kvp's layout ideas and attempts

[cteno4]

Ahh airfilter mesh, that’s a new one to me! I’ve used toolie and mesh metallic ribbons. the fine metal welded meshes are usually very expensive and usually a bit beefie to hold up to ware and not as scale so never gone for them. 

 

Do you rip open open an air filter to get at it or is it a separate part? Automotive filter?

 

thanks

 

jeff

[kvp]

7 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Do you rip open open an air filter to get at it or is it a separate part? Automotive filter?

Actually i bought it from a metal shop who sells them by length. It's roughly in a 50 cm wide and several dozen meters long roll and they cut as much as you buy. It's expensive compared to most materials but way cheaper than etched metal fence sheets. (Also a lot stronger and more flexible as we had several high detail etched fences break off or in half during layout operation.) I also got copper profile bars and brass sheets from them. They sell other metals too, usually in much higher quantities. (most buyers arrive with a truck)

 

These meshes are usually press cut to shape before framing or welding in, but thinner ones could be cut with stronger scissors and are to some extent solderable. Brass meshes are better but finding thin enough ones is harder.

[cteno4]

Hugh never thought of that fine of stuff at our metal suppliers, they usually don’t go small! I’ll ask next time I go over to the big one in Baltimore, I have to pick up a bunch of 1” aluminum L stock for the new JRM cases. 

 

The nice fine copper and brash mesh here that welded is very expensive and harder to source. Etched is expensive! 

 

Jeff

[kvp]

First snow of the year in Budapest, Hungary. Children's Railway train in the snow near Normafa in the Buda mountains.

[kvp]

I was thinking about how to combine DCC and and DC automation and most home brewed systems use a single control bus with track driver units handling DCC and PWM drive. This has synchronization problems when trains go across blocks.

 

An old analog fremo system used cab buses and rotary bus selection, so each block could be switched to any cab and that could be flat DC, PWM DC or DCC. The problem here is the number of thick wires to support each cab. This went up as far as 8 cabs, that needed 16 high current wires. (+2 for supply)

 

A different approach would be to have a low current DCC master signal, a similar PWM sync signal and limited boosters that could be addressed through a separate bus and switch between dumb DCC amplification and simple synchronized PWM generation with values assigned from a central..

 

As a bonus these boosters could report back track occupancy and threadle sensor events, required for train position sensing. (for automatic cab selection)

 

This would allow mixed traffic of DCC and DC trains, partial or full automation and the control of DC trains with DCC throttles.

 

The required signals are:

-rail sync (DCC stream, two wires for sx and transponding support)

-pwm sync

-data

(+ground and booster power)

 

Imho this could be combined with loconet with the addition of two extra wires, forming an 8 wire RJ45 socket.

 

ps: i know this is just an idea and i don't plan on building it but in theory this seems like a good idea

[kvp]

I had some idle time and decided to clean up the mess in my office. Managed to find some long lost stuff, including a kato yard buildings set and assembled it. The set goes together very quickly and without glue (only 1-2 screws for each building) once you discover that it's easier to build it upside down by holding the roof upside down in your hand and going from there.

(i only needed the two tools on the top left)

Edited February 28, 2018 by kvp

[Tuga]

Always been told 'It is impossible to build a house starting with the roof'

it's heartbreaking to find out I've been mislead all this time.   

[kvp]

A bit of ttrak progress. How to fit Tomix catenary over Kato tracks and the ttrak T junction with tracks and overpass installed.

 

[kvp]

The overpass construction continues:

[kvp]

Some made up names for my ttrak stations:

Quote

 

中央道駅
Chūō dori station

郊外駅
Kōgai station

田舎駅
Inaka station

 

ps: i'm not completly sure that these were translated correctly from hungarian to japanese...

[kvp]

A bit of progress on Inaka station:

The catenary is standing and the roofless parts of the platforms are down. The covered part and the station building is the next on the other module. Then the vegetation and the small bits.

[kvp]

[kvp]

A crossover and the end of a sidestreet. Still a work in progress...

[katoftw]

Those houses fit in that space well.

Edited April 8, 2018 by katoftw

[kvp]

Bad mobile phone photo showing my first sample of custom station name signs. Printed with a cheap monochrome laser printer.

[kvp]

Small progress on the ttrak terminus station:

[Kiha66]

Nice work KVP!  I really like how the the hill makes the scene more interesting.  How will the trains crossover to the other line when reversing, or is each line its own point to point?

[kvp]

53 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

Nice work KVP!  I really like how the the hill makes the scene more interesting.  How will the trains crossover to the other line when reversing, or is each line its own point to point?

Thanks! The crossover is on it's own module. It's behind the houses two images earlier.

 

The control logic is planned to use route selection. You rotate the red signal switch and select a track with one of the 3 white pushbuttons. This will select between the up or down throttle, set the turnouts and power the selected track.

[railsquid]

On 06/04/2018 at 11:33 PM, kvp said:

Some made up names for my ttrak stations:
 

Quote

 

中央道駅
Chūō dori station

郊外駅
Kōgai station

田舎駅
Inaka station

 

ps: i'm not completly sure that these were translated correctly from hungarian to japanese...

 

"Chūō dōri” is correctly rendered as "中央通り"; "中央道" is "Chūō dō" (and sounds a bit like the name of an expressway).

 

AFAIK there's only only one station in Japan with "通り" in its name, "Dai-Ichi-dōri Station".

 

"中央街道駅" (Chūō kaidō eki) might be an option too.

 

FWIW the classic Tomix station comes with stickers for " 井中駅", also pronounced "Inaka" but a play on words implying "田舎" .

[kvp]

On 4/21/2018 at 12:09 PM, railsquid said:

"Chūō dōri” is correctly rendered as "中央通り"; "中央道" is "Chūō dō" (and sounds a bit like the name of an expressway).

 

Then "中央通り" it is. If i'm right, then the difference here is street versus road, with the latter meaing a highway. (btw. the same is present in Budapest with the "Vaci utca/ut" which means the 'street to Vac' and the 'road to Vac'. Both are actual street names, but the road part starts at the location of one of the old city gates, which was actually also called city gate to Vac)

[railsquid]

Basically something like that. "通り" is "... Road", "... Street" for normal roads, where as "道" is more "way" (as in "roadway", "railway", "expressway", "motorway"). With exceptions of course, "Tokaidō" comes to mind...

 

Thinking about it, "中央道" is actually the abbreviation for 中央自動車道, Chūō Expressway, the inland expressway between Tokyo and Nagoya.

[kvp]

7 hours ago, railsquid said:

Thinking about it, "中央道" is actually the abbreviation for 中央自動車道, Chūō Expressway, the inland expressway between Tokyo and Nagoya.

Afaik there was an ancient road with the same name and it also used this form. At least the title of the 53 stations of the Tokaido uses it. So this must be the standard way of saying/writing a (usually paved) road between settlements. (So then imho do/dori must be similar to the hungarian ut/utca format. If this is true, then it also means that if the Tokai do passes through a settlement, it may be locally called Tokai dori.)

[railsquid]

2 hours ago, kvp said:

Afaik there was an ancient road with the same name and it also used this form. At least the title of the 53 stations of the Tokaido uses it. So this must be the standard way of saying/writing a (usually paved) road between settlements. (So then imho do/dori must be similar to the hungarian ut/utca format. If this is true, then it also means that if the Tokai do passes through a settlement, it may be locally called Tokai dori.)

 

Not usually, I suspect. There is a section of the Tokaidō in Nagoya called "東海通" (Tokaidō-dōri, note the lack of り suffix here):  https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/名古屋市道東海橋線 , elsewhere if anything you'd probably find it as "旧東海道" (old Tokaidō).

Anyway it's probably an impossible task to come up with anything more than generalisations for road naming terms, so many historical and regional variations, and Japan has never been big on road names anyway (at a guess 99% are unnamed)... And let's not even mention Hamadōri and Nakadōri...

[kvp]

Control panel construction and testing and a bit of detailing.

 

[NXCALE]

13 hours ago, kvp said:

Control panel construction and testing and a bit of detailing.

 

The control panel looks very good!

Could you make a video showing its operation or pictures indicating the function of the buttons/switches?