My first post to get my feet wet. Back to the hobby after 30 year absence. I have a new layout that I think I will like. Found a Backmann store locally so all equipment from them. Nothing else much available here (Shanghai). Bought a starter HO DCC set and laid it out on dining room table. Discovered quickly it wasn't going to be large enough so bought 4'x8' plywood. Added some 85' passenger cars and found that 22" radius was kinda tight and with some #6 turnouts, wasn't going to be long enough either. Looked for a ping pong table but too expensive. (I would have thought they would have been more reasonable here). Finally decided to build so have 11'6" x 5' ~1/2" plywood base. The layout has 2 main lines and 3 levels. A 28" radius for high speed passenger and 26" radius for freight with 2 reverse loops, a small yard and a mountain climb to a coal (or ore or something) mine. I want to make it an operating mine if I can.
I am new to DCC but have learned the basics. I really, really want a good track occupancy system so decided to build my own. I will be trying to use IR reflective under track system which seems to test ok but has noise trouble with these 50Hz flourescents.
My problem comes with putting detectors under turnouts. Some are covered by scenery so can use across track but not sure how to do the others. I will be putting detectors every 3" (yes, thats a lot of detectors) so I will have 300-500 detectors. Lots of work there. I don't yet know how to make them work with DCC/computer control but will work on that later. Right now, I just want to see the little blue LED's flicker around the display panel. Most electronic parts are quite cheap here but not the Sharp IR receivers. They are still a buck apiece.
I am open to suggestions and new ideas. I have tried to search the forums but the site is very slow here. Sometimes 10 min to do page refresh. I will post pics as soon as I have the basic track down. Drilling 2 holes for the sensors is time consuming as will be the wiring.
Later
Donald
shanghai_fool...and a mountain climb to a coal (or ore or something) mine. I want to make it an operating mine if I can.
By "operating", I mean one that actually does something like fill a hopper at the top so I can take it down the mountain and unload it at the bottom. I plan to use a toothed belt (turned inside out) to take the "coal" back up. I have picked up an old Tyco unloader recently.
Once I learn the DCC to computer interface, this could be done automatically if it works reliably. I have not had very good sucess though with uncoupling. It seems very flakey.
The past few days have been spent building the occupancy detectors. I have to mount these under the track before I can permantly place the track. I am assemblying about 350 to start with and it takes time to add the wires and resistors to each part. The only track I have available is the Bachmann "snap-track" so I have to place the devices carefully.
I have a 3 yr old daughter that likes to watch the trains. As long as it has lights and makes noise, she is happy.
I thought I would take a break from the electronic assembly to try and draw the layout as I need to be specific where I drill the holes. I have RTS8 but it doesn't have the library I need. I chose Cadrail because it has the Bachmann snap track that is all I have available here. I have only spent a couple hours with it so my results are not what I would like but here are my first attempts. Iknow the layout looks busy but almost half of the track will be hidden by scenery. Almost all of the upper reverse loop on the right side will be under a mountain peak with only the mine road winding around outside of the mountain. There is also a mountain on the left where the mine will be and some elevation along the back wall. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
2 steps forward, 1 step back. After visiting Hong Kong and picking up a beautiful MTH 4-8-4 GS-4 steamer with sound, smoke, I find that it, (along with most passenger stock) requires mininum 22" radius so I had to redesign my reversing loops. Since 1 of the loops is elevated, that took some doing. Also, that makes the reversing loops longer. I made one with a wye and the other with #5 turnout and either require over 5 feet in length. I reduced the grade to 3% for the loop and just barely clear 4" where the tracks cross. All the portals I have seem to need 5" to look realistic so I'm not sure how that will look after adding the mountains. This is my first attempt to actually do scenery.
It is better that you find it now, than have all your layout done with scenery, and then get the bigger steamer!!
The glass is still half full.
I like your plan also!
George
Thanks George,
I had originally planned on just running the passenger consists only on the outside #1 track which is 28" but thought it would be more interesting if I could reverse it also. I had to make some adjustments and will have to add a couple inches on the end but thats not too hard. I have given up temporarily on the occupancy detectors as there is just too much interference for the IR. Will work more on that later.
I saw (heard) this MTH loco and just fell in love with it. I also found out that Bachman has sound locos also (only steam, I think) but this one also had smoke and it was sweet. This morning I am adding the switch LED's so I can tell which way the switches are. The DCC seems to switch them randomly when power is applied and I can't see all of them to see what position they are in. The #5 switchws are easy as they have a frog connection that works great with the red/green LED's. It will be a little more difficult for the #4's. I will have to add an internal microswitch to sense those. All the main lines use #5 switches. The #4 are only used for the yard and freight service.
As far as the layout, I just knew I wanted 2 circuits that could run continuously. Then I discovered reverse loops but found that I needed 2 of them. So, now I can run 3 consists continuously.
I will get some more lumber to make the 3rd tier for the ore shuttle around the mountains so maybe I'll also get that finished by tomorrow and then I can start building mountains.
Well they don't know Hydrocal here so I had to do some shopping. I went to a hospital supply store a short taxi ride away and after my wife trying to explain that I wanted to fix a broken arm, I wound up with a case of plaster cast materials. Its just plaster cloth in 5" x ~30 ft. rolls. 60 rolls in a case for ~$35. Perfect. I did find some chicken wire from the lumber place across the street so I have proceded to try my first attempt at mountain building. I set up a mountain backbone out of 1x2's and stapled the wire across it and down to the track bed. I cut the strips into 1-2 ft. pieces, dipped them in water and laid them on the wire. I got about half through the mountain on one end in about 2 hours.
The mountain line cuts through the mountain and I'm not sure how to make the retaining walls. I saw some wood sticks about 3mm x 8.5mm at the hospital supply. That might work.
I can only read scenery ideas on the internet as there are no English books available on the subject here. Actually, very few books on hobbys of any kind. No time for that, I guess.
I have in-laws visiting and since my layout occupies the entire dining room, I haven't gotten much done on the scenery. I did manage to build the mountain on one end and although it did not turn out too bad, I am not happy with it. It is just too big and covers too much track. I will have to re-think that. In the meantime, I was working/thinking about the coal shuttle. I am going to try to make an uncoupler as is described here. I am still working on obtaining the materials. It takes a lot of small items like guitar strings and muscle wire. I received the muscle wire from Jameco today. Man, this stuff is small. I'm not sure my eyes are up to it.
I really would like to automate the coal shuttle but from my research on the www, it is not so easy. I may attempt that if I can get the DCC uncouplers to work reliably every time. The magnetics just don't cut it.
I am in a quandry about my next DCC system. I only have the Bachman and it is unsuitable for expansion. I initially was thinking about the MRC Prodigy Advance 2 but there is no networking available as yet. It was the only one I could find that had 28 functions available so I could make use of the MTH loco extra sounds. I have found a few articles on building your own so I may do that so I can attach whatever I need. I can build a controller with one of my embedded micros but I will have to learn the data structure. I have read about the LocoShuttle and it almost does what I need but is not widely available. It also only works with Digitrax Loconet I would still have to automate the coal loading/unloading part anyway. Since the coal shuttle route occupies part of one of the reversing loops, I also have to make sure the route is clear. I think this will turn out to be a much more difficult task than I originally planned.
Does anyone have an idea about what to use as scale loose coal? I will need a lot of it as it will have to fill up the pipeline that goes from the unloader back up to the mine. I was thinking about aquarium sand as it is available in black but that may be too heavy. It also may be hard to keep dry as the humidity gets pretty high here.
All ideas and suggestions welcome.
BTW, the plaster medical cast worked great. A case of the stuff (60 rolls) was only about USD$35 here.