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Rich and Bob came just after 9AM and we got to the track shortly later. Dan was already there and was playfully chiding us for being "late". He told me that he wants the crossing signals fixed ASAP and I should devote my Saturday to that. Rich and Jack went off to fix signals and I worked on getting the crossing lights working again. After reconnecting stuff, I worked on setting up the crossing bell and was just getting to the final stages in connecting the crossing light circuitry to the cross bucks and Mike L. arrived and told me to stop immediately and that he was there and was going to fix the lights. I told him what Dan told me and said I was just following orders.I told him that Dan said to tell Mike to see Dan if he did not me to work on the lights. He went off to see Dan and then came back a few minutes later and asked me for any parts and I gave them to him and I went off to do other things.
While this was happening, Rich and Jack were up on the inch track and were swapping out some semaphores up by Summit. While they were going up the track, they derailed and had a total of three times! Apparently the old ties are not firm enough to hold the spikes and the rails are spreading from the weight of the rail equipment. Don was there and he got JJ to help repair the track where Rich and Jack had problems. Two locations were on bridges! JJ laid down on a flatcar and hammer in one hand and a punch in the other proceeded to set the spikes in deeper on the rail in question. Not a job for an older man, laying on you chest and inching alond pounding Don was lucky to have JJ around to help.
Rich and Jack went back to disconnect the wires to the inch carbarn that were accidently damaged during the prep work for the new car barn. They also also removed the broken parts from the power panel and brought them back.
I worked with Tom while he worked on putting a new baseboard on the radial arm saw. I explained how the saw fence and baseboard interacted and he was able to set it up and get it going. He also brought casters for it and it now is easily moveable and has a functional top that will allow accurate crosscut miters. Brovo Tom!
Tommy stopped out and gave me some more material and the repaired circuit boards so now I can work on populating them and getting some more to in the field testing.
Rich and I went through some of the soldering equipment and I pulled two sets out to take home to use and see what is better. I also set up a iron stand on the bench and used it to work on one of the new boards today. It was nice to have an iron that heats up in about 30 seconds and has a fine tip that matches the small foil junctions that I need to work on.
As things were winding down Dan said to grab the camera and for the other guys to grab a shovel and come down to twin bridges and everyone to do 10 minutes of shoveling for Bob K. Bob has been working on block laying for months and it seems to be never ending for him. There were a number of pallets of block newly delivered in the infield area when we arrived this morning. I got some good photos and Bob got some help with the digging part.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The weekend is over.
When we arrived on Saturday Rich had a job he wanted to get busy on - cleaning out the shop building. He marshalled several folks and they removed everything from the middle of the building and cleaned up the floor. Then they brought back the necessary stuff - tools and equipment and got rid of the junk that had accumulated. Using the pallet jack they moved everything including the safe! The new arrangement makes the room seem almost spacious.
I started to replace the lights in the crossing signals with the new Lambertian LEDs that I had made into assemblies this last week at home. They mount to the back of the light boxes and have not only a brilliant white light but they have about 170 degrees of dispersion. The only problem is getting them to stay in position until the glue sets. I found that the light boxes rotated so I could place the assemblies on the back of the light boxes and gravity would keep the part in position. The drying time is about three or so hours so it took a long time to get the pieces bonded. Then the question was are they bright enough and I asked several members to give me their opinion. I believe the brightness value where they are set is slightly on the dim side but they are useable the way that they are. Rich later told me he would like to see them brighter so I will have to alter their dropping resistors but this is not too difficult. As the LEDs are made into an assembly with the dropping resistor they become more like a 12V polarized lamp than an LED so I have to modify the driving circuit board as it is set up for the old LEDs. I did not have time today to finish the changes, I set the LEDs to simply come on if a train is coming and the flashing will have to wait for another week. One LEDs glue had not set so I could not connect it or rotate the housing back to vertical as the assembly would move out of place by gravity so I had to leave it open and horizontal.
I am working on a bell circuit for the crossing as well. I have a bell circuit that I got from a railroad club in England that uses a doorbell and uses a flip flop to ring it at about a ding every half-second or so. I started working on another interface board to use the existing flip-flop board as a source and trigger a couple of relays to flash the LEDs and an interface circuit to ring the bell on a small perfboard. I am using a new type of relay that is polarized as it has a diode built-in so it directly interfaces with solid state devices and, of course, I got the polarity of the circuit backwards so I had to troubleshoot the new interface board all Sunday afternoon.
Rich stopped by to say that he was out for a drive with Cathy and they came over to the track. While they were there they whitnessed an accident that took out the power to the 1" carbarn so next Saturday we have an AC repair instore first thing.
I started to replace the lights in the crossing signals with the new Lambertian LEDs that I had made into assemblies this last week at home. They mount to the back of the light boxes and have not only a brilliant white light but they have about 170 degrees of dispersion. The only problem is getting them to stay in position until the glue sets. I found that the light boxes rotated so I could place the assemblies on the back of the light boxes and gravity would keep the part in position. The drying time is about three or so hours so it took a long time to get the pieces bonded. Then the question was are they bright enough and I asked several members to give me their opinion. I believe the brightness value where they are set is slightly on the dim side but they are useable the way that they are. Rich later told me he would like to see them brighter so I will have to alter their dropping resistors but this is not too difficult. As the LEDs are made into an assembly with the dropping resistor they become more like a 12V polarized lamp than an LED so I have to modify the driving circuit board as it is set up for the old LEDs. I did not have time today to finish the changes, I set the LEDs to simply come on if a train is coming and the flashing will have to wait for another week. One LEDs glue had not set so I could not connect it or rotate the housing back to vertical as the assembly would move out of place by gravity so I had to leave it open and horizontal.
I am working on a bell circuit for the crossing as well. I have a bell circuit that I got from a railroad club in England that uses a doorbell and uses a flip flop to ring it at about a ding every half-second or so. I started working on another interface board to use the existing flip-flop board as a source and trigger a couple of relays to flash the LEDs and an interface circuit to ring the bell on a small perfboard. I am using a new type of relay that is polarized as it has a diode built-in so it directly interfaces with solid state devices and, of course, I got the polarity of the circuit backwards so I had to troubleshoot the new interface board all Sunday afternoon.
Rich stopped by to say that he was out for a drive with Cathy and they came over to the track. While they were there they whitnessed an accident that took out the power to the 1" carbarn so next Saturday we have an AC repair instore first thing.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Crossing Signal Related Items
The crossing signals were made with plastic shades on the lens assemblies. They have taken the worse for wear and have several cracks and some chips out of them as well. I have traced the shades on aluminum flashing stock that I found at the track and I intend to make aluminum replacements for the existing shades.
Saturday 9-5
This was my day to work on the crossing lights. I am trying to clean up the installation and convert it over to a solid state system. The existing system was little understoood at the track and was undocumented. I started by drawing out the layout last weekend and after adding to it what I thought the new system should be wired like, I proceeded to get the parts needed to change it over to a more modular systemk and group all of the electronics inside the building and just have the displays out on the poles. I also want to add a bell for notifying the pedestrians when a train is comming. I looked into electronic modulkes to sysenthisize the bell sound and ordered a kit to do so. When the kit arrived, it was not as I had expected. Several companies advertise a sound board that makes several railroad sounds including a crossing bell. The illustrations and circuit descriptions all memtioned a COB (chip-on-board) technology for the sound generation and several solder pads to wire switches for selecting the sound desired. I finally ordered a kit from a Canadian company that claimed it produced 3 railroad sounds. When it arrived I found that the kit did not have more than one switch! I was at a loss as to how you select the sound that you want but I put it together to see just how it went together and provided the sounds. The directions were in Asian/English and did not read well. I made the two boards up and noted that either 12V or 3V could power the board. I hooked up the 12V and listened to the speaker and nothing recognizable came from it. Sort of a high-pitched dqueeling sound emenated from the loudspeaker. I first checked over all my instructiuons and traced the board to see if I left something out or had a solder bridge on the board but to no avail.
At this point, I called the company and left a voice mail explaining that I was unhappy with the kits, so far, and why I was unhappy. I then went back to trouble shooting and found that the author had mentioned that the power supply for the chip was critical at no more then 3VDC. There was a voltage devider to provide the three volts if you used 12 volts. I got out the trusty meter and found that the 3 volt point was above three and decided to put in a potentiometer so I could adjust the voltage to get the critical 3 volts for the chip. I also wondered if the audio amplifier transistor was shorted or damaged during the assembly process. I replaced the transistor and and as I turned the control up and down, I was able to get a faintly remotely sounding locomotive chugging as well as sort of a bell ringing sound out of the speaker. When I got the return E-mail form Q-Kits about the board, they comfirmed thatg this kit simply simply provided three railroad sound sequentially in a loop. They also mentioned that the 3VDC is critical and the speaker only work properly when the circuit is run on 3VDC and not 12VDC! In fact, they show the board being used without the output resistor and have the signal connected to a power amplifier.I am having hard time with an electronic bell for the grade crossing in the first place and apparently this boards will not work for anything at the track - except for a souvenier perhaps.
I started looking at mechanical bells as an offshoot of my curosity about the light and bell frequency. I understand the railroad mechanical bells had a motor driven clapper that rotated at a fairly slow speed as the bells were about a second apart. I remembered fire alarm and burglar alarm bells featured mechanical clappers and wondered if they had spec sheets that mentioned frequency but alas the only frequency talked about for burglar alarm or fire alarms is a rapid ringing causing an annoying sound to drive people avay frim the area being protected. I am looking for a slower, perhaps more melodic, sound from a clear bell. The bell should be between four and eight inches for the right pitch. but getting a ringer at the right frequency may take a little more legwork. I could order a bell and remove the factory ringer and add small motor of about 6 to 10 RPM and hang a clapper from its shaft and that should get me the authentic crossing bell sound.
I finally removed the old wiring and circuit boards that were damaged and prepared the area for the new wires. I drew up two different schematics of the system and had to make a choice. After the first version I realized there was no compelling reason to wire it that way again. I then startd out with a white sheet of paper and drew it as I would have designed it for the most part and added in shorting out the leads external to the building when it is not activated so as to lessen the chance of a weather related outage. With the two leads shorted to each other and ground, The differential voltage should be close to nil and hopefully any potential would get shunted to ground before it could get into our components.
Of course, the plastic sunshades are getting worn and need replacement. I have added that to my projrct list and have some aluminum roofing flashing and have cut several pieces to the general size and now I have to shape them and paint them grayish black so they look authentic, Fred Wright offered to help me with the target's shades and their mounting on the units.
I reburried the cables by the Grelson building and the old car barn so it looks much better again.
On Sunday I came back with Tom Prescott and hoped to finish up the work on the crossing signals but it seems something kept going wrong, One of the LEDs has gone out for some reason and one on the control card has as well. I tried replacing the oscillator chip that contains the drivers transistors but it did not fix the issues. I also tested the LEDS to see what current made them bright enough for actual use and discovered that I have to raise the current flow to 25% above the existing limit to get bright enough display. Tommy thinks the LEDs spectrum may also be a problem in that the light frequency is being selected by the red lens which makes it appear dim. Therefore, I have a quandry. Should I raise the current to the LEDs because the supply is off half the time? Should I look for another LED that has much brighter output? Should I look at different output device such as an incandescent lamp again?
I decided to try the higher output LEDs that All Electronics has for sale that can use 10 times the current and mounts on a flat surface so I can put them on the back of the light box and it gives the light a chance to spread out before hitting the red lens. The 555 chip says it has a current rating of 1000ma and the new LEDs are up to 300 ma so two LEDs should work OK.
At this point, I called the company and left a voice mail explaining that I was unhappy with the kits, so far, and why I was unhappy. I then went back to trouble shooting and found that the author had mentioned that the power supply for the chip was critical at no more then 3VDC. There was a voltage devider to provide the three volts if you used 12 volts. I got out the trusty meter and found that the 3 volt point was above three and decided to put in a potentiometer so I could adjust the voltage to get the critical 3 volts for the chip. I also wondered if the audio amplifier transistor was shorted or damaged during the assembly process. I replaced the transistor and and as I turned the control up and down, I was able to get a faintly remotely sounding locomotive chugging as well as sort of a bell ringing sound out of the speaker. When I got the return E-mail form Q-Kits about the board, they comfirmed thatg this kit simply simply provided three railroad sound sequentially in a loop. They also mentioned that the 3VDC is critical and the speaker only work properly when the circuit is run on 3VDC and not 12VDC! In fact, they show the board being used without the output resistor and have the signal connected to a power amplifier.I am having hard time with an electronic bell for the grade crossing in the first place and apparently this boards will not work for anything at the track - except for a souvenier perhaps.
I started looking at mechanical bells as an offshoot of my curosity about the light and bell frequency. I understand the railroad mechanical bells had a motor driven clapper that rotated at a fairly slow speed as the bells were about a second apart. I remembered fire alarm and burglar alarm bells featured mechanical clappers and wondered if they had spec sheets that mentioned frequency but alas the only frequency talked about for burglar alarm or fire alarms is a rapid ringing causing an annoying sound to drive people avay frim the area being protected. I am looking for a slower, perhaps more melodic, sound from a clear bell. The bell should be between four and eight inches for the right pitch. but getting a ringer at the right frequency may take a little more legwork. I could order a bell and remove the factory ringer and add small motor of about 6 to 10 RPM and hang a clapper from its shaft and that should get me the authentic crossing bell sound.
I finally removed the old wiring and circuit boards that were damaged and prepared the area for the new wires. I drew up two different schematics of the system and had to make a choice. After the first version I realized there was no compelling reason to wire it that way again. I then startd out with a white sheet of paper and drew it as I would have designed it for the most part and added in shorting out the leads external to the building when it is not activated so as to lessen the chance of a weather related outage. With the two leads shorted to each other and ground, The differential voltage should be close to nil and hopefully any potential would get shunted to ground before it could get into our components.
Of course, the plastic sunshades are getting worn and need replacement. I have added that to my projrct list and have some aluminum roofing flashing and have cut several pieces to the general size and now I have to shape them and paint them grayish black so they look authentic, Fred Wright offered to help me with the target's shades and their mounting on the units.
I reburried the cables by the Grelson building and the old car barn so it looks much better again.
On Sunday I came back with Tom Prescott and hoped to finish up the work on the crossing signals but it seems something kept going wrong, One of the LEDs has gone out for some reason and one on the control card has as well. I tried replacing the oscillator chip that contains the drivers transistors but it did not fix the issues. I also tested the LEDS to see what current made them bright enough for actual use and discovered that I have to raise the current flow to 25% above the existing limit to get bright enough display. Tommy thinks the LEDs spectrum may also be a problem in that the light frequency is being selected by the red lens which makes it appear dim. Therefore, I have a quandry. Should I raise the current to the LEDs because the supply is off half the time? Should I look for another LED that has much brighter output? Should I look at different output device such as an incandescent lamp again?
I decided to try the higher output LEDs that All Electronics has for sale that can use 10 times the current and mounts on a flat surface so I can put them on the back of the light box and it gives the light a chance to spread out before hitting the red lens. The 555 chip says it has a current rating of 1000ma and the new LEDs are up to 300 ma so two LEDs should work OK.
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