March 14, 2010
GRASS had a good run day here on 13/3 - see the website.
Geof's Queensland train runs through Sandstone, while SaTR's #14 labours uphill far above.
Lilyvale town is starting to develop nicely. A station, wide main street with a church, pub, emporium, butchers shop, hall and 2 houses so far.
March 12, 2010
I've finished the baseboard for the new Oleander station (midway between Lilyvale and Ti-tree).
The board is only 2.6m long and 0.6m wide. It has a short platform (will be about 4').
I had an old 2' radius turnout, so I put in a siding using old aluminium bar rail. Maybe there will be a mine or something there later.
March 10, 2010
Some new pictures of live steam day At Keith Lindsey's place on the GRASS website. Includes a video.
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All the new trackwork around Lilyvale and Maple Jn is finally finished
The parking area is a 'stepping' place for me to step across the tracks to the garden.
Here's the new tunnel under Melaleuca complete too.
March 5, 2010
I've finally laid the rubber road at Lilyvale. The pub now occupies the corner position it was designed for.
Now to get Pauline motivated into making me some more clay buildings, and to get some plants in.
I'll have to build a goods shed and maybe a service station.
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I've motorised the turnout over behind Melaleuca using a servo motor.
February 20, 2010
This old trestle bridge at Melaleuca had to go to make way for the extra track and station underneath. (there used to be a trestle right where the wagon is.) It was just a couple of pieces of tomato stake and had been there since 1995.
So I built some side girders from sheet styrene and some 12mm plastic angle from the hardware store. It's 1m long and 100mm deep and just hangs on the tomato stakes which still provide all the strength. Total cost about $10 including the can of spray paint.
February 19, 2010
Bryan Coppock gave me a yellow (yuk!) Bachmann, Union Pacific cattle car. To make it more Australian, I removed the roof catwalk and all the ladders (and filled all the holes), removed the signs. I covered the holes in the roof with styrene strips and gave it a paint with grey primer.
And now it looks like this...
February 16, 2010
The new Hebel platform at Lilyvale has been cemented in place. It needs a fence. Maybe a picket type? I just hope it has enough clearance for wide visiting locos.
The blue 'rubber road' (camping mattress) will also be laid on a very wet slurry of concrete.
February 12, 2010
I added radio control to my old yellow diesel (L'il Critter converted to NSW X200 class).
It was a bit of a squeeze. Has 4 cells in each end. One end has all the RC stuff and the other, the sound board.
I added a changeover switch so it can still run from track power, as my test loco.
February 11, 2010
I've changed my mind (again) about the layout at Maple Jn. Originally I had allowed for an island platform, but I decided I didn't like the look of the track, so now I've relaid the track with 2 parallel lines and will have a single platform - shown blue.
Most ballasting has been done.
This is the track layout now.
February 8, 2010
For my next 2.4 GHz project, I’ve used one lot of equipment to do an RC track power control.
I run almost all battery power locos now, but I still have four, 433 MHz track controllers, but only use them for visitors. I selected the least reliable of the 4 for conversion.
As the existing controller had a 30V supply, I couldn’t use a stock ESC rated at 15V, so I built my own using a Picaxe microcontroller.
The old track controller was an inertia type with Darlington transistor, ‘pure’ dc output. It was an easy conversion as I could reuse the main power transistor part of the old controller. I just had to decode the ‘servo’ pulses from the Rx throttle channel and convert them to a PWM voltage signal and feed it to the inertia capacitor. The Picaxe 08M does this easily.
To reverse, I used my now standard micro servo with a SPST switch superglued to the side. The switch just operates the existing reversing relay.
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As part of the work, I also converted the Transmitter, so it has TWO throttles. This is a simple operation. Now I can independently control the track power with the left stick and a battery loco with the right stick!
For full details see my webpage here
February 4, 2010
Well my latest purchase of $A300 worth of 2.4 GHz radio control stuff from HobbyKing has arrived in good order.
I’ve now got 3 transmitters and enough receivers and motor controllers and servos to do 8 locos (4 of which don’t exist yet, but you have to plan ahead).
The purchase also included 48, NiMH AA, 2300mAh cells – at about $A1.05 each delivered. That should be enough for 5 or 6 locos.
So with the money previously spent, I’ll now get 8 locos radio controlled for under $A500 including batteries!
January 2, 2010
I cut up and scribed some 50mm thick Hebel to make a longer platform for Blackwall station (see Nov 28 entry). As always, the colours are cement oxides (black and sandstone colours). Needs a fence and nameboards to finish it off.
Also, some progress on the new Hebel retaining wall across the old Maple Jn site. The new track is made but more fill is needed. The new grade is 1:45 compared to the old 1:30 on a 900mm radius curve.
January 2, 2010
While browsing the $2 shop I noticed these plastic 'aquarium ferns'.
The left ones are just what I needed to make a palm tree (Pauline had made me the trunk from clay years ago). I really need a 2nd packet, but naturally they only had one in stock. The others will become shrubs on platforms.
