishes me is your project "Bexhill West" is mainly a "one man band", normaly as big as it gona be it would rather be a club layout,
at least for operating under near to real setting invite / recruit some of the skilled persons you meet on the way (from The Scalefour Society, MERG, some of those commenting on your vids, friends, ...)!
"Happy New Year!" to you and everyone getting through your videos comments section
Your most impressive attention to detail must surely have reached its apogee in making the levers on the lever frame not only realistically resistant when pulled, but to have differing resistances depending on the distance to the signal. Had you been the right age at the time, I can only imagine that Gerry Anderson would have begged you to join his team! Maybe Wes Anderson still might 🙂.
Excellent stuff, James. I understand the theory of interlocking, but I just know that if I were trying to set that up, after 3 hours, I'd throw the thing across the room in frustration. Not doing all 159 levers?!?!?! Tsk, tsk. Whoever thought we'd have compromise on Bexhill West. 🤣🤣🤣
Of course, the bits of suspension for the wagon will reappear in the middle of your workbench the moment the replacement comes through your letterbox.
Look forward to finding out more about .... well everything ... but in particular the turntable and those new buildings you sneaked into shot.
Happy New Year!
You have moved along since I watched one of your videos. I am also using an Arduino board to do my indexing at 15 Degrees Intervals to match my 3d Printed 6 bay Roundhouse. So I will pay more attention to your videos. Martin (Thailand)
Great to see you again. As usual a very interesting video. Looking forward to lots more next year.
Happy new year.
Malcolm
Good to see you James. Time is precious. Thanks for posting. Most interesting.
Hi James,
Great to see an update on your expanding work on ''Bexhill West''.
Just reading the below comments say it all better than I could ever hope to.
Good luck, though the detail & planning is always there.
Look forward to your future work & episodes.
Regards, Peter
Hope one day to see your work on display at a show
Hi James. Brilliant work. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Can't wait for the next installment. Pete.
Glad to see so many projects come to fruition. It’s very impressive how your wagons have printed, your attention to detail has materialised beautifully. I’m particularly excited to see your new studio, I trust your eager to finish it.
Kind regards
-Harry
Hi James!
Great to see your superb works again! That lever fame is a work of art. I say this a retired S&T Engineer, too! How I wish your model interlocking tray had been available when I was first trying to get my head around the subject as a Trainee Technician in the late 70’s!
Everything you lay your hand to job-wise is robustly configured, designed, constructed and finished. I am somewhat in awe of your abilities, it must be said!
Happy New Year to you when it arrives and I look forward to seeing all your projects coming together in the fullness of time.
Thanks Malcolm , As usual a very interesting video
Fantastic video James. 👍🏻 That interlock is amazing 🤩 Wishing you a happy new year and looking forward to seeing the next video 😀
Hi James, another fine missive, thankyou. I've built and have now donated to my MR club, a 18 inch (130' in HO) turntable. I did not use a stepper motor, only a geared down 12v dc motor and subsequently a worm drive to get things rotating slow enough. I have a dcc decoder fitted to the motor. Control is address 1 and speed and direction is by the dcc hand controller (throttle).
My pit rails are split and the bridge outer wheels are one polarity and the centre drive axle another. The bridge rails connect to those parts. Polarity is simply a DPDT switch that needs to be switched in whatever direction the small hut on the end of the table is oriented. I've tried solid state units but they would not play for me. One thing I did not do, was to make the bridge easily removable. Your idea is a ripper.
I will be very interested in how you go about indexing.
Good luck.
Hi Peter, That's very interesting, I'd been pinning my hopes on a solid state polarity switcher. I'm hoping not to rely upon the race rail as a conductor as I want the bridge to be able to drop slightly onto the rail as a locomotive passes onto the bridge. I was amazed to learn from the drawings that the race wheels don't actually bear onto the race rail when the table is empty. I don't know if this is a feature of all railway turntables, but it certainly is for the Ransomes & Rapier one. If I can replicate this feature (which may prove to be difficult) then I'd be chuffed.
Thanks for watching and all the best for 2023.
James
Several full size turntables I have seen all balance on a single point in the TT. hence the need for "balancing" the engine on the table. If there was pressure on the wheels, a manually pushed table probably would not be able to be turned by the crew!
I know in our sizes it is different set of circumstances.
Also, several people I have followed use slip rings to power the deck. This removes the need to power the ring rail. It's a good trick. I just used the bits and bobs I could lay my hands on!
As far as the solid state units went, because I had no luck does not mean they don't work. You will likely succeed. While on that subject a relay can also be used, after all, that's all the electronic versions basically are.
@@peterpocock9062 Thank you Peter.
Great to see you back on the channel James!! Happy New Year!!
lots going on, interesting as usual. .all the best for the new year James.
Hi James - loving the attention to detail (a man after my own heart 😁), and the mix of old & new technology. In particular, I'd like to commend you on your interlocking videos, which were the most concise and clear explanations I've ever seen on how it works (and - finally! - I understand how it works now!)
I'd like to offer my services to assist with your Arduino turntable project too - I've been programming Arduinos on & off for over 10 years (and programming for over 30 years)... I'm not an "arduino guru" by any stretch, but I reckon I can make it work for you. For gratis obviously...
I've been trying to comment with my e-mail address, but it just won't post... (unless it has & is held back somewhere), so a) apologies if this is the 3rd or 5th near-identical comment.... and b) If this is the only one, please do get in touch! Not sure how... I'll maybe try again to get an e-mail address to you, if you're interested.
Hi 'Electric Monk', and thank you for your interest.
An email to 'makeitminiature[at]outlook.com will get through to me.
Thanks for watching,
James
Not to take anything away from The Electric Monk kind offer but DCC EX the open source resource for model train electronics and dcc controllers has a section on the btinternet with full instructions on how to arduino control a turn table (and also a traverser).
Nice to see what you have been upto. I'm very impressed with the custom made signal levers with interlocking your making. All the best for the new year.
Cheers
Thank you Michael and Happy New Year to you too.
Btw, Christmas has got in the way of your package being dispatched - but it's on its way with a little bonus.
Best wishes,
James
Hi James - good to see you back and to see what you have been working on. Good luck with the Arduino software (as if you didn't have enough new skills to pick up)! Looking forward to seeing your progress in the new year so, until then, a very Happy New Year!
Hi David, good to hear from you. Hope all is well and Best Wishes for '23.
Take care,
James
Dear James, very interesting video! Amazing ideas and designs. Love the set up for the interlocking mechanism with the levers. So many ideas and projects. You just never seize to amaze me.
A question on the turntable; those brass rods the turntable bridge sits on, are they also the means to power up the track? Or, are they just mechanical supports.
Thinking about that, plus the hall sensor you’ve shown, wondering how much more easy it would be to power up the rail from the home location. Realize that would mean the power is off when the table is turning. Nevertheless that could also be fixed with a keep alive on the bridge.
Cheerio
One observation regarding the turntable is that you would need to have the position saved in memory so then when the power is removed after a running session the current position becomes the starting position when the layout is next powered up. Otherwise you would have to have a routing that resets the position using the magnet each time the layout is used. Because stepper motors have defined number of steps or microstepping per rotation you could then simply workout how many pulses or steps are required between each waypoint based on the ratio of the pulley system. A more accurate was but more complicated would be to use an encoder ring and sensors that provide the feedback to the arduino. The programming and development would make for some interesting video. I'm sure you could adapt code used for arduino based CNC machines as a starting point
You beat me to it. An optical shaft encoder would provide absolute positional information. I am not sure what resolution you’d need though - this might be a problem.
@@richardsinger01 Quadrature encoders are pretty accurate - it should be well within budget to get one that would be plenty accurate enough. TBH, though, unless the system absolutely has to recall it's last position at power up, I'd go with a homing cycle, then just count the steps. That would be plenty accurate enough, and simplifies the hardware & software quite a bit. Another alternative would be to have multiple hall sensors (one per position), and simply have the table traverse to the first one it triggers on power up (or stay put if it's already triggered). I do think a homing cycle would make sense, though, given that the table itself is probably removable... it might also need a little tuning dial, e.g. if the table is removable & the indexing isn't all that accurate when it's replaced (or it gets put back back-to-front!)
Thanks for your input guys. I agree with @The Electric Monk (even with my limited experience), that a homing cycle, then step counting should be plenty accurate. With 200 steps/rev and a 10:1 ratio, that's 2000 divisions at full steps. 360degrees/2000 = .18 degree resolution. With 1/16 stepping, that's down to 0.01125 degree. Which, if my elementary maths is ok should be about .03mm of movement/step at the bridge circumference.
Best,
James
🤯 ... and I just use rubber bands and monofilament... 😶 for pretty every remote movement.
I do have a tendency to over-engineer. :)
Hi James great video as usual, I have to admit I am curious as to how accurate the hall effect sensor will be for acting as the home point, if it triggers as the madnet gets close what sort of tolerance will it give you, somewhat selfish reasons again, I'd like a hidden traversing table for my layout and that means I need really good accuracy on alignment or I'll be down on the floor fiddling about with a difficult to get to traverser, the alternate sensor I was considering was an optical sensor with a mask on the moving section with a narrow slot between light and sensor ... Happy New Year
... or a mechanical lock system as the real things have, as James showed a manually version some time ago, to fix positions ;)
They're really good... even the cheap ones. Bear in mind they use them in cars, as crankshaft/camshaft position sensors, where accuracy, repeatability and outright speed are essential.
Hi James, Happy New Year! I always look forward to your uploads. Building a turntable is something I am considering for my nascent layout albeit in N Gauge. You described the drive and the problem of indexing the exit positions: Have you any thoughts on how the track on the table itself is to be powered? There is an intrinsic problem of avoiding a reversed polarity.
James, There is a good article on RMweb for an arduino controlled turntable which may help with the software. I tried to send you a link but the comments section didn't allow it.
Hi David, and thank you. I'll look it up. I've set the comments to not allow links to be posted in an effort to stop malicious links to adult sites from being posted by bots. I'm forever deleting them, I wish UA-cam would do more to stop it.
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up, I'm sure I'll be able to find it.
My best wishes,
James
Will you ever be planning to sell parts for your lever frame? It's a brilliant setup and I'd love to replicate it
I hadn't planned to, but have has so much interest I've been reworking it behind the scenes and improving it. I hope to have a batch available in a couple of months time. I'll post an update on the channel when things are good to go.
Thanks for the positive feedback.
James
I will be glad to help you with the Arduino programming for the turntable. Please let me know the best way to communicate with you.