General Stuff(tm)

[rubber_jonnie]

Looks great I have to say.

Also, I have TT envy :D

[stephen_usher]

Looks great I have to say.

Also, I have TT envy :D

:lol:

[stephen_usher]

Today I've been building bridges...

Or rather I've been designing and printing components with which to build a bridge for one of the model railway club layouts.

Not too bad given that I've tried to make the design as simple as possible, with the bridge deck and then the fence and pavement are a single unit and finally there are the pillars. At least it looks as if it's a structure a civil engineer could have designed, rather being a faithful copy of a real bridge. Each section is 20cm long, meaning that they just fit on most 3D printer beds.

IMG_4217.jpeg

It still takes a while to print. This 40 cm section takes about five hours to print all the parts.

[HigashiJun]

@stephen_usher

Looks good.

Well done !

[stephen_usher]

I've made a start on getting things ready for RetroFest 2025 at Steam in Swindon at the end of May.

The first step was to buy some extra controllers for the Hornby Zero 1 digital train control system from 1979. The second step was converting one of the old locos and start testing things, which I did tonight.

IMG_4220.jpeg

Well, the hand-held controller works but the desktop slave unit has an issue... the single sided edge connector seems to have broken off the PCB inside the unit. I'm going to have to drill out the 7 rivets holding the upper and lower cases together to get in side and see just how bad the damage is. It may take bodge wires and glue. Who knows?

I've also made an initial design for the trackwork in AnyRail. Unfortunately it seems I'm causing issues for the event organisers as model railway baseboards are too large for one table and too small for two and I really can't made them smaller and larger ones wouldn't fit in the car.

Anyway, purchase of the board components and the track will have to wait until I get back from Norway in mid-April... which will give me only about 6 weeks to get everything ready.

[stephen_usher]

Well, I wonder what could be wrong here? Not sure. ;-)

IMG_4223.jpeg

Anyway, used superglue on the paxalin PCB and then some epoxy and some old 3D print stuff for extra strength and then used solder to bridge most of the track breaks with only one needing some wire.

IMG_4224.jpeg

IMG_4225.jpeg

Put the unit back together and it works fine. Yay!

[rubber_jonnie]

Nice save, but how did it break in the first place?

[stephen_usher]

That board has a block with a double edge connector connected to it and that is supposed to push onto the PCB in the master unit. Could have been pushed together in the wrong way very hard.

[stephen_usher]

I made another video...

[stephen_usher]

Oh, here's what a Zero 1 decoder "chip" chip looks like through a cheap digital microscope...

IMG_4229.jpeg

I took the plastic top off "in antiquity" before I knew what I was doing. I think the thing still works though.