Wednesday 28 August 2013

What Coupling System Do Hornby Currently Use?

This is a question that has come up a few times now, and there is a really quick answer : they use two, Lima-style D-ring couplings that are moulded onto the rolling stock (loco, wagon, carriage, etc.) and NEM pocket couplings with reasonably standard tension lock couplings inserted.

The Hornby Railroad (cheaper) range have the D-ring couplings, and the Hornby non-Railroad ranges have the NEM couplings. If in doubt, simply use the product code to search the Hornby shop. If the product has NEM couplings, it will say so under 'Special Features'.

However, there are a few points that I suspect lurk behind the original question. The first related to compatibility.

The old Lima style D-rings are moulded onto the rolling stock, so that they are part of the chassis. This means that changing them to NEM couplings, whilst doable, is a messy process.

You'd be better off buying the more expensive, and slightly more attractive (neither are actually prototypical) models with NEM couplings if that's your goal. Of course, there's a caveat.

That caveat is that Hornby actually sell packs of NEM compatible D-ring couplings. These enable you to buy up Railroad (cheaper) wagons and carriages and then couple them to Hornby non-Railroad locomotives, by taking out the tension lock couplings and replacing them with the D-ring ones.

That's part of the beauty of NEM couplings - you can change the actual couplings for others. This becomes necessary, even if you've splashed out on non-Railroad stock, if you use Brian Kirby style magnetic uncoupling.

The reason is that the Hornby tension lock couplings are made of ferrous material, unlike the Bachmann ones (for example) which are not. If you have ferrous tension lock couplings, then the Brian Kirby approach doesn't work, as the magnets affect the coupling directly.

But that's the beauty of the NEM couplings - if you really don't like them, you can always swap them for some Kadee knuckle couplings, which are generally thought of as being more prototypical, and provide excellent delayed action magnetic uncoupling/coupling which is very versatile.

So, that's pretty much everything I now about the current coupling system that Hornby uses in both the high-end and Railroad product ranges.

Monday 26 August 2013

What's the Best Onboard Model Railway Camera?

This article covers the 808 Key Chain style micro camera, but I've also written an updated list of cameras which rely on more modern technology in "The Next Generation of Micro Video Cameras for Model Railways" article.

A quick search of the web pulls up a company called 4K Systems, who sell a device they call the MC120 Micro Video Camera. If you want to have a quick look at this, before I tell you the price, you can check it out here.

Now, this camera is the size of a car key fob, can take video in HD, holds about an hour of charge, and has an on-board micro SD card slot. It also costs over 90 GBP including postage and packaging.

Even though model rail is a pretty expensive hobby, it occurred to me that there ought to be a better solution, so I thought I'd share a few with you.

The first thing to note is that Amazon have a good line of keychain cameras. My favorite is the Keychain Keyring Cam 808 #11, which costs half as much as the 4K camera. It might boast a lower resolution, but the Amazon videos and reviews show it to be more than capable.

Amazon has a fairly extensive list of keychain cameras, ranging from around 5 GBP up to the aforementioned 808 #11. Worth checking out, but there's a problem.

4K Systems MC120 Micro Video Camera
I've borrowed an image from 4K's web site to illustrate what I think is a problem with the 808 keychain solution - it just doesn't sit right.

In fact, for N gauge and smaller scales, it would be unusable; it's just too big.

O gauge modellers might be able to fit it into a box van, but for the most popular scale - OO gauge - it's just a little bulky.

Now, my first reaction was to have a look on eBay,  Amazon, and others to see if a custom solution existed. The first thing that came up was this wireless video camera, which costs around 30 GBP from Amazon, and looks as if it could be secreted in a truck, wagon, boxcar, or suchlike.

In fact, trawling eBay pulled up such a custom-made solution for US modelers. For about 150 GBP, the TrainCam System for 1/87 scale modelers is a reasonable solution, and could feasibly be pulled apart and fitted into UK rolling stock.

Unlike the keychain camera, it actually transmits an image to a receiver, as opposed to storing the video on an SD card. It does look promising, but the price puts it out of my reach. But then I found this:

This Mini DV Camcorder might only record in 640x480 (which is just fine for online!) but it is small, has great battery life, and takes up to 32GB SD cards.

It also looks pretty; not that this is a criteria, as it will likely lose that exterior pretty fast if you're modelling in N, or even OO gauge. I'd say it's well worth the $10 or so that it's currently on sale for!

In the end, I also bought a keychain camera, which I will tear apart and see if it can be fitted into a Railfreight box van, and am also looking at ways to adapt a pen based video camera. The chief drawback with pen based cameras (and button based ones) is that they are vertically mounted.

Looking at the tear down video of the 080 style keychain camera, this looks possible, as the camera component seems to be flexible (i.e. it's on a short ribbon cable.)

So, as to which is the best solution, there's no easy answer. If you know any better, please post a comment, and if you want to find out how I get on in my experiments, follow the blog!

Don't forget to check out the "The Next Generation of Micro Video Cameras for Model Railways" article for more examples of adapting micro, miniature and spy cameras for model railway filming use.

How to fit LED Lights to a Peco Inspection Pit (the Cheap Way!)

This weekend, I finally got around to fitting lights to my Peco Inspection Pit. Lighting in the Metcalfe Engine Shed on my current 'main' layout has always been a bugbear, and having seen the excellent Mie Depot (as seen on the Mie Depot at Carnforth Railway Station video) in action, I decided to give it a go.

A while back, I'd bought a string of LED Christmas Lights from Wilko, with the idea that they would make great lighting options for the layout. I paid something like 5 GBP (in the post-Christmas sale) for them, and although I've not counted them, similar products on Amazon have something like 100 lights on 10m of cable, so it's pretty good value for money.

Peco Inspection Pit Segment (Unpainted)

The Peco inspection pit kit comes in segments, which look something like the unpainted example in the photo.

Along the top, there are some clips that hold the rails - Peco supplies them in the pack, but I prefer to use my own rails - and in the center of each one is a drainage hole.

Usually there's a grate on it, but I decided to remove them (as you can see) to put the LED light in. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo before I started to experiment.

So you'll need to imagine that there's a grate over the hole in the segment pictured here!

Assembled, Painted Peco Inspection Pit
Assembled, painted, and with a buffer stop added, the inspection pit looks something like the one pictured on the right.

It's painted grey (something which doesn't come out very well on the photo) and has steps at each end. The drainage grates have all been drilled out to make way for the LEDs.

Depending on how long you make the pit, you'll have space for five or six lights. A five segment pit fits well into the Metcalfe engine shed, leaving space at the back for a buffer stop, as pictured.

The next step was to cut off some LED lights (a string of five, in this case) and push them through the holes. The end result is as pictured.

Fitting LED Lights to Peco Inspection Pit
It's not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea.

Luckily, I'd also been careful to drill the holes 'just right', so there's no need for any glue to hold the lights in place.

This is important for me, as I have one golden rule when making layouts - everything is as temporary as possible.

This means that the use of glue to fit lights (which can go pop at any moment!) is out of the question. 

It's also the reason why I don't solder rails together; a contentious point, but one that I believe is vital in keeping costs down!

So, with the lights fitted to the underside of the inspection pit, it was time to put it back in place, plug in the 12V transformer, and test the installation.

First off, I always test these things under low voltage - and as there are 4 lights, at 3V per LED, 12V is the maximum - and had found out two things. One, that operating the lights under anything less than the 3V they were rated at made them look extremely lacklustre, and two, they're pretty bright!

Undeterred, the first test fitting was duly photographed. 
Lights fitted to Peco Inspection Pit

There's a few bits and pieces in this photo, including a scratch built walkway, and some figures and equipment from the Bachmann Scenecraft range.

The gray area is a bit of plasticard cut to exactly fit within the walls of the engine shed, and the baseboard had a hole cut into it to receive the inspection pit.

I know that goes against my reuse philosophy, but in this case, I made en exception because holes are easily filled, covered over, re-used, or just plain hidden!

The four lights shown here operated for a while, and didn't generate extraneous heat, so I decided to try fitting teh shed over the top, and taking another photo or two.

It's only when you fit the whole thing together, and take photos, that any flaws become apparent.

So, firstly, let's look at the effect on an empty shed (i.e. with only the scenery, and no loco.)

Light from Peco Inspection Pit

To my mind, it's unrealistically bright, but you do get a sense of what the shed looks like inside.

In fact, the photo is a little dimmer than real life!

However, given that these LEDs are currently (until my 12V LED strip light turns up!) the only lighting in the shed, I think that the overall effect is reasonable, if not realistic.

However, things take a turn for the worse when a Class 37 is parked in in the shed...

Class 37 in the Shed
The issue is that these LEDs are quite directional and boxed in by the inspection pit, so there's less bleed than I expected from around the loco.

To deal with this, the next steps are several-fold.

First, I want to reduce the power of the lights so that they're not so unnaturally bright. Since I'm working from a 12V power supply, I'm going to wire an adjacent factory in series with the inspection pit lighting, and reduce the number of LEDs to two (per installation).


Then, I'm going to fit overhead lights to the shed (using a strip of 9 LEDs bought off eBay. Hopefully they will provide enough (and not too much!) light to make the whole thing come alive.

Lighting these elements is the last bit of work before adding scenery and ballasting, and still to come are some dwarf signals, and yard lamps, which will all need wiring in before ballasting can commence.

If you want to leave a comment, I'd welcome it, and you can also 'follow' the blog to get regular updates.

Wednesday 21 August 2013

Layouts for Small Spaces : Fiddle Yards, Sector Plates and Traversers

With all of us facing the twin threat of less spare time and less free space, it's perhaps no great surprise that the small layout seems to be making something of a comeback, if indeed it ever really went away!

Sites like the excellent Small Layout Scrapbook (from the late Carl Arendt, author of Creating Micro Layouts) and books such as Planning, Designing and Making Railway Layouts in Small Spaces, by Richard Bardsley, all offer excellent ideas for those modeling on baseboards as small as 8'x1'.

Track plans for small spaces need to address one key issue : how to offer the maximum of operating interest, with a relatively short amount of track. In other words, how can we get as many locos and rolling stock onto the layout as possible, given that we have nowhere on-scene to store it!

The answer is to use a fiddle yard, sector plate, or traverser. Let's start with the basic fiddle yard.

What is a Fiddle Yard?

At its simplest, a fiddle yard is a place to store trains (locos and/or rolling stock) for later use. It represents the 'rest of the railway', and is usually off-scene, sometimes as a bolt-on, or folding section of baseboard.

The easiest way to construct a fiddle yard is to just have a series of points, and parallel tracks leading away from them. Of course, if you can't see the points, you have no idea whether they are set or not, so some form of indicator light panel will be required.

In addition, you may well not be able to reach the points to change them manually, so either a wire-in-tube control scheme or point motor / switch engine are also going to be in order.

Whether they are visible and accessible, or not, fiddle yards provide a great way to extend a small layout, and can be either on-scene or off-scene.

Hiding Fiddle Yards 'On Scene'

If you choose to place a fiddle yard on-scene, it should be hidden by a tunnel (inaccessible) or behind a wall or building (accessible).

Some layouts, such as motive power depots, can use roundhouses and turntables to hide a pseudo-fiddle yard in plain view, and there are sure to be many other ways to hide them.

Off-Scene Fiddle Yards

While an off-scene fiddle yard doesn't really need hiding as such, it can be useful to mask the fact that the train is disappearing somewhere by using a tunnel mouth, or having the trains pass behind a wall, as on the on-scene fiddle yard above.

However, the off-scene fiddle yard can be a more complex beast, use manual points, and remain visible to the operator at all times.

It may, however, compromise the idea of a small layout, and there may well not be space for an addition few feet of add-on baseboard. In such cases, there are a couple of tricks that can be used to reduce the space required.

Sector Plates and Traversers

The first trick is a sector plate. This is just a piece of wood that pivots between one or more tracks, and is best described in the New Railway Modellers forum post about Sector Plates. Once you have absorbed this discussion from the start to the end, you may well become a sector plate expert!

A traverse is easier in some ways than a sector plate, because it just moves forwards and backwards, allowing the rolling stock to be pushed (or driven) onto it, and then simply slid along to line up another piece of track to use as an off-scene siding.

RMWeb has an excellent article covering a fully-automated motorized fiddle yard, which may a be a bit ambitious for the small layout modeler, but will give you a good idea of what a traverser ought to do.

Back in the 1960s, CJ Freezer produced a number of great little books in a 'Railway Modeler Shows You How' series. One was called 'Turntables & Traversers' and is well worth a look if you can track it down!

Using the above techniques, quite complex operations can be built up, keeping an interesting minimum of rolling stock on the layout, and a whole lot of other options safely tucked away on the 'rest of the railway'.

Tuesday 20 August 2013

How to Set Up Piko Controller with DCC Concepts Cobalt Point Motors

Recently, through various channels, I acquired some DCC Concepts Turnout Motors (Point or Switch Engines) with DCC adapters built-in and some Dapol LMS Home and Distant signals with the intention to add them (slowly) to my current layout under construction.

After a brief conversation with the proprietor, and one of the other customers, at The Train Shop in Morecambe, Lancaster, UK (they're at 22 Pedder Street, check opening times, it's well worth it!) I'm pretty sure I know how it all goes together.

The idea is that when I use my PIKO controller to activate the turnout (point or switch), the Cobalt will move the tie-bar, and switch the signal from Stop to Go, or vice versa. Not terribly prototypical, but in my case quite handy, as I have a siding (goods) and platform (passengers) and wanted something that would work and look acceptable.

The first phase was to get the Piko kit (controller and decoder) working with the Cobalt point motor (switch / turnout engine). That didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd expected, so after much experimentation, here's the rundown.

Step 1 : Connect the DCC Decoder (Track) to the Cobalt

Actually very easy. It doesn't matter which way round the wires are connected, I just connected them to the wires coming from the Piko IR receiver/decoder unit.

Step 2 : Program the Cobalt from the Piko DCC Handset

This step got me hunting for the Piko manual. After decoding it, I finally got it right. The first thing to do is set the Cobalt from 'run' to 'set'. There's a little dip switch underneath the connection blocks, and it slides from left to right. Make sure it's set to the right.

Now, use the handset to perform the operation that you want to control the point. Oddly enough, I found that only the following actually works : first press the accessory selection button, then the address (i.e. 001), then the accessory button again, and disconnect the DCC IR receiver/decoder.

If you're wondering which button it is, it's the one that looks like a single turnout/point/switch. The double one is for programming locos, and the one with a loco on it is for selecting locos (!)

Step 3 : Activate the Cobalt from the Piko DCC Handset

Again, I got unstuck, and had to refer to the manual. First off, though, set the dip switch on the Cobalt from 'set' to 'run'. That's right to left on the current (2013) model.

Now, I assumed that pressing button-address-button would activate the motor, but I was wrong. You have to use the little red/green buttons at the bottom of the handset to activate the turnout motor / switch engine.

So, if you assigned address 001 to the motor, it is activated with the first set of buttons.

Step 4 : Connect the Dapol LMS Home Signal

Finally, it was time to check the signal connection.

It has two sets of wires. Red/Black for connection to a 16V AC power supply, and two yellow wires to connect to a push-button switch. At this point you have two possibilities. One is recommended by Dapol / Cobalt, and one appears to work okay, but may damage your signal.

The first is to attach a push-button to the Cobalt motor, in serial with the Dapol Signal (using the yellow wires).

The second is to connect the Dapol Signal yellow wires to the Cobalt 6,7,8 terminals which represent a SPDT switch. The issue here is that the SPDT switch, according to the wiring diagram provided by Cobalt, will be 'always on', as it's break before make.

This may, according to Cobalt, damage the components in the circuit (including things like the auto-reverse polarity circuitry) so they strongly discourage it. You have been warned.

If you choose to connect the signal directly to the Cobalt, you will need to split one of the wires so that there is one going to 'Common' and the other going to both LHS and RHS. It's probably better for the health of your signal to use a Berko/Eckon type LED signal instead...

That's about it - now all I need to do is drill a hole for the signal, install the Cobalt, and take photos!

Thursday 8 August 2013

Should I Convert Bachmann Coupling to Hornby (or vice versa?)

Many of us have both Bachmann and Hornby rolling stock. For my part, I prefer the Bachmann locos over the Hornby ones, but sometimes needs must and they are just too pricey. I also have a penchant for out of stock (and even out of manufacture) wagons from the Railfreight Red Stripe era, which are not always easy to come by.

Subsequently, I have a mix of Bachmann and Hornby, and have struggled with the approach needed to convert Bachmann coupling to Hornby, or the other way around.

In fact, the answer is not obvious, but very simple : neither - it's not about the couplings, it's about the way that they are attached to the rolling stock. There are so many different types of coupling to choose from - and neither the pre-fitted RTR couplings from Hornby or Bachmann are the best - that it's usually simpler to choose one, and then convert everything to NEM.

The Buffers Model Railways Couplings Guide, a great round up of all the couplings on the market, points out that when mixing Hornby and Bachmann, they're often not even set at the same height. Thus, adapting all rolling stock to use NEM pockets is a logical first step.

The article Converting Rapido to NEM Couplings from a few weeks back covers this in detail (and is applicable to old style Hornby and Bachmann as well as Rapido), but you may well find that your modern rolling stock has been pre-fitted with NEM pockets.

This being the case, you can just choose the best coupling for your needs, and buy in bulk. Or, if you already have Hornby, with the standard Lima D ring style coupling, and one of those Hornby uncouplers (Uncoupling Ramp reference R620), you can just buy NEM compatible D couplings and switch them out.

This technique will also work if you have modern Bachmann stock, but only if the heights of the rolling stock are the same, which isn't always guaranteed! It is, however, somethign I've done in the past, but now I'm steadily converting all my rolling stock to the Bachmann tension locks, in order to use Brian Kirby style magnetic uncoupling.

Friday 2 August 2013

Simple Model Railroad Forced Perspective

Forced perspective is an interesting way to give a layout more apparent depth, and is especially useful where space restricts the real size of a model rail layout.

Originally, the technique of using forced perspective was used in architecture to make buildings appear more grand (either inside or outside) or to fool the viewer into thinking that they were physically bigger than they actually were.

It's also a technique that can be used in amateur photography and has been used in the movies to great effect. Popular examples are of people appearing to 'hold' the top of a building by photographing them closer to the camera, but in line with the building in question.

Model rail enthusiasts can take advantage of forced perspective in many ways, but one of the simplest is in mixing gauges (or scales) to make objects appear further away than they really are.

For example, an N scale car in the back of a layout can make the layout appear deeper, or a mountain higher, as the difference in scale forces the viewer to accept that the distance must be greater than it actually is.

And backdrop scenic photos can be used to great effect too, by appearing to show a scene that fades into the far distance.

That's all there really is to it - the rest is experimentation. For more information, Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine put together this great video.It's sure to give you some great ideas about how to used forced perspective on your own layout!