Anderson Barracks - O Gauge 1944 UK

Discussion in 'Members Personal Layouts' started by Brian A, Jul 14, 2019.

  1. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    Well I have commenced work on my new O gauge layout. It is a shelf layout above the OO layout in the study.

    Anderson Barracks is a fictitious Royal Armoured Corp barracks located on the Salisbury Plain. The timeframe is early 1944 before D-Day. It is fed by predominately GWR but some Southern Traffic can visit. It is a shunting layout with a 3 track traverser and storage on one wall feeding into the a terminus with multiple sidings for military purposes, such as Tank unloading platform and Armoury. As well as standard sidings for general freight, coal and fuel.

    Layout Picture.jpeg
    Track Plan

    First step was to install the brackets and some lighting for the OO underneath.

    IMG_1964.JPG
    This wall is for the traverser.

    Because there is limited room due to the height of the OO, the layout will be flat!!

    First baseboard under construction.
    IMG_1990.JPG
    Standard box construction with 9mm Marine Ply. Lots of electric tools and drop saw makes construction easier.

    IMG_1992.JPG
    Two boards in place.

    Will update more as I progress, will be a work in progress for the next few years.

    Cheers
    Brian
     
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  2. Kimbo

    Kimbo Staff Member Moderator

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    Very nice Brian, I will look forward to seeing your progress.
    Why does my railway room not look as tidy as yours :scratchchin::avatar:

    :thumbs: Kim
     
  3. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

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    Excellent start on the layout Brian. I will be following along with interest !

    Cheers, Gary.
     
  4. Toto

    Toto I'm best ignored Staff Member Founder Administrator

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    Terrific theme. Looking forward to more.
     
  5. jakesdad13

    jakesdad13 Staff Member Moderator

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    Looks like a very interesting project Brian, I will follow with interest!

    Pete.
     
  6. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    The room started out as a study, which it located just off the lounge. One of the conditions placed by higher authority to be able to use it as a train room was it must remain clean and tidy or I will be banished to the garage.

    Cheers

    Brian
     
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  7. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    One of the biggest dilemma was what to do with the fiddle yard area. As its located alongside a wall I couldn't use a 360deg TT like SMR Chris has done.

    So my initial thoughts were to do a 1.5m quarter turn turntable that allows the trains to be turned. I then decided to use Dingham couplers which really only work one way so turning trains would be a complication.

    So without a TT I would need to be able to run around trains and change over guards vans.

    Therefore I was then going to build a double sector plate, thanks for the inspiration Gary. The small sector plate would be a 500mm end sector for the loco/guards van, then a 1.5m three track main sector, and finally some storage at end for ready use loco and somewhere to put guards and as they come off trains.

    Sector plate.jpeg
    I even went out and bought a lazy susan bearing for planning and design purposes. It was getting very complex, especially around the small sector plate end. In an endeavour to simplify I decided to look at a traverser.

    I went through several designs of traverser and finally I have settled on the following.
    Traverser.jpeg

    It has a 1.2m three track traverser with 850mm four track stowage at the left which can take small trains and Autocoach etc. Also has three 280mm small loco/guards van stowage on right side.

    Working out the length and spacing for the storage and the traverser was a good opportunity to play with some trains. I settled on 80mm between each track and 1.2m in length.
    IMG_2007.JPG

    Now waiting on drawer sliders to arrive to finalise the measurements and then construct the final board. In the meantime will finish board 3, give them a lick of paint and start track laying.

    Cheers

    Brian
     
  8. SMR CHRIS

    SMR CHRIS Staff Member Moderator

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    Great Name For the new layout at the speed you work Brian trains will be running in no time.

    I wonder if being a military railway you could have a few internal WD wagons that have stencils relating to the the Barracks to help with the illusion.
     
  9. hartleymartin

    hartleymartin Full Member

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    Think about changing that last LH point at the loco release to a Wye point. It will slew the road towards the back scene slightly, but it will give you a smidgen more clearance with the siding.
     
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  10. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    Hartley, thanks for the advice but board 1 track was laid before I saw the suggestion.
     
  11. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    So I got on and painted the 3 existing boards and laid all the track on those 3 boards.
    IMG_2014.JPG
    Board 1 is fully wired with point motors installed
    IMG_2018.JPG
    IMG_2019.JPG
    Boards 2 and 3 need board joiners soldered and then cut the rails. Once that is done, I can complete the wiring on these boards. Hope to do that tomorrow as I am off to Queensland for a few days next week. I need to put the car back in the garage.

    Also had to order some more point motors as had two failures in the ones i had. On the way from Hattons.

    The drawer sliders arrived yesterday and so will progress the traverser board once back from Queensland.

    Cheers
    Brian
     
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  12. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    Chris,

    Your Noonan Flats layout has been instrumental in me going to O gauge.

    Thanks for all the help and guidance, I feel like I have taken more than my fair share of your time.

    Thanks

    Brian
     
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  13. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    I am going to drive this O gauge layout off a Raspberry Pi with the Pi-Sprog board. When it arrived I did a test on my OO layout and it ran the layout OK. But I had a problem with short circuits.

    The OO layout has 4 PSX short circuit protection boards dividing the layout into 4 power districts. It works beautifully with the Lenz system. However with the Pi-Sprog, the PSX would catch the short and then retry 2 seconds later at which time the Pi-Sprog would then short, obviously the load coming back on is identified by the PI-Sprog as a short. The PI-Sprog would then retry and the PSX would catch the short and round and round we went. Buzzer on, Buzzer off, sounded like a period police car. Tried lots of different settings on the PSX but nothing would work. Emailed both vendors for deathly silence in return.

    So did a test on the O Gauge with a booster borrowed from SMR Chris. With the booster feeding the tracks d the PI-Sprog feeding the points bus, it all worked as advertised. On a short, say wrong way into a point, the booster handles the short allowing the point to be changed on the PI-Sprog.

    I also tried to implement the LED on the PI-Sprog but without success. More work required.

    IMG_2020.JPG
    Jumble of wires, power supplies and electronic components. Testing the Pi-Sprog.

    IMG_2026.JPG
    The PI-Sprog testing also enabled me to test the built boards. All worked fine except where no frog power due to missing point motors. Hand of god assistance across the gaps.

    Cheers
    Brian
     
  14. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    On point motors, I have been using the Traintronics TT300 DCC enabled motors. I have about 45 of them on my 00 layout. I use them as the OO layout in located on some cupboards and so I have limited height for the point motors. Not enough height for tortoises or Cobalts. They are what I call a semi slow motion point, moving faster than a Tortoise but don't snap across like a solenoid.
    IMG_2027.JPG
    The first batch i got were really good and have been reliable. The second batch had a couple that would change and then run continuously. Seeing as it nearly costs as much to return as to buy another one, I decided to pull them apart and investigate.

    IMG_2028.JPG
    They are pretty simple inside. Motor on the top of the case, PCB board and two cog wheels. You open them up by opening up the tabs on the copper rivets.

    So upon investigation and some research it was suggested that you need to reglue the cog to the operating arm, (black plastic) using loctite or similar. I did this for a couple but the problem persisted. On further investigation I found the real problem was that one on the microswitches was not positioned properly. The motor relies on the movement of the arm and cogs to press against a microswitch which turns off the motor. A firm push with the thumb repositions the microswitch. Problem solved.
    IMG_2029.JPG
    The two microswitches need to be equally distanced apart across the slot.

    Then on getting some more I had one which would short when thrown but not when closed. This turned out to be the microswitch was too close and so it was activating both microswitches at the same time.

    I received 5 more TT300 this week and 3 of them had issues. This was a new issue in that the motor spun but the arm just vibrated and didn't turn. On investigation I found the locating cog on the top of the arm wasn't pressed on far enough, allowing the cogs to slip into the gap. Another easy fix.

    IMG_2030.JPG

    So I still have two dead TT300, One is just dead wont do anything, suspect the PCB or a component is stuffed. And the other one causes a short, haven't found the cause.

    I now have about 60 of these and when working are very good, but recently the quality control means they need to be tested on arrival and often pulled apart and adjusted to work. Takes me about 5 minutes to pull them apart, fix the obvious issues and put back together and test. So I have had to "fix" about 20 of the 60 and have two dead. At least they are fixable. I also use DCC Concepts Cobalt-Ip on the OO where the board isn't over the cupboard. I have had about 8 failures of those as well and I can't fix them. DCC Concepts have replaced 4 of them.

    Cheers

    Brian
     
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  15. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    So now I am onto building the traverser. I have drawn up a rough plan and have been working with a couple of guys on another forum to look at making it DCC compatible with an Arduino driving two stepper motors.

    Found what I think is a suitable stepper motor on ebay. Thanks to some pointers by Ian from DCC Interfaces.

    upload_2019-7-29_18-17-55.png

    Here are my scratching on paper to see if the stepper motor will fit.

    upload_2019-7-29_18-20-36.png

    So i got industrious today and built the frame for the board.

    IMG_2033.JPG

    Will be putting 12mm ply on either end. I also have some 30x30mm Hardwood to build a frame for the sliders to sit on. I will be stiffening that with some 9mm ply.

    The traverser itself will be 12mm ply with aluminium right angles on each side and some 10x20 Aluminium box sections underneath to stiffen it. I will be stealing a couple of ideas from SMR_Chris and adding some tongue and grooves on the end to keep everything straight (I hope).

    For the DCC automation I will be buying a Arduino Nano TT interface from DCC Interfaces. I am going to cheat and get an assembled one. DCC Interfaces also supply a traverser sketch for the Arduino but that will need some modification to drive two stepper motors.

    Some interesting days ahead.

    Cheers

    Brian
     
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  16. ianvolvo46

    ianvolvo46 Staff Member Moderator

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    Fascinating thread Brian :thumbup::thumbup:

    Ian vt
     
  17. ian jeffery

    ian jeffery Full Member

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    nice work :)
     
  18. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    More work on the traverser today, resulting in a manual version.
    IMG_2037.JPG
    IMG_2038.JPG

    Very happy that I have no droop when fully extended. One end is a bit sticky at the moment so a bit of adjustment required.

    Few more jobs to do: Add walls to the Traverser. Add some alloy box section under the traverser to strengthen it. There is some flex in the walls of the baseboard, not surprising as there is a 1.2m gap that needs some bracing.

    Looks like I will need two stepper motors. Will order the stuff required for automation tonight.

    Also a few scenic bits arrived today.

    IMG_2034.JPG
    IMG_2035.JPG IMG_2036.JPG
    Bit of painting coming up.

    Cheers
    Brian
     
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  19. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

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    Just read the thread right through. Excellent read so far. I was going to ask about using one stepper motor, well until I got to the end of the thread where you said you will need another. Paul_l has been here done that with the traverser he used on Luib Bridge, which is also an interesting read.

    https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/index.php?threads/totos-traversers.1733/

    Cheers, Gary.

    ps, I like the wagon loads. I'm guessing they are Skytrex castings ?
     
  20. Brian A

    Brian A Full Member

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    Gary yes the loads etc are from Skytrex.

    Thanks for the pointer to Totos traversers, having a read now.
     
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