The son of Triangman

Indeed, a good period for locos, probably the most notorious from that time period was the NBR Wheatley 4-4-0 number 224.

Now we Rocket and Lion, how about some early L&MR locos. Mercury, Planet (the version with small diameter front wheels and single driving wheel assembly), Northumbrian, Swiftsure, Patentee, Liver and Samson spring to mind.

One of the fundamentals of business. Slow moving products, have a sale and reduce the profit margin, get it moving out the door. Dead inventory is dead money that could be used elsewhere.

Good point GS, they are a generic motor available for just over £1 or less in bulk. I used the old part code for them, but forgot the magnets have been uprated under a new part number. When designing something new, standardisation is key as ensures a regular supply of components. I have 5 suppliers for this motor and they are used in all sorts of things so supply is good.

More of the M.2209 type 7 motors arrived yesterday. I am slowly building up a stock of them.

Try M1.2 screws. It seems a bit small to me, would have thought it would be M2, M2.2 or M2.5. I keep a stock of M1.2 screws if you are unable to obtain them, in fact I keep sizes right down to M0.25. Just need the depth of the hole to match up a suitable M1.2 screw. If you need some then ask the administrators for my contact details.

A bit, but a deeper more powerful noise. There's a wonderful 5 inch gauge model of it on YouTube. It gives you an idea of what it sounded like.

Personally I would treat the chassis as scrap. It would be easier to simply replace. If it's the 1977 onwards version with the cast wheel retaining plate be careful as the plate can be fragile. The wheelsets simply drop out, so can be reused. If you can't get a replacement then tap the hole and fit a brass threaded bush into the chassis with a centre hole tapped out to 8ba. If it has mazak rot in that area, then it will fail again, check the hole area carefully, cracks in the paint are a sure sign the zinc pest/mazak rot is there.

It's progressing.

Looks great Rob.

The top of the cooker was free and switched off so I "borrowed it".lol. ignore the switch that looks like it's on, it's switched off at the mains.

So far this lot is being worked on, it's early days yet with many hurdles to cross.

@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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Let's hope it is kept at a level playing field and the big box shifting operations don't get all the latest new stuff first at silly discounts off trade as they have in the past.

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.

Loads of uses for PLC'S on layouts, level crossings, signals, points etc . I sometimes dabble with PIC programming of MCU's. It's mainly 8 bit and 16 bit stuff nowadays. I left embedded software work behind years ago and now it's a hobby related thing. I am a bit greedy as I have enough kit to program 4 MCU's at a time including PLCC'S. I tend to still use 8 bit 12f83 and 16f84 micro controller ic's