ohh, now there a hint, looks like I have another channel to watch & sub to. sounds an interesting idea. these seemed a decent fit without drilling but that could get them seated better. will check that out, cheers :)

actual arduinos are pretty good at servo control, on my N gauge layout there is a single Arduino Nano (well a clone) driving one of these PCA9685 boards and communicating over an RS485 serial bus to JMRI, was quite simple to set up as well - though still had this somewhat tedious calibration step, slightly easier though. I wrote a second bit of code to load instead that responded to "+" and "-" input on the serial port to adjust one at a time and show me the actual values which it could save to its on board EEPROM and then use those values really should have done similar here, the breadboard prototype in one of the earlier videos has a 1k EEPROM chip fitted that was never used. its just one of those annoying jobs that has to be done right but only has to be done once. as for cameras, I thought about having cameras running at all times in the hope it would behave better.. but you never can get Mr Murphy on side can you. thanks for watching, your own methodical approach is an inspiration I perhaps needed to take more account of :)

that never occurred to me, just went with superglue to fix them, but that sounds a lot better, I now know for next time, many thanks for watching and for that tip :)

technically HND Electronic Engineering is my highest qualification, have only ever really exercised it for model railway and slot car stuff though. It is interesting and that interest is partly why I end up over complicating stuff :) hopefully will do a few more videos on the how and why of the various bits thanks for watching :)

@aleopardstail its very interesting to watch.

there is a GP mug that may have to feature

Cheers & Thanks, started it to help with motivation to keep doing it bit by bit and not wander off to distractions. have an excellent new year :)

not a bad idea, will certainly not get relaid for a while anyway. and its only a problem with two of the bigger ones at the same time. there are certainly reasons to use signals :)

oh thats terrible, seems curious that I have models quite literally from the 1980's, and the reasonably early 1980's at that which run fine yet more modern ones have notes about brushes lasting 50-100 hours and thats it. Only had to remotor a single locomotive so far (The D49) and then more because I wanted to chip it and there was no space without removing the ringfield - though it was seriously noisy and now runs much more quietly (needs more pickups adding though as she loves to stall). I love the Q6, the first "new" (well nearly so, but not eBay) loco. so far that and the A2/3 are the best runners by a mile, hope you get yours going again. hadn't heard of a problem with them, will keep an eye open so many thanks for the heads up many thanks for watching and commenting :)

@ yes the motor Hornby used in these back in 2016/2017 seems to have had a bad batch from all I’ve read. Still, diagnosing and fixing it has been very educational! Love your electronics and wiring by the way, putting ferrules on all wires is a must as far as I’m concerned.

many thanks, loads to too still, Happy Christmas to you & yours and a good train filled new year :)

glad you enjoyed it, still learning myself so thought I'd show the bits I have picked up that took me a while to find out how to do thanks for watching, next part should be up Sunday

time spent planning is seldom wasted, plenty I'd do differently here starting again already

oh its to scale.. the question is to scale _with what??_ they are good enough as toys though

the MQTT bit works fine for remembering settings, as for battery power I do have a few ESP32 with 18650 battery modules on the back of them. its not too hard to get a 5V supply all round the layout. have to have a think about that. storage loops shouldn't be hard to power up, just need to get on with it as all the servos are in place and the power feeds etc are all done - can drive trains on the two loops, just not (yet) on and off the mainline cheers for watching, and will have a think on batteries

a good chunk of the inspiration for all this came from your videos showing what was possible, which intrigued me. I have been asked by a few for more on how it works in simple terms and in more that a few cases "for the love of %$$^&* why!". those PCF8575 I/O chips are good, mostly because they will tell you when they have something to say, also just two data lines as well as being able to work input and output, not quite as simple to use and yes very much enjoying, especially now the track is able to support higher speed I can dare to run at medium speed and turn my back and just listen.. mostly. many thanks for watching :)

@@aleopardstail Ha, I get a few of those. As politely as I can, and in the infamous words of Billie Piper, the reply is simply, 'because we want to'.

I do plan *eventually* to repaint the lot, possibly with lighting too Happy Christmas all the way down there :)

I'm starting to wish the wiring panels were a bit larger, most are 24"x12", wishing I'd gone at least 18" deep here good luck with it and thanks for watching

Graffer did nice ones, these are very certainly Triang ones home painted with what appears to be enamel which I hope I can remove

Hi, many thanks, yes the block detection will feature later more once its all hooked up. Hoping to automate part of the layout thanks for watching :)

its not really a lift up section, its more that the layout is eight boards, only the four corner ones have legs and its all held together with M8 bolts. I can remove sections if I have to but its not designed to routinely be lifted up, access to the middle is a crawl under but once finished should only need to go there for maintenance not operations (I hope) thanks again for watching :) and thanks for comments, all helps

Ah I see now still top quality track laying

@@Rancidhamster its getting there, could be better as it undulates a bit, so far nothing that is stopping trains, even managed some full throttle testing which got scary. thanks for watching :)

Hi, and thanks, yes totally agree if track is not nailed on reliable there is no point going further until its fixed. Can see a couple of places I may end up lifting and re-laying track here, takes time but worth doing, way easier than trying to fix it later. plus testing means a chance to make chuffing noises thanks for watching :)

its sooo relaxing, well apart from the tension of watching for the crash, but apart from that sooo relaxing. thanks for watching :)

Hi, a lot of what is here is down to wanting automation and block detection, plus using electrofrog points with the frog powered if you don't need the block detection stuff most of this becomes "two wires as a DCC bus, connect all the droppers to it", can also put frog switches on the servos/motors directly I'm planning a video on "WTF???" is going on here. to start with keep it far simpler, DCC can be very simple especially if you want to drive things manually :) many thanks for watching :)

@@aleopardstail I think the way to go is....slap 12 volts onto ALL the track and use radio control in each loco. I saw it demonstrated at Scale Forum at 2024 High Wycombe. I'm hooked.. but don't know the true cost at the moment. I'm not sure what happens with frogs at cross overs and double slips ?

@@BernardfromBucks have see this done, and see it with both radio and infrared control. some larger gauge garden railways use battery power in locomotives and radio control and have done so for many years. totally takes track wiring out of the whole concept. if you are going that sort of control you go with dead frogs and forget about it Leopard Street is using microcontroller driven relays to swap frog polarity, its not ideal but working so far If I was doing anything outdoors it would be at least O gauge and quite likely radio controlled

there are certainly more robust ways to do this, the etched brass kits are without a doubt more reliable, this was really just an experiment. I do need to get hold of some brass kits to experiment with, the ones that compensate one axle should also help a lot with less than perfect track *whistles innocently* there is no way the base resin would work as a bearing, and yes while there are brass bearings inserted here the rest of it while not exactly fragile (ABS like resin) is hardly going to last for ever so yes will give that a go many thanks for watching :)

the newer model does have the W Iron behind the solebar, until I got the drawings I didn't realise that. the extra 1mm (or so) is basically the W Iron not being mounted high enough, drawing had a lot of measurements but not the full height.. live and learn etc. all observations welcome, the model as I printed it has "flaws"... I need to correct things before the sixth iteration needs to sort this

the cabin printing in layers caused the problems, not tried that in resin. could have been better printing four sides individually flat and then gluing together. and the 2' or 3' test is the goal, especially once painted with a bit of weathering, just need to rescale it a bit with pin point bearings they roll really nicely (needs a bit of weight adding too) #3 warped as the bed is a bit thin, comes down to how the resin dries and cures, have had fun with model ships going like bananas, having the body on it helps a lot and yes paint will help a lot, likely will end up printing chassis and bodies individually, print the chassis in black and body in a colour suited to whatever it needs to be painted, resin comes in many colours. thanks for watching :)

Warping happens in all printing, FDM and Resin, it depends on the models orientation, when you print it, the longer layers or flat layers will warp easier, you can reduce it but you will never stop it. Rails of Sheffield did a 3D printed van a number of years ago, and they only have a life of 15 years, it will start to degrade due to the UV cured plastic, some roofs have failed already.

@@bluebellModelrailway its a known problem with UV cure resins, they need painting, as in painting totally, with something that blocks the UV totally. find with a lot of models it takes a few prints to get the supports right and thicknesses right to minimise the warping. Have done other 3d print projects, first ventures into model railway printing, all advice and comments more than welcome. Learn by following others many thanks for watching & commenting, very useful stuff

@aleopardstail having tried multiple things to block UV as it comes out any kind of light... As it's there on a spectrum. You again won't block it totally.. and it will eventually breakdown. Best advice I was given is 3D printing is a tool... That's it... It's for rapid prototyping not long life. Making things overly thick just looks awful... Use what's available as you will do someone else out of a job... Railway modelling is a hobby... With many cottage industries.. castings, etchings... Use them or lose them. So I tend to make the body shells as they are sturdy so truck bases and tops... And then use wire and etched and castings to make sure the wagon stays reliable and strong. You also have to take into account shrinkage all resins vary can be up to 5% which might also be why your wagon on the clip is a bit tight.

brings a new lease of life to somewhat tired old coaches, and keeps them rolling along

its getting there, slowly, many thanks for watching :)

it is, in theory at least, simpler than it looks. planning a video going over the concept and why its even being attempted this way. Strip out the stuff related to block detection and its a lot simpler though. many thanks for watching :)

many thanks for watching, its getting there, slowly, goal is the full loops running by the end of the year

if I was a wizz it would _work_... can certainly do a video on how its meant to work and what passes for the thought behind it though, very firmly in "it seemed like a good idea at the time" territory, there are reasons in theory will have a think on how to come up with something thats hopefully not too tedious or technical thanks for watching :)

many thanks for watching, glad its helping someone, hopefully a few more with a similar theme coming up :)

never thought of that, link added to the NRM thread for the layout, NRM profile already links here. They do connect to the router, just not very reliably, think the layout is interfering. phone works, phone has a better antenna. Experiment with the better antenna version shows a significant improvement. even the old board did connect, just not always, this replacement is better but not perfect. Hopefully a quick update video soon as its more reliable now I have "adjusted" it slightly Thanks for watching and for commenting :)

in theory DCC is just two wires, its just that here they brought their friends along with them, got drunk, had a party and tied themselves in knots. go with traditional point wiring and pure manual driving of trains and it is two wires.. but add one more and you can do _this_, add another and you can also do that and pretty soon you have a subscription to wiring insanity anonymous. once I get it all to work I hope to stick up a video on what its all actually doing, assuming I can work it out thanks for watching :)

hi, it helps that fiddling with this sort of stuff is _another_ hobby, and when I say "helps" I mean "hinders"... There is a time and place for needless complexity and I wish sometimes that place was elsewhere :) many thanks for watching

Hi, thanks for watching, its not so much for remote control from elsewhere but to limited the amount of wiring. this is controlled via a PC using the JMRI software, what I wanted to avoid was having to string control cables between the boards. WiFi _in theory_ helps with this and using MQTT also means say a display panel is possible as is controlling from a few locations.. it is a bit more than two wires, if I wasn't interested in automating a lot of this it would be a lot more basic. but remote control of points, and eventually signals, is worth at least trying :)

This is one of those flashes of the blindingly obvious that have me looking down at my feet muttering "why didn't I think of that", Think I've actually got some somewhere as well. doh. many thanks, thats actually really useful for someone for whom this simply didn't occur. :)