[sealevel]

A wonderful explanation, Hank.
I am also working with "constraints" and find your thread very informative.

One question...
It has been suggested that you cannot use both the Scalextric track clips and borders at the same time. Is this true?
Or do the borders go on the track then the track clips on the borders?

I am considering buying some track clips to hold my modular layout in place.

I look forward to your response.
Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 5 Jan 2010, 07:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Simple answer is.....Yep you can

I did it all over my layout it is a fiddly job but full instructions on how is included in the pack of track pins....

Put simply... You put the Clip in the slot of the track... Clip on the border which covers up half of the track clip... Put a nail in the remaining hole and pin down... Slide the next border along to join the last... put the clip in the slot... etc etc... easy enough!

Although they do hold the borders in place because the tongues on the borders become "trapped" in the channel at the edge of the track... they can still "flap about" when the laout is folded up and down... because they do not hold the rear of the borders.... One railway track pin in the outside edge soon solved that

Hope it helps..

Sean
Thanks a bunch.
I will now be ordering the track clips!

I look forward to the next installment(s) like a kid waiting for the weekly serial (cliff hanger) at the old cinema (no, I don't remember it first hand... not that old...)
Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Here is something to consider....

On Abcando's layout he has a "height" sign which reads 12'6" (12 feet 6 inches).

If we convert that into inches, it is (12 x 12) + 6 = 150 inches in real terms.

Now to scale it... 150" / 32 = 4.6875 inches in scale height x 2.54 cm/inch = 11.9 cm clearance.

So it looks like a "real" clearance of 10 - 12 cm is in order.

Does that look right?

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Glad you could get SOME sleep Sean!

This is an interesting build as you are experimenting along the way and we are allowed to watch it.

Kinda like student doctors watching a surgeon demonstrate on some poor bloke in the operating theatre.

Keep up the good work, Dr. Sean!

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Excellent work and a terrific job of explaining the steps in your process.
Looking forward to track #2 then #3.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

"Lazy" is good!
Why reinvent the wheel?
But kudos to you to avoid buying premade buildings/landscaping etc.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Whoa, what happened to this thread? Looks like you lost all the postings between the first on Jan 4th and today.
Can the moderator help to restore them?

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

I just see the first post and then a box saying "Posts in this topic" with a list of the postings below it.
Did I push a button somewhere?

Cheers!

)

 

[sealevel]

Thanks, got it!

Some how that changed but not by me.... must be static electricity.... (we have 12 C temps right now with sunshine, no rain, no snow... and the Olympics come to town in 3 weeks....) weird things do happen!

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 20 Jan 2010, 14:04) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>BUILD PART 4 - LAYOUT DRESSING...

With all the track nailed down the fencing fence posts and lighting remained to be done...
The fence posts are made from the same material as the light posts to keep things simple I hate repetitive jobs and had put off making the lights for as long as possible... I had bought bulbs that gave off a relatively small amount of heat compared to a standard grain of wheat bulb, this i hoped would be enough to prevent the bulbs melting the fence and even the posts...

So a 6mm x 4mm box section was used for the post, i twisted a drill bit by hand to bore a hole big enough to insert a 1cm of plastic tube. The bulb was then slid into the tube, fixed with a dab of white tack and the tube glued into the fence post... I then cut a small 1.5cm piece of plastic angle which forms the shade, this is to direct the light downwards to avoid glare... and presto, three pieces, two minutes, one lamp post... now repeat 14 times (Doh!). a hole was drilled through the baseboard to let the wires through to hide the electrical connection.

I have test run one lamp for about 15 mins and all seems ok... fingers crossed that when they are all on, i dont end up with a pile of melted plastic!
The fence was in the main hot glued to the rear of the wall and the fence posts lighted and unlighted hot glued in place as well... i got so much better at tensioning it i feel like going back and redoing the first two sections again! All fence joints were cut to meet at a fence post to hide the joins.
Did you source the 6mm x 4mm plastic box sections from a hardware store or from a hobby/model store?
Just was curious where to find these bits.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 22 Jan 2010, 16:31) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Sealevel they are mostly "Plastruct" from a model shop they do a whole range, girders, tubes, ibeams, ladders etc, Evergreen do the same stuff there is a bit from both ranges...

Its just "Styrene" so can be welded using "mekpac"or glued with "Revell Contacta" which i used, the jar with the brush in....

Had a bad day with the glue... Knocked the bottle over three times, once on the track! but its "friendly" to the plastic the track is made from so safe for the clumsy moddeler like me, i buy a "bottle" as it has a brush in it and 20ml lasts ages (if you dont spill half of it!)

Plastruct website

Evergreen website
Many thanks for the links!
It is greatly appreciated.

Some products that are available in the UK we cannot get over here or they go by different names, but Plastruct is a familiar one. I was thinking of using the tubes you had with the clips supplied by Slot Track Scenics to attach to the track. I think they may work.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 23 Jan 2010, 07:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Slot track scenics fence posts are about 50p each (10cm)... Plastruct is £2 for 40cm... that will make 4 (10cm) fence posts @50p.... Unless you are hiding wires or need shorter fence posts (like me) , Personally i would buy the pre made ones.... but I am lazy!
The game plan is to have hollow posts to run lighting wires.

I have also sourced someone who is making their own custom track lights for GBP15 (incl shipping) for 10 lights including track clip, stanchion, LED bulb. I don't think I buy the parts for that price.

What do you think?
Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 10 Feb 2010, 23:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Oh and had a really cool idea for powering it using the "analogue SCX Chrono Rally Unit" and my 4 car digital powerbase.... using a toggle switch for track power.... even switched into digital mode i should be able to make the timings on the chrono unit work.... Its timing is triggered by a simple mag operated reed switch connected via a phono plug cable... have to separate the track feed from the track attached to the top of the unit but its only two solder joints... love taking things to bits!

So a real rally stage with multiple cars is a possibility the chrono unit providing a "separation" timing between digital cars.... so start at 10 second intervals and see who gains/losses to get the positions... oh yes electronics are my thing... well as long as its not PIC's or rating diodes then my brain goes all muddy

Hankscorpio,
This sound intriguing! You will use both an analogue and digital PB with a toggle switch, if I read correctly? Or is the SCX Chrono Rally Unit just a lap counter/timer? I am not familiar with it.

I have read Gorp's analogue/digital solution on this forum and SCI but you have introduced something new... mixing technologies from different manufacturers.

If you can expand on this idea I would find it most interesting.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 10 Feb 2010, 23:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Oh and had a really cool idea for powering it using the "analogue SCX Chrono Rally Unit" and my 4 car digital powerbase.... using a toggle switch for track power.... even switched into digital mode i should be able to make the timings on the chrono unit work.... Its timing is triggered by a simple mag operated reed switch connected via a phono plug cable... have to separate the track feed from the track attached to the top of the unit but its only two solder joints... love taking things to bits!

So a real rally stage with multiple cars is a possibility the chrono unit providing a "separation" timing between digital cars.... so start at 10 second intervals and see who gains/losses to get the positions... oh yes electronics are my thing... well as long as its not PIC's or rating diodes then my brain goes all muddy

Hankscorpio,
This sound intriguing! You will use both an analogue and digital PB with a toggle switch, if I read correctly? Or is the SCX Chrono Rally Unit just a lap counter/timer? I am not familiar with it.

I have read Gorp's analogue/digital solution on this forum and SCI but you have introduced something new... mixing technologies from different manufacturers.

If you can expand on this idea I would find it most interesting.

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Thanks for the explanation, Sean. It is very well detailed and should go into an area similar to the SSD 101 for technical solutions. I guess that if you have a 6 car PB on Scalextric plastic, there is no need to do all this as there is a single analogue offering. Also, if one has the RichG lap display tower, it will do the job of the SCX rally setup, right?

One thing it does tell me is that one should look "outside" of ones own track supplier (if plastic) to see what might be borrowed to augment a layout. And here you are using SCX and a 4 car PB on a routed track, right?

Keep up the good work, it is lots of fun and very interesting to follow...
May you reach your 100 posts tonight!
Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Wonderful looking layout!
I may try to "simulate" it with SSD track to see how big it would be.

I look forward to your progress on this project. You say you are unable to mount the tracks right now... don't injure yourself again... it takes time to recover and trying to shorten your recovery time could result in a longer wait... I speak from experience!

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

All the best Sean.

I had surgery of a different sort a couple of years ago and the waiting before hand was more nerve racking than the recovery. I know your post-op will be more inconvenient than mine but it is amazing how fast time passes once you are out of the op room. Quite unlike the seemingly endless wait to go in.

Hey, treat yourself to watching the Olympic hockey game on Sunday as a distraction. Who knows, you may find yourself at the keyboard faster than you expect next week.

At least the discomfort will be removed and I am sure you will have more of a spring in your step a month from now.

Once again... all the best!
Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

QUOTE (hankscorpio @ 13 Mar 2010, 11:33) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Well done Greg... thats the answer... the wiring trick i was gonna use with the chrono rally unit/4 car pb for the routed plan would work here to!... yep a simple 2 way centre off switch... (4PoleDT Centre off) wire the centre section to the track... top section to the analogue PB, Bottom section to The 4 Car Unit... centre off..

Flick it up to use analogue Mode - 4 poles will allow fully separate analogue lanes with twin PSU's for Drift and analogue cars...

Flick it down to Digital - 2 poles only needed for the DIGITAL powerbase connections...

As the "Boxes" can be cut from their track sections... the only wiring to the lanes is the "Switch" because there is a "Centre off" the two powerbases are electrically isolated they can never be any cross-connection between them so its fully safe...

GENIUS... Brakes in both modes... sometimes when you are so close to a problem you can't see the wood for the trees!

Thanks again greg exactly what i needed a new "direction to look at it from"...

Cheers!

So that would mean installing both an analogue and digital PB to the track, correct?
And also separating the power to the lanes so that when in analogue mode there is no "power bridging" between lanes, correct?

So simple if that is it. Only complexity I can see is to wire the digital PB power to the lanes separately and to rewire any LCs to separate the lanes, correct?

Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Got it, thanks!

A very clear explanation.... as I knew you would do!

I guess if one could separate the power to the lanes of the LCs, this could be used on digital track as well, eh? Just no reverse direction as cars would catch the exits of the LCs.

Introduces some interesting ways to utilize the track layouts and cars, given the majority of cars for sale are analogue.
Cheers!

 

[sealevel]

Thanks to both of you, Greg and Sean.

Very clear now! It might make things easier for those contemplating chipping analogue cars to have a dual operation (beyond the single lane analogue on the SSD PB-Pro).

BTW, can one analogue and several digital cars run simultaneously using PB-Pro? Or is it just a single analogue car? (I am referring, of course to the standard 1-analogue mod to PB-Pro not the 2-car analogue mod).

Cheers!

(And if you are wondering... "why does he not just try it?" ... you would be right to guess I have yet to test my PB-Pro with the track.... life's distractions and house renovations have put "the project" on hold. Also, I keep changing my mind on the layout with every new thread I read, causing a condition I call "analysis paralysis". Argh!)