Interested in a signal building group?

[Keith1500]

In a recent conversation with Alan I believe one of the open issues is the plug type and how to interconnect the signals.

Without knowing too much about this project and therefore the wiring details etc my initial thoughts would be to use computer network cable (cat5). This has 8 cores. The leads are cheap enough and come in different lengths. can be joined together using connectors.There are sockets which can be easily put into a laser cut plate which might be part of the base.

Anyway I am hoping to make Bens on the 10th for a session "chat and build"

[Dave Noble]

I have to admit that there has been little progress, what with work and holidays, and this brilliant weather over the last week hasn't spurred me onto get on with anything inside at all.

Thanks to Eddy for soldering the ladders, lovely job, he even primed them as well. He's done such a good job, I've given him some more to do.

There is a little news from me. I've received laser cut balance levers and cranks, and have machined a batch of bosses. The photo shows bits and finished parts.

P1030237.JPG (81.48 KiB) Viewed 23124 times

There is one crank with a little "clamp" made from welding rod holding the bosses in place ready for soldering. I gave the bits a dose of Bakers Fluid, a bit of heat and soft soldered them. You may notice the curved enlargements around the large hole in the balance lever, this is to prevent overheating and damage during the laser cutting. These curved bits should be filed off, so that the lever is straight sided. There is also extra material around the hole in the crank for the same reason, when this is filed off (if you bother) it gives a rather lopsided appearance to the area, just like the real thing oddly. Alan has been volunteered to solder these together.

It now occurs to me that the pins in the shackles are too long and could cause adjacent levers to catch, so the shackles will need squeezing up a little, and I've sent for some 1mm stainless set screws as replacement pins. They have cheeseheads, but at least they are small, and I hope they won't be noticed.

[Dave Noble]

The M1 screws arrived today, and I think are much neater than the ones supplied with the shackles and should prevent any catching of adjacent levers.

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I made the shackles a bit narrower by squeezing them onto their respective levers using a smooth jawed vice, with the pin in place to try and keep the holes in line. Afterwards, they were opened up very slightly so they were free. Worked fine.

[Ben Lyons]

Hi Eddy

Dave asked me to advise you on my requirement for ladders re Bracket signals --- 4 long will do I will adjust to suit.

Thanks Ben

Dave revised base underway. what thoughts on 3 and 4 arm mirror cut outs to allow for 3/4 servos. will send revised base on to You.

[Eddyg]

Ben,

It'll be couple or three weeks before I can do them, but I don't suppose you're desperate for them yet. Let me know if that's a problem.

Eddie.

[Ben Lyons]

Hi all

picture shows resin builds for test and from if OK casting

[Dave Noble]

Nice job Ben.

We will be needing lots of U bolts to hold these pieces to the posts. Anyone fancy helping? I suggest we make them 10BA, from steel welding rod. Any comments?

The rod will need cutting to length, ends tidying (linisher), threading each end, and bending in some sort of tool. If anyone wants to help with any of these processes, let me know. I have plenty rod in stock. Eddy did mention something about them previously, but he has done all the ladders so far.

[Richard Phillips]

I can help out with U bolts, although as I don't have any kind of mill any former would need to be supplied to me, I guess something like a pipe bender arrangement would make for consistency... so just a bar with a stop bending round a slight clamp pin? I could knock one up out of bar stock I suppose..

I ordered a pair of servos of the type previously mentioned for prototyping the code on the logic boards with the same equipment - I'm making the assumption a maximum of three servos is all we need to house in the base? I just bought the first available so I imagine the per-unit cost could be found cheaper. Any bases available I I can see if the electronics/servos fit? I understand we've settled on daisy-chained 5-9 pin round DIN plugs?

[Dave Noble]

Richard, thanks for the offer with U bolts. Will you be able to do the cutting, trimming and threading as well, or will you need someone else to help? I reckon there will be about 150 to make! The pipe bender arrangement sounds good, you can then change wheels to make U bolts for the two diameters of post.

The standard bases will only need 2 servos each, but the specials, which will have bigger bases, will need a maximum of 4, if Jonny's drawings on flickr are correct. Ben is intending to make a trial base this week I think. There will be about 80 x 120 x 14mm of space available for the electronics. I thought we had settled on round DIN plugs too, though Ben is preferring D plugs.

[Dave Noble]

I've been checking Guys list of signals, and I don't think it's quite right, would someone like to check. I think we will need.

Single post, 1 home (N2) and 1 distant (M1), 1 only. (JW)
Single post, 1 distant (M9), 1 only. (EG)
Single post, fixed distant, 2 required. (AW, GC) (plus spare by RP)
Single post, 1 home arm, 5 required, (M2, M3, M4, M8, S3). (AW, EG, JW, DN, GC)
Single post, 1 fixed home and 1 shunt arm (S1), 1 only. (DN)
Left hand bracket, 1 home (N1) on main post, 1 home (N3) and 1 shunt (N6) on bracket. (GH)
Right hand bracket, 2 required, 1 home on main post, 1 shunt on bracket, (M7 & M6, N8 & N5). (BL both) (plus spare by RP)

List updated by adding Richard Phillips' spares, and deleting Shildon gantry which is not being used, apparently.

[Eddyg]

Dave,

According to the July 7th issue of Johny's drawings the Shildon starter is S3 which is already allocated to Graham. So unless the drawings have been changed we need 13 posts and they are all allocated as above. I can't see the second left hand bracket unless you are looking at Jonny's original arrangement showing S12, 13 and S15, 16 in Shildon Yard along with a mass of ground signals.

Eddie

[Dave Noble]

Sorry Eddy, I may have used the wrong terminology, yes S3 is allocated to Graham. The second left hand bracket is the one in Shildon yard, as far as I know it is still required, but as it was missing from the first list I will now have to order some extra parts for it, though that is balanced a bit as three other arms are fixed.

[Richard Phillips]

Richard, thanks for the offer with U bolts. Will you be able to do the cutting, trimming and threading as well, or will you need someone else to help? I reckon there will be about 150 to make! The pipe bender arrangement sounds good, you can then change wheels to make U bolts for the two diameters of post.

I was thinking of making a few stops if I'm making that many - shouldn't have a problem cutting trimming and threading, I'm hoping someone might make a bending tool though! I could I suppose, I imagine just a plate with a pivot mounted lever with a clamp and stop which should make for uniform U-bolts, with, as you say and different size pin for the two diameters (and I assume one U-bolt type is longer than the other).

Doing 10 or so before work should get the lot done and two weeks!

Hopefully you got my PM re base thickness, it's in my outbox and not in my sent items for some reason.

[Dave Noble]

Here is a picture of the base being machined today, mainly for the benefit of Jonny and Richard so they can see where they can fit the electronics. The dimensions do not take into account any protrusion of the sockets, which can be located in other places if that is more convenient. The round hole is for ballast if we think we may need any. The slot is to accommodate the ladder feet. Bracket signals will of course have longer bases.

Base

Base for Richard.jpg (122.06 KiB) Viewed 22888 times

[Eddyg]

Dave,

Going back to the start of this project I'm sure it was decided to exclude all the signalling from Shildon Yard other than the starter (S3) and the home (S1) on the basis we needed to restrict the amount of work to begin with and that Shildon Yard could be signalled manually by the Yard Master and Shunters as we have been doing. I have no problem with including the bracket S12-13/S14-15 (see original layout on page 2 of this forum), but consider it is unnecessary at this stage and can be picked up with the ground signals if and when we build the next phase.

Also I think we decided to build the 'fixed' signals as working units so they could be used in the future if the signalling layout is revised or the equipment used on another site. Also it would be useful to have spares in the event of equipment failure. ( See this forum page 5 Jonny's answer to my querys)

Regards

Eddie

[Alan Wood]

Hi all , while having a chat at work today , talking got to the signals we are building and the juddering of the servo at slow speed and he said had we considered sail winch servos as they have a drum that allows the sails to be moved in and out , I don't know if this is of any use to the group but I thought I would mention it , see you all soon

[Eddyg]

Slightly off topic but of importance all the same. At 22:11 on 24th Oct, Dave Noble posted a reply to my post of 9:00 pm the same day. Dave's post has now disappeared which I would think is an unusual and concerning event. Is this the Halloween effect or is there some plausible explanation?

Regards

Eddie

[Dave Noble]

Don't worry Eddy. It seems I lost the plot a bit with signal allocations etc, so, as some of my replies were not worth keeping on the forum (ie a waste of space) I tried to delete some. I didn't think I had managed to, but it seems I did with one of them.

Alan, re winch servos. I suspect a winch servo is just a standard one altered to continuously rotate. It will almost certainly have the same control parts inside it, so will still suffer from jitter, but this may not be so noticeable because of the application, not the way it works.

[Eddyg]

Dave,
Understand your reasons for deleting posts, but for me my background in business demands that correspondence is not deleted until the project is complete. So you can see why I was concerned when a post disappears without any explanation.

Is the servo jitters such a big problem? The signals at Gilling do twitch from time to time but I don't think anyone is particularly worried about it.

Eddie

[Dave Noble]

Fair enough Eddy, but I'm hoping there won't be any claims arising from this project!

Hopefully the jitters won't be a problem, it's just that if we could eliminate them it would be better than keeping them. The servos should have a good 100 degrees of movement, and this should help smooth things out.

LAMPS. Has anyone any idea of what sort of lamps were fitted to these signals? I have no drawings or information directly relating to them. The only clues I have are that one of the drawings shows an adapter plate for an Adlake 6019 lamp, and I've found a Dorman drawing showing a replacement electric lamp to fit inside an Adlake 55/13. These Adlake lamps were apparently able to burn for 8 days, so would have been a very sensible option, but I've no idea whether or not their use was widespread, or which models were used. Lamps are not listed in the British Railways BRS-SM series, which makes me think that they were perhaps bought in items. Can anyone help please?