Yūrakuchō

[cteno4]

7 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Interesting, I hadn't considered that approach Jeff, I have some 1mm brass L-beams kicking around the place. I could try placing them back to back and see if the light passing through the middle creates a clear line.

 Not a lot of vertical space in there to do this, but the longer the sides are on the slot the more it should collimate the light. Having just a slit in thin material is going to allow light coming through and oblique angles and also diffraction that will spread some as well. I’m also wondering if painting the sides of the slot flat black will help block reflected paths which might cause spreading.

 

jeff

[Madsing]

What about using a small piece of thin, transparent acrylic or polyester sheet, positioned vertically and painted black or covered with aluminum foil on both sides?

[gavino200]

How about  a tiny laser pointer?

[Madsing]

6mm. It would probably have to be placed inside the car. Also, I think it’s important to project a line, not just a dot. Maybe there is a way to transform the beam?

[gavino200]

19 minutes ago, Madsing said:

6mm. It would probably have to be placed inside the car. Also, I think it’s important to project a line, not just a dot. Maybe there is a way to transform the beam?

 

I agree. It would have to protrude into the car. Maybe not as far as the window where it would be seen. It may also be possible to spread out the beam with a home-made light tube. I wonder if there are even smaller lasers available. Those took literally seconds to find and are pretty cheap.

 

It's definitely a longshot. Probably we're a few years away from laser pointers suitable for this purpose.

[Kamome442]

Wow, so many interesting ideas to consider.

 

19 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 Not a lot of vertical space in there to do this, but the longer the sides are on the slot the more it should collimate the light. Having just a slit in thin material is going to allow light coming through and oblique angles and also diffraction that will spread some as well. I’m also wondering if painting the sides of the slot flat black will help block reflected paths which might cause spreading.

I totally agree having longer sides will give the best chance of creating a thin line, I think there should be around 5mm to work with. I really like the idea of using flat black to cut down on reflectivity.

 

13 hours ago, Madsing said:

What about using a small piece of thin, transparent acrylic or polyester sheet, positioned vertically and painted black or covered with aluminum foil on both sides?

I did search for live edge acrylic, the thinnest I could find was 1mm. I have some 0.25mm clear styrene I assume it would still project some light out of the edges. I will have test to see if it is enough to create a visible line. 

 

13 hours ago, gavino200 said:

How about  a tiny laser pointer?

I had no idea laser pointers were available in such small sizes. I really like the idea of using actual laser light, very Austin Powers 'trains with freakin lasers'.

I have no idea how to convert a dot to a beam but I will have to look it up to see if can be done relatively easily.

 

I did a quick drawing of the main box to get an idea of the internal space. The grey outer section would be the 3D print, with a 0.25mm metal container inside. I have marked the position of the light (clear) and laser (red). I have also placed a 0402 LED in the middle to get an idea of how much space there is to play with.

 

It is actually quite roomy, at least until internal structures are added.

 

On the layout I have been fitting the plumbing for street lights and building up the roads. I have shown pictures of this before so I will try not to repeat myself. The only additional step is some decorative paving needed near the bridge. It is mostly a repeating pattern which saves time, however it is disrupted here and there to fit around lights, bollards, manhole covers and Tactiles. 

 

I will use the Silhouette cutter once I have all the features in place. I will try 3D printing the Tactiles.

Joe

 

[Tom C]

Would fiber optics strands glued in a row work ? The ones I used on my layout are 0.5mm diamiter. 

[Kamome442]

I have some fibre optics Tom, I can give it a try if the acrylic or slot don't pan out. 

 

As well as work on the pavement I have just completed the drawing for the arch that sits beside it. 

 

The original for comparison, a rather drab looking arch for such a fancy pavement!

Source: Google Streetview

 

Before the internet erupts into a frenzy, I know the arch in my drawing has 19 stones and the picture has 20. Don't worry that is just a place holder, it will be corrected when I cut the parts. Oh and the colours are just there to help me work out the different layers. 🙂

[cteno4]

Joe,

 

i think the trick is to have a very narrow slit running from the top to the bottom, like 1mm wide and the whole width of the box and then the leds at the top. I think this may give you the best chance at a sharper line as you should get most of the resulting photons coming out parallel to the tall slit. Black walls may help with some reflections off parallel. Always will have some diffraction though spreading it out.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

6 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

I totally agree having longer sides will give the best chance of creating a thin line, I think there should be around 5mm to work with.

 

I am with you there Jeff, the image above is just showing the internal space. I still need to add the side walls, at 5mm high it will give me about 1mm space at the top for the LED.

 

Second Arch complete:

 

[cteno4]

Sorry Joe, I thought I wasn’t being clear with my verbal description! Should have just drawn it up. If I get time tonight I might see if I can mock this up.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

21 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Sorry Joe, I thought I wasn’t being clear with my verbal description! Should have just drawn it up. If I get time tonight I might see if I can mock this up.

 

jeff

It's probably me Jeff, I am much better at understanding a concept if I can see it.

I thought you were referring to something along these lines:

 

[disturbman]

On 1/29/2022 at 11:55 AM, Kamome442 said:

Thank you @disturbman, it will be interesting to see what you can find.

One of these is the same unit, no? 3D-printed but not functional.

https://jp.mercari.com/item/m44057758791

Edited January 30, 2022 by disturbman

[Kamome442]

3 minutes ago, disturbman said:

One of these is the same unit, no? 3D-printed but not functional.

 

That is it alright! Thank you for taking the time to search for them. It looks like a very detailed set of prints. Not functional but they have hollowed out the box for people to add their own lighting and it even has the two slots on the underside. 

[cteno4]

Yep spot on! Could just do one in the print and then the other one a piece of styrene glued in later so you could experiment with painting the inside flat black.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

3 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Yep spot on! Could just do one in the print and then the other one a piece of styrene glued in later so you could experiment with painting the inside flat black.

 

Interesting, I was definitely over thinking things. It could pretty much be a solid print just with a slight recess at the top to house the LED and the slots made wider by the thickness of a sheet of styrene. There should be enough printed material to stop light escaping from the sides, if not the styrene could easily be swapped out for a thin strip of metal.

I might be able to get a test sample mocked next weekend.

[cteno4]

Yeah maybe just slots in the sides to drop your painted brass sheets in on either side of the printed slot. Sides could be thick as you will get a lot of spill out to either end of the slot. Damn you have got me wanting to go down to the workshop and try this!

 

btw a very handy light sealer is hot dog/hamburger wrappers! The kind with a very thin aluminum foil on one side and very thin white paper on the other. It’s just enough to stop bleed on most plastic building with leds not at full blast. It’s easy to cut with hobby knife or scissors and glues in place well, folks like paper and doesn’t crinkle right away like foil does. Easy to cut out window holes in once glued in place on a wall. I put the foil side to the wall and gives you a nice white wall like is usually inside. Fun stuff. Picked up a few hundred wrappers for like $5, lifetime of light sealing even splitting it with another club member. 
 

jeff

[Kamome442]

20 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Damn you have got me wanting to go down to the workshop and try this!

 

Once I have a design that prints nicely I am more than happy to post a couple of them for you to play with.

 

20 hours ago, cteno4 said:

btw a very handy light sealer is hot dog/hamburger wrappers! The kind with a very thin aluminum foil on one side and very thin white paper on the other.

 

That sound like a very simple way to keep the light contained, I will have to pick some up.

 

 

[Kamome442]

A little more work done on the side project tonight. I have drawn this up from scratch trying to take the dimensions a little more seriously this time. I started out by using an image from https://railfile.jp, a great resource for reference images. There are a few inaccuracies that I will need to try and iron out. I have tried to make all the latches, handles and hinges match the way Kato has modelled them so that it hopefully won't look too out of place.

 

From the reference image I have worked out the beam with for the main light should be roughly 0.7mm and for the laser 0.2mm. It will be difficult to get close to that but we do like a challenge. I will create a thread in the rolling stock section detailing how I designed and constructed this once it is complete, that way the information won't get lost in the pages of Yurakucho's construction.

Joe

[Kamome442]

Next set of shops on the way.

[Kamome442]

The basic structure is complete, time to double check the etched windows fit.

 

Next step will be adding some lighting.

[disturbman]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:31 PM, Kamome442 said:

I will create a thread in the rolling stock section detailing how I designed and constructed this once it is complete

As a side note, the recently announce Micro Ace A8764 205 series (Sagami Line) will come equipped with a similar line equipment monitoring device. Might be interesting to end up comparing yours and theirs 🙂

[Kamome442]

4 hours ago, disturbman said:

As a side note, the recently announce Micro Ace A8764 205 series (Sagami Line) will come equipped with a similar line equipment monitoring device. Might be interesting to end up comparing yours and theirs 🙂

 

Awesome @disturbman, that had completely slipped past my radar. Thank you for bringing to my attention. Looks like I am really going to have up my game to compete with a manufacturer!

I will have a go at printing one today, I realised I don't have any red LED's so I had to order some this morning.

[Kamome442]

I started work on the lights this morning. 

Here is a quick step by step of how I am making them. (from left to right) First cut brass tube into small pieces (I cut them a little oversized so the saw doesn't crush their shape). Next glue them into the base. Then file the brass flush to the base (there is a small channel on the underside for the wires so I also file a grove into the brass tube them them to pass through). Finally line the channel with copper tape and seal the LED in place using resin.

 

The first store getting its test fit. I just need to add little wall and roof either side then it is ready for paint.

 

Three to go!

[JR East]

Shot in Yūrakuchō in Sept 2012