Recollections on Diggle Junction and the Mickelhurst Loop from Ken.
Final Report from Al Facer’s ‘Man Cave’;
Mike gives a fantastic tribute to fellow enthusiast and club member Alastair Facer who passed away earlier this year.
Those Confusing Computer Thingies;
Colin has a look at how we utilise the internet may be raising the profile of the club and is pleasantly surprised by just how Facebook has helped with this especially with advertising the exhibition.
A Gift and a Promise;
When he received a call asking for help with a N gauge layout Mike was astounded by what he found.
Attention all Coarse ‘O’ Gaugers;
Need some O gauge track? We have been contacted by someone wishing to sell some. Please see the newsletter for more details.
Show time – The Final Round-up
One last preview for our Exhibition on the 11th and 12th or March.
If you like this newsletter please visit our newsletters page for back issues.
Mike here. I’ve been asked by some of our newsletter subscribers to dig out an article from the July 2015 issue. Dave Fenton who some of you might know from MegaPoints Controllers wrote an article on adding servo control to Dapol semaphore signals including the bounce.
If you want to see it working see below or visit our exhibition on the 11th and 12th March 2017.
So without further a do; over to Dave.
Adding Some Bounce to Dapol Semaphore Signals
I recently acquired a pair of broken N gauge Dapol semaphore signals and thought they would make for an easy upgrade to add some realistic semaphore bounce. The standard mechanism is incapable of bounce and had failed with differing symptoms on both units.
Undeterred at the small size of N gauge and my big fat hands, I acquired some HK- 5330 Ultra-Micro Digital Servos from HobbyKing. At just over 1 cm long and about 6mm wide, I thought they would make an excellent replacement drive unit. These have the added benefit of not twitching when power is applied thereby preventing any over stressing of the tiny linkages at power on time. Fitting a servo means that you loose the simplicity of a 14mm mounting the Dapol unit affords as it will need modifying to a rectangular hole so the servo can be navigated through the baseboard. I ended up cutting a hole 24mm x 17mm which would allow the new servo assembly to pass through unobstructed.
Work began by removing the lower screw at the base of the thread and splitting the motor housing. The circuit board was carefully prized out of one half and the wires to the built in LED cut leaving the longest possible length. On one unit the piano wire remained in place and was held under tension with a built in spring and capped with a plastic collet. The second unit had a different arrangement with the collet on the opposite side of the spring. It appears the design had altered between the manufacture of the two units making installation slightly different for each. Undeterred, I proceeded to cut the piano wire on the latter unit leaving enough room to solder a new piece to it when ready. I decided that on the first unit all I needed to do was position the servo with a cut down arm acting as a cam on the base of the spring retaining collet.
The second unit was going to have its own piano wire bent into shape and soldered to the remaining wire connected to the back of the semaphore arm.
Before installing any of the servos I glued in place a small square piece of balsa wood to make a base to attach the servo to. After it had set I sliced the top of the balsa to form a level surface with the opposing sides of the threaded shell half.
The servos were positioned in place and a couple of drops of super glue used to secure them into position. The second servo had the additional piano wire attached before fitting to help with its placement. As I had previously set the servo arms to their mid point with a MegaPoints Controller I only had to ensure the semaphore arms were in the middle of their travel before the glue set. This was to make final adjustment easy. The second semaphore had the two piano wires soldered together.
To current limit the LED I used a rather safe 150 ohm resistor and connected the LED in parallel with the servo
connector power leads (red & brown). To do this I crimped the LED leads into the servo connector housing and then tie wrapped a servo extension lead into place to secure. Had I had 100 ohm resistors available I would have used them as I suspect they could be brighter without risking any LED damage. Setting up was completed on the MegaPoints Controller within a few seconds and the semaphores cycled a few times to test their operation. The bounce is very realistic and can be clearly observed at this fine size. You can also clearly make out the cable slack being taken up as the signalman places his second hand on the lever prior to applying the big pull. To see a video of these modified Dapol signals being cycled do a YouTube search for “MegaPoints Dapol bounce”. The first unit took about 40 minutes to complete and the second about an hour. Not bad for under two hours work…
Mike again. This article can also be found here: Dapol ‘Bounce’
The Scale or Gauge of is or should be one of a modellers main considerations when thinking about investing in the hobby. True there are other things to think about; like location, time period and even things like method of control. But the gauge that you as a modeller choose will generally dictate the size and type of layout that will be built and also how far your money will go. There is a dazzling amount of different gauges but I’m going to look at the big three within the UK; these being O, OO and N. These gauges tend to be the best supported by manufacturers and suppliers. The image below isn’t to scale but should give some idea of the differences is size between gauges.
O gauge is the largest of the three, also unsurprisingly the most expensive to buy. A lot of modellers build garden railways at this scale but I have seen some very good micro layouts as well.
OO is the most common gauge in use within the UK (Continental and US have HO) and is the scale that people are familiar with as this is the “Hornby” scale. Between the three OO is the “Cheapest”.
N is the smallest gauge and the second most popular scale in the UK. Models tend to be more expensive than OO but cheaper than O. Being half the size of OO, layouts usually are either smaller or have capacity for larger trains and scenery.
TT, Z and T. I’ve included these more for information, TT is a halfway house between OO and N but does not have the manufacturer support for UK outline models, Z and T are super small and again there is not much in the way of support for UK ready to roll models either.
There is no right or wrong way. There are modellers who collect different gauges either changing over time or even collecting at the same time! Most people start off with OO In my case I had a OO layout as a teenager but when I came back to the hobby I started with N simply because I didn’t have the space for anything else.
What if you find you started with the wrong gauge? Don’t panic, look at what the issue is and see if there is a way around with the stock you have already invested in, if not there is always eBay. But try not t o get to that point. All I can advise here is choose carefully, try to get a look at the scale you want work with either at an exhibition (ours is on the 11th and 12th of March, see the exhibition page) or in the local model shop. If you are still unsure contact your local club and trawl the web.
