Malmsbury - Linear Motor T Gauge (1:480) - Building the Layout

This is a collection of pictures I took while designing and building Malmsbury, a 6'x2' Linear Motor T Gauge (1:480) model railway layout. While they do not cover every step and detail, they should give an idea of just how much thought and effort goes into building a model like this.
The music is Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, arranged and played by Kevin MacLeod.

[@tangneptune]

Saw this in person today. So fascinating to see the building process, I had no idea this was a bespoke system!

[@modelrailmusings5981]

I am glad you liked it. They really look different in real life!

[@daveb.trains7019]

Very informative and interesting, thanks for sharing!

[@aegidiusandernach]

Sehr schön und ein guter Einblick in die Arbeit. Danke

[@AlwaysCensored-xp1be]

With the current prices of rail track, does the PCB track end up being lower cost? Was that Kicad and Openscad being used? Found out about high nickel rail, will have to try it but I still suspect your system to be much more reliable. Serious electronics PCBs.

[@modelrailmusings5981]

The track costs me about AUD $10/m, and my most ambitious layout so far has about 9m of track, so it is almost pocket change. The trains are just lumps of plastic with embedded magnets, so the same there. The electronics cost more, but not a lot so. Even when I was looking at doing it all commercially, the final price to the customer for a system was lower than T or Z. I use Eagle to actually do the PCBs, but with some serious custom software generating the designs. I only have to do the panelisation (and turnouts, alas) by hand. And yes, I use OpenSCAD for all the trains and structures, including the artwork for the carriage sides. As for reliability, when I was filming the last video, I just set the layout running then spent three hours moving the camera around and trainspotting - not a single hiccup, which is exactly what I want when single-handing two layouts at an exhibition.

[@AlwaysCensored-xp1be]

Just getting back into the hobby after 3+ decade out. Even 5 decades ago the price of turnouts was high so I did smaller narrow gauge systems. 3D printer costs the same as 10 turnouts and I still have packets of Code 40 rail. Did you hand paint those figures? I might try Kicad and JLCPCB

[@modelrailmusings5981]

@@AlwaysCensored-xp1be With this system, the real issue with turnouts is the amount and complexity of the wiring each requires - typically 6-8 three-wire cables from each, and 2-3 pairs of relays to do the switching. Plus solving a Sudoko puzzle to get the section lengths right so the currents balance out under all possible switch settings. Fun! For the figures, I used pre-painted brass 1:400 airline passengers from Eduard, and just gave them a wash of light grey to tone down their overly-bright colours. If you try this yourself, one thing to watch out for is the track getting hot. I bent over backwards to avoid that, starting by using 2oz copper. I use DirtyPCBs for mine, since they don't charge an arm and a leg for panelized boards. JLCPCB are fine for the controller boards.

[@AlwaysCensored-xp1be]

@@modelrailmusings5981 Magnetic force proportional to NI, I'm Kicading a two layer single turn PCB, 0.5mm track width. Microstepping was a clue, stepper motor four coils, no vias if single turn. Decades ago I was doing induction keys on cars, had trouble with original keys they were melting, turns out they were iron based not brass and I had invented induction furnace on a car ignition switch. Yep hot, but stepper motor drivers have current control.

[@modelrailmusings5981]

@@AlwaysCensored-xp1be I find 0.3-0.4A works well, and adjust the section length and supply voltage to get this value. 4-turn coils were the best compromise I could come up with, so I have real doubts about using just one. The key parameter is the coil spacing. this in turn drives the magnet spacing and everything else, so I use a coil spacing of 4mm (2mm considering the staggered coils on the bottom). That works out to a magnet spacing of 3mm, so 3mm disc magnets just naturally snap into the correct arrangement. It also gives a basic step size of exactly 1mm, which is really convenient.