Nj N1067 7.1mm Finescale testbed - there may be shorties

[UnfinishedKit]

I found my way here via @Kamome442’s Yurakucho project. I got back into modelling recently and have been building kits but needed a project. I’d been looking at 6.5mm Nj through finding things like Vivant but once you are down the Finescale path and especially when you think you might be scratch building point work anyway it turns out 0.6mm is important. 
 

So 7.1mm it is and the first job is to learn how to build track and modify rolling stock. 
 

it’s probably also worth mentioning that this is leading to a layout, but I don’t have space to do a big chunk of the Yamanote, nothing close. Although if it was I’d have to do ebisu, not the best from viewers perspective but it has might favourite boarding music (the harry lime theme from the third man) and one of my favourite sake shops (kimijimaya); it has a great tachibar as well. 
 

Ive been doing a bit of research and thought that would be worth sharing plus some of the how and why of what will be a very slow build. 

[UnfinishedKit]

Why?

 

First off why am I even doing this? 
 

I was last doing modelling as a teenager and Swiss in N was my thing. I was really excited by Nm but never had the resources or the information to pursue it. Its was very much the pre or proto internet days and it was hard to find stuff. 
 

I can back to making stuff recently and because I spend a lot of time in Japan I wanted to do Japanese stuff, N was where I started but in N at 9mm, 1067mm gauge just doesn’t look right.  Given that I like building things and solving problems more than I like running trains there had to be a solution. 
 

At on i cycled through everything. (Oj, wouldn’t that be nice if I had the room and the money, 1/80 13mm and 1/86 HO1067 12mm - still too big but getting closer, TT9 - almost perfect scale; so wouldn’t that be nice but there are almost no models, S1067 - there is one really nice paper kit from Iori koubou that I might build but…)

 

So it has to be N, I found vivant and was all ready to do 6.5mm but i ran into problems with finding a paintwork solution that fit my space requirements. So if I’m going to scratchbuild or kitbash points I might as well do them in 7.1mm as 6.5mm. 
 

next up - everything I rejected or took inspiration from in 6.5mm

[Andrew Nummelin]

1 hour ago, UnfinishedKit said:

...the first job is to learn how to build track…

You may well find Templot (and its friendly Forum) very helpful if you want to get close to prototype practice. 
Templot is apparently off line for a few days https://85a.uk/templot/club/

[Kamome442]

Good luck with this project,  I am looking forward to seeing how your plans develop.

Joe

[UnfinishedKit]

I made a thing

 

so after saying I need to sit down and set standards and design tools, now I am back I found myself with a spare couple of hours and rather than take the 6 or so chair designs I’ve got on the whiteboard and turn them into etchings, I had a rummage. 
 

I took a Kiha Koubou pasteboard bogie and reguaged it and popped the rails out of a length of unitrack and stuck them down with double sided tape. 
 

The paper bogie is only really for static display in native form and I’ve really compromised what little structure it has. Nonetheless it was good to have a play rather than sit at the computer and draw.
 

I've not  quite cracked photography of this but it looks good under a paper rail car. 
 

I also had a poke around other rolling stock I have and I have a green max chassis that looks a cinch to convert. The gearboxes are narrow enough that I don’t think filing them down is necessary.
 

It also got me thinking about the importance of bringing the bogie frames in with the wheels. You might be able to do it with the green max power bogies and I have a neat idea for an etched brass trailer bogie that could take the green max push in bogie frames (also the decokore ones as well)

 

[UnfinishedKit]

On the plus side didn’t have to move the Kato wheels in, only file down the axles, but taught me the importance of having some jigs to make this easier. 

[UnfinishedKit]

I don’t know if this means I have to create a new thread in layout building but I made a baseboard and bought some Peco code 60 rail for the next phase of experimentation.  Code 40 will take ages to turn up and I’ll have to buy a bunch to make the shipping worthwhile so I’m holding off for now. 
 

I’m restricting myself to things I have in the garage and small purchases from local stores where possible. as I work things out. There was a bit of plywood left over from when I made my filter stand for the sake homebrew setup. Not the world’s flattest but the battens pulled  it back. I’ve got a hokey idea for how to do track without 3D printed or PCB sleepers, I’ll reveal what it is when I’ve seen how it works. 
 

 

[Tony Galiani]

 

You might find this channel interesting.  He did a layout of the Gakunan Railway in 7.1 mm gauge and there are a couple of very short videos there.  He also posted pictures in a thread on RMWeb.  I don't have that link but it might be worth searching that out.

Cheers,

Tony

[UnfinishedKit]

@Tony Galianithanks for that. I hadn’t gone hunting on rm web so this is great sadly all the images lost in the great crash but the videos look good and I’ll have a proper watch later. 

[UnfinishedKit]

The tripod gauges I had made in china turned up today. They look good but a bit of an agonising wait till this evening to see if they work as designed. 
 

[UnfinishedKit]

And I built some track and learnt a few things. 

[UnfinishedKit]

First reguaged unit running. Some jerkiness at low speed but i think that’s just some maintenance that needs doing. 
 

it’s taught me I really need to build some jigs. 
 

 

[UnfinishedKit]

I’m getting closer to a little oval. 
 

[UnfinishedKit]

And here it is. 183mm really is the limit, although there could be a little more gauge widening in the curves and a little more gearbox nibbled away so the wheels don’t drag. 
 

 

[UnfinishedKit]

Nothing new in track but this キハ57 is coming along nicely and I’m getting a lot better at soldering. 

[UnfinishedKit]

I made a jig, a crossing V and some wing rails. The V and the jig need some work but the wing rails seem OK

 

[UnfinishedKit]

Not sure that it shows but this one is a lot better

[Captain_Mumbles]

I hand made the turnouts on my OO gauge layout and I found it oddly satisfying. So much so that I am trying to complete it enough so I can give it a go and make some high speed turnouts to run some Kato Shinkansen. Good luck with your building. What a great project.

[UnfinishedKit]

For whatever reason I’ve decided to really jump off the deep end and try and to this duality gauge monster

@Captain_Mumbles good luck with the moving frog.

Edited February 19 by UnfinishedKit

[Captain_Mumbles]

21 hours ago, UnfinishedKit said:

good luck with the moving frog.

 

At N gauge I dont think Ill bother. Ill use a nice template produced by Templot. It will be enough for me that the turnout laid on the brown orange composite sleepers will contrast against the slab track.

Speaking of slab track you don't happen to know when they started using that do you?

 

Dual gauge turnouts will look amazing BTW

[UnfinishedKit]

I made a thing. Or at least two things. I’ve been very interested in battery powered remote control and last night I got an esp32s3 based wifi remote control system that I can fit inside my Kiha110 working - still needs to get off the breadboard but it all works and should all fit. 
 

the reason for doing this was so this other thing would work. Waiting for me on my desk this morning was another experiment - 3D printed dual gauge finescale points. Part of the reason for messing around with batteries has been so I could 3D print more complex track sections in stainless steel. This is the first go

 

I’m really pushing the tolerances of the tech but it seems to be working 

 

surface finish is a little rough and maybe I should have made the rail head a little higher to give me some wiggle room to file down. I think they will paint up well. 
 

I’m seriously pleased with the frogs and check rails. 

 

 

and if things down work out dead rail I put cut marks in the bottom so I can insulate and use the components normally. 
 

[UnfinishedKit]

I’ll do some better photos with better lighting. 

[Madsing]

Interesting project.

Which esp32s3 based wifi remote control system did you buy?

 

Marc

 

[Khaul]

Great work, although reading this thread does make me feel so inadequate.

[UnfinishedKit]

3 hours ago, Madsing said:

Interesting project.

Which esp32s3 based wifi remote control system did you buy?

 

Marc

 

I’m writing my own. At the moment I’m using a seeed xiao esp32s3 board that I’ve been able to file down narrow enough to fit inside the car body. It’s a good board for this because  it has a built in battery powered management circuit 

 

Code is my own, or at least my own as I’ve been able to direct an AI to write it for me. There’s a thread about that on the board somewhere. 
 

right now it’s a very simple controller - two pots one to select the locomotive and one to set speed and direction. This get bundled into json and sent via MQTT (which also allows me to use so many things as a controller). 
 

at the other end the loco unit reads the message and sets the pwm to set the speed. There’s a voltage boost circuit to get up to 12v, although that seems too much, and a little board with a drv8835 motor driver on it. There’s a little battery in there as well. It’s a bit of a rats nest but I think I can close the box. 
 

longer term I want this all on one board, very much inspired by @loco.engineering  I know they’ve had thermal issues so I’m looking at how to manage that. Maybe using the esp32c6 which has wifi 6 on it and can also do open thread might get the network power requirements down and I’m trying to work out how to select for the most efficient motor drivers. Basically optimising for N and battery power although there’s no reason why it can’t be DCC, DC, WCC compatible as well. 

Edited April 28 by UnfinishedKit