Error in R645 level crossing packaging and motorisation project

[The son of Triangman]

Has anyone noticed the printing error on Hornby R.645 level crossing boxes? Look at the track on the left hand side of the crossing closely. Just bought a new China made one as the clips have changed from the UK made version and I need the footprint to be correct for my motorising unit.

[96RAF]

They have simply overlaid the crossing on top of a bit of single R600 track.

[The son of Triangman]

I wonder if Hornby know they have made a mess of their printing?

[96RAF]

I wonder if Hornby know they have made a mess of their printing?

 

 

They will in a minute when I tell them.

[Going Spare]

It is not a R600 because there is no fishplate on the visible end and, compared to the level crossing, it is a larger gauge. It looks to me as if the image of a R636 has been superimposed on a R645 single track crossing beneath, the scale of the R645 being to fit the space available on the box and therefore larger than its double-track counterpart image, also resulting in warning lights in strange places.

[96RAF]

Your photo cropped and rotated

[96RAF]

Hornby says thank you very much for pointing out the error. They are looking into it.

[Tony57]

It looks like the twin track crossing has be laid over the top a single barrier crossing.

Do the gated crossing have the new style flashing lights?

[37lover]

Could the title please be amended to something a little less generic, maybe include the words level crossing packaging?

[Topcat1707821625]

This artwork is a real mess. It appears that the warning lights on the top left are actually obstructing the roadway and the ones on the right are leaning over.

Looking at the curved lines in the image it appears the photo was taken with a wide-angle lens which has distorted it.

[TVR1707822112]

Thought I'd have my say...

Looks to me as if the artwork for both double and single track versions have been overlaid - this is obvious as Gated crossings never had "Penguin" style level crossing half barriers as modelled by Hornby in these packs, so it would be completely incorrect, and impossible to model with the packs! Also if you look at the top left hand track you can see the base for the single track version through the sleepers...

Best wishes

[96RAF]

It looks like the twin track crossing has be laid over the top a single barrier crossing.

Do the gated crossing have the new style flashing lights?

 

 

I have just checked on street view and four nearby gated crossing on our heritage line have no wig-wag lights, only the unbarriered crossing has lights.

[The son of Triangman]

Thanks for letting them know Rob, the imange/print error has been going on for sometime. The East Lancashire has gates and lights set up. I think it has been used in the early days of barriers during the 1950's/60's, but not extensively.

[Topcat1707821625]

@The son of Triangman

I would be interested to know more about your motorising unit. Is it home-made or shop-bought? Some time ago I built a motorised crossing from scratch. I would like to make another one but using a Hornby crossing as a basis, since the most difficult part was not the motor unit but building up the top with the rails, gates and road surface.

[The son of Triangman]

It's going to be a commercial product eventually, Topcat. I still have a pile of measurements to work out, gear ratios etc. I am building several prototypes and refining them until I get a really good easy fix commercial product together. It's early days. The circuitry for using ordinary Hornby M.2209 motors is designed now apart from some modifications, I am nearly finished through hole pcb designs, next SMT will follow. The first prototype uses an electronics design in the public domain, but much modified. My work for the present is measuring and figuring out the drive for the gates, it's nearly there, but not yet on paper.

[The son of Triangman]

I've cracked the drive issue to the gates, the end user will need to do very little to fit the existing gates. My 3D printer is going to be busy once I get time to master Tinkercad

[Topcat1707821625]

Sounds interesting. I considered using gearing in my crossing but could not work out how to solve the problem of backlash. My crossing uses pulleys connected by stainless steel jewellery wire fixed to the pulley at one point (they only have to rotate 90 degrees). Drive is by a miniature geared motor and leadscrew, with a microswitch limit switch at each end (one adjustable). The only electronics is two diodes connected across the microswitches, and it gives me an indication of when the gates are open, closed or moving.

[The son of Triangman]

The pulleys sound very Tri-ang-esk as they used something fairly similar with resistance wire and pulleys. I'm using micro switches and pulse width modulation for motor control. I intend to change over to optical sensors for the commercial product. Backlash will be almost eliminated with the use of a low voltage and current to the motors, it also has the advantage of cutting motor revs down as well so the gearing will run smoothly and the motors will be fairly quiet as well, plus the gates will move at a realistic speed. The torque needed to move a gate is minimal, but I will be doing tests of the next few weeks to get exact figures for calculations. The micro switches will be factory adjustable. It's a lot of fine work and design as you know, to get it right.

[The son of Triangman]

By keeping gearing fine toothed and at low motor speed, low voltage and low current there should be little if any backlash. That's the theory anyway. It's an as and when project, so progress is slow but sure. Lots of trial and error as well as piles of maths in the mix.

[Brew Man]

I am toying with idea of motorised crossing gates but was contemplating just using Servo Motors. Is there any advantage with your method?

[96RAF]

I prototyped a point motor using an N20 geared motor with a long lead screw. The most accurate way to deal with the need for an exact travel distance (E.g. 3mm for the OO points tie bar range) was to use a lazy Zed slot. Micro switches in the overrun controlled motor stop/start, with diodes to allow reversing. The angle of the diagonal of the Zed was the transition time and the distance twixt top and bottom of was the range. It worked well but needed a Zed plate the didn’t wear out and didn’t short against the rails.

[Topcat1707821625]

@BM

I'm not sure who your question is addressed to, but with regard to servos:

1. unless you drive them with some sort of speed controller the movement of the gates is going to be too fast.
2. You are still going to need some sort of gearing or pulley mechanism round the gate posts to drive the four gates in sync. Unless you use one servo per gate, in which case the gates they won't be in sync. Using servos it's also not going to be very low profile. My crossing occupies 12 mm above the baseboard, so no need to make holes in it unless you want the tracks each side really flat, just some banking and a gentle slope in the track up to the bed of the crossing.

@son of Triangman

Unless you use large gears I think you will probably see the effects of backlash. Remember that the backlash as seen at the end of the crossing gate will be the actual gear backlash multiplied by the ratio of the gate length to the gear radius. On my pulley/wire driven crossing there is no backlash because the wire is kept taut by a tensioning spring and the gates align perfectly in both open and closed positions.

[Brew Man]

@Topcat

Yes, I see the obstacles involved. I may well not bother as the gates will almost invariably be positioned in favour of the trains anyway.

[Topcat1707821625]

@BM

I'll start a new discussion once I've got my new level crossing working. It should be a lot easier to build than the scratch-built version.

[The son of Triangman]

@BM. I decided upon motors as they are cheaper than servos, also their footprint is tiny compared to a miniature servo. Miniature servo availability can be patchy compared to the M.2209 style motor. Whilst at one off hobby level this doesn't matter, at a commercial production level this is important. You could even use the vibration motors out of mobile phones if they had enough torque.

The gearing will be large enough to reduce backlash. Working out the gearing ratios is a goodly challenge