The Chronicles of Canary Sidings - the Tale of an Untidy Workbench

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Liver & Fry

Liver & Fry

Western Thunderer
Herb Garden said:
This momentum has given me the confidence to go back and tackle the 2mm wagon.

View attachment 220421
It needs new wheels cos at least one is completely warped but it's together

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Will there be any more 2mmfs projects? At this stage I don't know but let's just see what happens....
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"If at first you don't succeed..."

Well done on getting back up again. Wagon looks good!

- James
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
So not so great news is that the ivd been stuck in bed with a bug for a couple of days.... Just back on my feet today.

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Before I got ill I had been slowly cutting out all the openings in the next 2 electronics enclosures (mill board and control panel)

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Twas a lot of openings!

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The mill board controls are made from 2 small boxes joined together to fit in an awkward corner.

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The control panel is a bit more out of the box and with less holes.

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Fitout is done and I'm starting to connect up.... I was wiring panels today at work and now I'm wiring panels at home too..
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
The control boxes are done!!!

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Firstly the mill board module is now complete bar a couple of servo motors that I've put in a safe place and cannot find..... But good enough for testing.

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The control panel is also done. This mounts to the front of the fiddle yard and at the moment looks a bit bare. I'm planning to replace the toggle switches with a proper lever frame at some point but to get the layout running for now I'm just using the switches.

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There's plenty of space inside for the locking frame. From left to right There's x2 8 channel input modules in here. (Why 9 levers why?). Home made 12v-5v DC/DC convertor and the lenz express net module.

For the DCC curious I use lenz command equipment and architecture but roco multimaus handsets which are compatible and they share the same cons protocol.

Next steps are to build some interconnecting harnesses and the slowly power up the 3 modules.... And that's before I connect them to the track
 
O

ovener

Active Member
Nice work. Nylon braided expandable sleeving is brilliant. In my last job, it even resisted the efforts of children and teachers to wreck all manner of connected equipment!
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
ovener said:
Nice work. Nylon braided expandable sleeving is brilliant. In my last job, it even resisted the efforts of children and teachers to wreck all manner of connected equipment!
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We use it in oil filled, pressurised, sub sea equipment at work so if it's good enough for that it's good enough for model trains.

It's particularly useful in this case as I've got 1mm^2 cable in the same loom as .2mm^2 cable and it keeps the harness neat but allows it to flex nicly as required. I used heatshrink on earlier experiments and it didn't work as well
 
timbowales

timbowales

Western Thunderer
George, a question re the braided sleeving if I may?
Is it possible to poke individual wires out of the sleeving at odd intervals along its length?
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
timbowales said:
George, a question re the braided sleeving if I may?
Is it possible to poke individual wires out of the sleeving at odd intervals along its length?
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It certainly is although I'm not sure how one would control where t happens.... I've only done it by accident.

I think it would start to restrict the movement of the sleeve if you did it repeatedly as it would create static nodes where there is no flex at all.
 
simond

simond

Western Thunderer
timbowales said:
George, a question re the braided sleeving if I may?
Is it possible to poke individual wires out of the sleeving at odd intervals along its length?
Click to expand...
Difficult to control, as George has replied, however, if you poke them in, you can decide where.

You might want to group such wires in another sleeve, and then cover the joint with shrinkwrap.

an alternative, not so ”polished” as the braided sleeve, is the spiral wrap. Not an issue if it’s under the baseboard, perhaps, and very much easier to have wires branching out along the length.
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
So after a lot of testing and programming the control system is now being installed on the underside of the layout IMG_20240819_065430812.jpg
Putting the module in place

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Routing the inter board harnesses
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Connecting the track feeds
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And that's it done. Minimal under board wiring all routed secured and protected.

I think I have set a new standard for finescale layout wiring
 
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