7mm JF's assorted stuff.

[Jon Fitness]

Hi all. My understanding is SMD stands for surface mount device. The usual LEDs i use have the 2 tails that are designed to be fed through holes in a board and soldered on the reverse. SMDs rather than having tails or legs have pads. The item then sits directly on the circuit boards copper tracks and is soldered on it's surface. I think this is for ease of use in board production. I use these by very carefully soldering fine wires to the pads. I have used some extremely small leds for a few ground signals but they are so delicate that lingering for more than a second with the iron roasts them!
I'm away at the moment but I'll upload a few pics of using smds if anyone 's interested when i get back cheers
JF.

Edit...check page2. I forgot, there's a few smd pics where I'm modifying a lamp....

 

[richard carr]

Thanks Jon that is very helpful

Richard

 

[Jon Fitness]

Right..having done the easy bits it's now time for the difficult bits. I always struggle with the linkages as not having a logical mind I usually end up creating complications for myself .
I am pretty sure that I wont be able to neatly produce a 4 wire bell crank linkage so I've decided to split the action between cranks and levers. The L/H doll will be cranks and wires, the R/H doll will be levers within the cross trimmers...
First, the servo mounts were soldered to the baseplate and the servos fixed with 12BA nuts&bolts.


The 2 operating levers were made from brass strip with bearings/spacers from 0.6mm internal diameter brass tube supported on a lace pin through the trimmers.

The rather convoluted wire links down to the arms. The main post will have to have plenty of supports for the 0.5mm drive wires from the servos!


Probably a rather engineering effort but it should work when it's all adjusted and set up properly!
Crank system for the L/H dolls next...
Soon.
Jon F

 

[Jon Fitness]

The left doll will have it's arms linked by cranks and rods. Not having any nice little etched 90deg cranks to hand I delved into the bits box. I found a bit of scrap that had 4 90deg corners of a suitable dimension. After drilling, a couple of them got bearing tube/spacers soldered to them and were snipped and trimmed. A bit messy but I'm sure they'll do the job.

14BA bolts were soldered to the crossbeams for them to turn on as I want it all removable for painting and maintenance/repairs.
To make it a bit easier to bend up the link rods I soldered 2 more bolts at the same spacing to a bit of scrap and used it as a jig.



I made 3 attempts at the drop wires down to the arms before everything worked as it should without catching but it's still a bit clunky. I won't be able to do a proper full test until the whole thing is finished as the arm stops act on the back blinders rather than the arms themselves and these will be soldered on last.
Being a bit of a lazy s*d, I made up my usual non working weight bars and this is what it looks like at the moment.

Next on the list is the doll shoes. (the little brace/brackety things where the dolls join the trimmers), then the ladders and handrails.
More soon
JF

 

[Simon]

This is really great stuff Jon, you are really making me want to have a go at working brackety/cantilevered signals out in the wilderness

Thanks for sharing your progress

Simon

 

[Jon Fitness]

This is really great stuff Jon, you are really making me want to have a go at working brackety/cantilevered signals out in the wilderness

Thanks for sharing your progress

Simon

Thanks Simon,
Have a go then. Plenty of pics please!
There used to be plenty of these cantilevered semaphore signals about years ago.
If I'm not mistaken, Heyside has a nice L&Y one...!
They were used anywhere that sufficient vision of a straight or "normal" bracket signal wasn't available. Stations still had canopies roofs or footbridges and the like then. I think there's a GW one still at Liskeard on the up platform.
Nowadays, they are making a comeback in a less than stylish form for colour light signals in re-signalling schemes wherever there's plans for major OHL structures going in. There's some real monsters about, massively constructed, just holding 1 or 2 modern LED signal heads!
JF

 

[Jon Fitness]

Just a quick update on the LNW signal...
I have added handrails, ladders, doll shoes (the little strengtheners at the doll/trimmer joint) and painted the arms. Still some tidying to do on the arm's paint but hopefully tomorrow will see the main structure ready for paint.

More soon...
JF

 

[Jon Fitness]

I've now filled all the open ends of the brass tube sections, added the taper profile to the base of the main post (rather roughly) and blown a bit of white primer and matt black on it. Still a long way to go yet (one of the drop links needs a re-design...again) but you get the idea..


More soon
Jon F.

 

[Jon Fitness]

Well...I've got the signal all linked up to the servos. Trying do do it whilst fighting off a nasty chest infection didn't help and having to come to work on a 12 hour night shift afterwards meant that a stiff single malt wasn't an option. Things got a bit sweary and the cats all took flight out of the way. During the process the camera was kept away just in case it got launched across the room when things didn't quite work for the first couple of attempts.
Rest assured, although we tussled, I won
Pics to follow tomorrow when I get up!
Cheers
JF

 

[Jon Fitness]

Well after a couple of grim days of feverish coughing, visiting doctors and getting yet more antibiotics (which seem at last to be working) I've done a bit more to the signal.
I managed to get the linkages reliable and checked the lights (all still working, phew!) then it was onto setting it in to where it's going to be....sort of. It'll be platform mounted at a station that is 12inches above a hidden yard and only reachable by standing on a milk crate . I therefore took a chunk of platform home with me and fitted it and its driver board to that.
The links, and the base prepared for adhesive tape.

The base fitted with trim tape. It is good stuff (3M brand) and is occasionally on sale at Lidl or Aldi. It's about 1mm thick double sided sponge tape of the sort used in the motor trade to fix trim and badges on bodywork.


A cut out for the servos will also be required below the platform as well as the platform surface.

Fitted to the platform and the driver board mounted beneath



The drive wires have wire restraints soldered to the post and bent round. I use the tails off LEDs for this. pre-tinned and nice and soft!

It looked nice in the sun!

I have added the wooden decking (0.8 ply) and after setting up the driver board it all worked fine.


I'll try and do a video tomorrow if anyones interested.
Essentially it's finished now with the exception of some serious weathering of course. Hanging over the tracks, it would have been right in the firing line of steam locos setting off, so as much as it would have looked a bit like this, seen very soon after a repaint

I would prefer this..

Anyway removal of the platform section meant a running in board took a knock so I've made up a replacement from some bits. Strangely, I made a GW pattern one but I think Steve wants his station as a joint GW/LNW, a bit like Shrewsbury or Chester..

More soon
Jon F

 

[Scale7JB]

Brilliant Jon, very nice indeed..!

JB.

 

[Steve Cook]

Great stuff Jon, it looks brilliant
Yes please to the video, it would be lovely to see it in action.
Steve

 

[Jon Fitness]

I did a little basic weathering on the bracket signal and it should be ready to be installed if Steve's hacked a hole in the baseboard!

Video clip should be here if it's embedded...

Cheers
JF

 

[Scale7JB]

Seriously good that..

And everyone knows I love a servo..

JB.

 

[Jon Fitness]

Ok back to some BR(S) railbuilt signals. The MSE version has a cast whitemetal post and the last one I built was a little..er..flexible so I decided to use the SSS version.
Now, for some reason I thought the Scale Signal Supply version was cast brass but no, it's built up like the real thing from rail and rods. I have 4 or 5 to build so I'll build one of them here. It's going to end up as a stop&distant so I chose the 22ft version of the kit. For once I'll also be using the etched arms provided. No lighting or servos on this batch of signal as the layout owner just wants manual digital operation!
Here's what's in the kit..

The instructions show you how to make a jig up to hold the pre-drilled rails..


I used solder paste and my RSU to assemble the post sides. It's a bit fiddly and the holes are a little wide for the rod provided. I think I might use fatter rod on the rest of them..

Here is the post fresh out of the jig before trimming up. One of the rods went a bit off; I'll tweek that later..

The trimmed up post (still with it's wonky rod!) was mounted on the base with the help of flux and a length of solder wrapped round the base. I used my little gas torch on that joint!


I made up the first of the etched arms after adding a little bolt detail with my rivet punch. The blade's a bit droopy on the spec plate; another "snagging" job for the list

This is the progress so far then. I wasn't sure what the little plates level with the arms were for until I fitted the first arm and it looks like it's to stop light shining between the rails through the green lens whilst the signal is at danger.

More soon
JF

 

[Jon Fitness]

Work proceeded fairly quickly with this one! I had to rob another kit to get a few extras for completion but there we go.
As the signal is to be finger poke worked, working weightbars have been provided. One is a cast brass one and the other is etched. The weight bar bracket/pivots are on a brass sprue but not very well cast but there is also an etched one included which needed modifying to accept 2 bars. I soldered a washer either side of each bar and drilled them to clear a 14BA bolt. I soldered a nut on the bearing bracket using a chemically blackened bolt to hold it in place (an RMW sourced trick..thanks!).

The ladders and staging are etched ones from the kits and the stanchions 25mm lace pins (pointy bits down this time!) and the drive wires are 0.5 steel guide wire from a Faller Roadway set!
It all functions easily with jab from a finger but I'll have to work out how to get a bit of stiction into my normally free moving signals otherwise they'll just drop straight down to danger/caution!
Another thing I've been asked to include is the ability to fit/remove the signals. I'll stick some thin neodinyum (is that how it's spelled?) magnets to the base and provide some steel base plates for the layout. Easy to fit and remove and if they get knocked they fall over rather than break or bend.
Anyway, time to trim/scrape/scrub and paint this one then do the other 3.
More soon
JF

 

[daifly]

Close! It's 'neodymium'. These rare earth magnets can be really tenacious though. I suspect that you'll want very small diameter as well as thin ones to achieve your purpose, else damage will be caused gripping the signal trying to separate it from the steel base.
Dave

 

[Jon Fitness]

Close! It's 'neodymium'. These rare earth magnets can be really tenacious though. I suspect that you'll want very small diameter as well as thin ones to achieve your purpose, else damage will be caused gripping the signal trying to separate it from the steel base.
Dave

Ah thanks for that!
I've got some 20mm x 6mm x 1.5mm with a sticky back to use which as you say, may be a bit HD for the job. If he doesn't want the signals on his layout he can always use them as fridge magnets....
JF

 

[daifly]

I suspect that the sticky back will let go before the magnet does!

 

[Jon Fitness]

I suspect that the sticky back will let go before the magnet does!

Quite probably. I know they are pretty beefy things as we use them to ping Kaydee couplings on our layout.
I'll set up a test plate to see how it'll work and adjust with a layer or 2 of thin card between the magnets on the base of the signal and the permanent base plates on the layout.
JF