Interested in a signal building group?

[Ben Lyons]

Morning all,

just to confirm I will have my 3 signal fitted up as Saturday saw most of the important bits fitted. Today I will be added the brackets for the operating arm at gantry lever plus assembling the painted arms trail fit, and if all ok I think I can paint the posts.

I will also be sending out the arms to those who sent arms for painting. I had to do the distant ones twice and I have to add the strip but hopefully all will be well.

As to bases I receive around 10 last night a text from Jonney re bases its seems Richard have wired and test but has a number that have failed he is at present replacing the failed parts but need to retest and so it seems he is now delivering base to me at Wotton this Saturday, If I then TNT them out on Monday you wont see them until sometime on Tuesday, is it better I just bring them to Shildon we can screw them on and add links as needed. YOUR CALL.

[Ben Lyons]

Picture from Richard wired bases still fault finding
Ben

[Eddyg]

Ben,

I think you should get the bases out to the builders as soon as they are available. Fitting the bases at Shildon isn't a such a good idea as the ladders will need to be fitted once the bases are in place and there may be other operations as well. I think there will be too much going on setting up the railway and laying cables, as well as commissioning the signalling system, to be doing final assembly of the signals on the Thursday. The other issue is damage of the signals in transit. I was hoping to have them completed and a carrying case made before loading them up with locos and wagons. If I get them Tuesday then I will have a chance to get them completed for Thursday.

Eddie

[Richard Phillips]

I understand Eddie, but time is in short and precious supply. I finished testing them on Sunday, and a lot of the cheap far-eastern supplied RS485 boards have failed, maybe less than 50p each but it took a long time to check and fault find them all. Now I have a set of working bases I'm waiting on replacement parts (due Wednesday) and I'll have to fit and check, and having finished the soldering I've got to adjust the code so it works with the servos in position as the arc is small and the spline is such we might loose 25 degrees travel worst-case. I could adjust for that, but it means more code and testing. I'm not hanging around, I just don't have the time... Jonny is fighting a similar battle with block bells and token instruments and level crossings, and our children wonder why we have glazed looks and can think only of interlocking....

[Eddyg]

Richard,

I do appreciate the time and effort needed to get a project like this working, I've been involved with this sort of thing before and know that after everything is built and working in isolation, commissioning is invariably difficult and time consuming.

Are you saying you will not get the boards to Ben on Saturday and you need the extra time that delivering them at Shildon will give you? If that's the case then I suppose we'll have to live with it.

Eddie

[Richard Phillips]

Richard,

I do appreciate the time and effort needed to get a project like this working, I've been involved with this sort of thing before and know that after everything is built and working in isolation, commissioning is invariably difficult and time consuming.

Are you saying you will not get the boards to Ben on Saturday and you need the extra time that delivering them at Shildon will give you? If that's the case then I suppose we'll have to live with it.

Eddie

Looking like it might be Sunday for handover, if I can arrange it, I certainly need a few afternoons to adapt the code to work with the servos fitted in-position - it really needs a user setup trim option. There's a lot that could be done, but they'll just have to be programmed to go through an arc that will hopefully not crash and manual control lines all work like they should. I suspect a post-Shildon a software update will be in order, but I wanted to get them out with a workable program otherwise we'll have to flash all the boards on the day as well as all the other things that need setting up - and there's no way I can test them all in-situ

[Dave Noble]

The lamps are in the post, along with their missing fittings. Details of what to do with them are now on THE LIST. I hope to get more photos up tomorrow, photographing small things under tungsten light is beyond me.

[Eddyg]

Ben

Painted signal arms received today. Good job thanks.

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Eddie

[Richard Phillips]

Right, slightly updated software and new modbus boards fitted, I have to do some slight re-work to three of the bases for minor issues like manual control lines, or possible dry joints on the twisted pair lines, nothing major - hope to get these to Ben on Sunday, along with two "signalboxes", I don't have the servos so these will have to be fitted, hopefully you will have made up the mounting plates.

Don't fit the horn until the base has been powered up and the servo attached, this will drive the servo to it's "ON"/danger position and then the horn should be fitted to the position closest to the post and closest to the top of the base for single arm signals (most of them) and connected to the pins closest to the ribbon cable.

There is provision for lamp connections on 2-pin "dupont"/pc header connectors - but I suspect most people won't have female pins and shrouds/housings unless you can butcher an old computer connectors. Not sure I'll get my lamp done in time or if I'll have any spares, I have some housing spare if anyone gets to that point - looks like you have Eddie!



... and just to mention, my post will be assembled and handed over to Ben on Sunday, it's mostly painted (needs a repaint in places if I'm honest), no lamp fitted as yet, but was allocated as a spare" fixed distant - could be drafted into service I suspect once I get the pull wire fitted - not fitted the lamp glasses - any ideas? I suspect cyno would fog the plastic, hot glue not easily applied. Some kind of wire ring might work, but no idea really how to fit.

[Dave Noble]

"I suspect most people won't have female pins and shrouds/housings.......not fitted the lamp glasses - any ideas?"

Check THE LIST.

[Ben Lyons]

Hi all

Spec plate glasses try PVA works well enough on our show models.

Eddie I guess you have painted satin white and satin black, I'm up to white primer and will top coat tomorrow.
Dave, Eddie arms look as if the should be closer to the spec plate lens seems in pictures you can only just see the dimple's in the cast part.
Think I will fit mine a bit closer.

Ben

[Dave Noble]

Hi all,

And the bad news is.... I received the laser cut parts for the point motors, or point machines to give them their real name, today. I've used this company for quite a while, but today they made their first mistake. The main part of the frame, or at least 3 of the 4, has a kink in it making it unuseably wide. So, I will hopefully get one finished in time, but probably no more than that.

Ben. My arm seems too far out too, the same as Eddies. I've checked the etches, and they are OK. I couldn't possibly comment further, Ben.

Your brackets are looking good. One comment, I'd leave finally bolting the spindle bearings in place until you've fitted, or at least tried, the lamps in place, to make sure that the light will shine through the middle of the glasses.

[Eddyg]

Ben, Dave,

The arm and the spectacle plate have been connected using the pre-drilled holes in the arms and the centre drilling location in the spectacle plate the other four being spotted through from the arm on the assumption they were correct. A check of the dimensions from the BR drawings (SM-2/1& SM 7B) shows the spectacle plate casting is 0.080" too long and this is visually exaggerated by the corrugations being too long by 0.140", presumably errors in conversions somewhere, unless there's another drawing. I also think the red spectacle is too close to the green, but not as much as the 0.060" that shortening the corrugations would give. BRS SM1 which has no dimensions, gives another set of dimensions when scaled and I determined the length of the spectacle plate is much closer to the model, and it shows the bolt holes in the signal arm about 0.070" to scale further in from the right hand end.

Personally I don't think this is a big issue, and I'm not prepared at this time to make any alterations to what I've done because of the damage that will need to be rectified. If we really want to be pedantic and correct this, then it will need new spectacle plates cast and I don't suppose we really want to go there.

Having written that and thought about it, I suppose we could get away with shortening the spectacle plates by the 80 thou (2mm to those who are metricated) and re-drill. A bit of filler in the old holes and nobody will be any the wiser. Not before Shildon though for mine.

Eddie

[Ben Lyons]

Hi
I am going to move the arm back a bit redrill the holes in the casting as I have yet to fix these parts.

Ben

[Richard Phillips]

Like doing all my homework the night before it's due to be handed in I made an attempt to finish my pull wires. I say "attempt" because I fully intend to wrap them better when I have more time - for now I just have to get it done and for that reason I haven't threadlocked the shackles with the screws.

This did raise a question in my mind which is answered by the photographs of the semophore on the first page - I was thinking "you've got to be a bit accurate with your cable length for the balance arm"... and there, in a way, my query is answered - there's a turnbuckle near the balance arm to allow adjustment as you can't utilise the other arm hole positions without "re-terminating" the cable.

I suppose the reason this is becoming relevant is that all the bases currently drive to the same angle. This may be too little, or... too much and I haven't made accessible provision (currently) for modifying this. You can do this by re-flashing the arduinos but that will be tedious as anything, taking the base off and re-programming it.

I'm thinking of some rapid modification to the signalbox code to handle this, as the signalbox sends a degree position to the posts - however, it's the same degree position to all posts, and I suspect they'll all be slightly different depending on their cables. This is in part a problem of having no test phase - which is no-one's fault... we've just run out of time. I'll hack something together, but unless I can save the values to EEPROM we face having to adjust the angle each time - so I'll see how far I get with that....

[Dave Noble]

The pull wires are difficult. I don't think turnbuckles were normally incorporated, so I made my wires best I could, then adjusted the fit by moving the balance bracket to the best height. Same for the crank base.

Tiny turnbuckles are available, if anyone wants them they can be bought from Prime Miniatures, and other places no doubt.

[Alan Wood]

Hi all , from my Memory the signal wires were tensioned by wheels in the signalboxs and not anywhere else , I also a question about the signal system for shildon , I don't think that I will get my signals put together by next week so you will be 1distant and 1 home short , will this cause any problems as you have made your operating program expecting the full amount of signals to be there .

[Ben Lyons]

Hi All
Re comment of forum for lamp setting, used drawing for spacing and the fit was a treat to see! However might not get them lit as like everyone else I'm running out of time, with bits still to do for Shildon.

Will be picking up bases up from Richard on Sunday means drive to Oxford but its half way for each of us, Richard thinks he might be able to advise on assembly over coffee, lets hope it easy!.

Will send yours Eddie Via TNT as I know you want to finish at home, other will be with me at Shildon, I think Eddie you are correct building on site is a no go but the last link might- hopefully be OK to do. We could maybe show kit of parts or part completed signal.

Ben

[Richard Phillips]

Hi all , from my Memory the signal wires were tensioned by wheels in the signalboxs and not anywhere else , I also a question about the signal system for shildon , I don't think that I will get my signals put together by next week so you will be 1distant and 1 home short , will this cause any problems as you have made your operating program expecting the full amount of signals to be there .

To get technical, what happens on startup is that there are continued messages to each address - this is costly because there are a lot of messages flying about - hence what happens is after a fixed number of failed responses the signalbox marks each post as dead and stops talking to it, and the volume of messages go down. Hence, after about 5 seconds it won't matter as the missing post will just be marked as down - however, we do have the bases wired so it will just be a "phantom" signal. It will go through the motions, it just won't waggle the non-existent arm...

My distant spare might be able to deputise for your distant - do you think you could get a distant finished even as a fixed distant? There are two fixed distants on the plan.

I'm hoping to demo a signal to Ben on Sunday with a 9volt battery - it might just have enough oomph to power the signalbox too so I can demo the network. Otherwise we might have to get the jump leads out..

Those with bandwidth to burn (28 Megabytes) can view a little demo - although I've not rotated the video Video.mp4

[Eddyg]

Hi All,

Successful afternoon completing the lamps and fitting the coloured glasses. Some photos follow.

Home On.JPG (88.52 KiB) Viewed 30818 times

Home Off.JPG (89.51 KiB) Viewed 30818 times

Distant on.JPG (85.51 KiB) Viewed 30818 times

Distant Off.JPG (87.52 KiB) Viewed 30818 times

I'm surprised at just how bright the lamps are when viewed through the lens. The light beam is about 6" diameter at about eight feet distant so they will be very visible in the dark, and quite clear in subdued light I think. I have left the lenses clear by the way. I don't see the need to frost the backs as Dave suggested.

Like your video Richard, but I'm bemused at the spectacle glass colours - Red on and yellow off?

Dave, obviously I received your package this week, but I haven't received the replacement servo. Have you sent it?

See you all Thursday,

Eddie