Winander wrote:They are held fortnightly on a Wednesday the next one is a week on Wednesday 5th October. It is extremely useful to be able to discuss things "face to face", I know it has helped me tremendously. You can make a start this Thursday.
Ah thanks for that, Richard. I'll do my best to be there, I should home on 5th October, and hopefully will have a bit of time on Thursday and evenings over the weekend to make some progress, you'll know if I do as I'll post it here!
Winander wrote:No forward or aft movement at all, but they do need to be able to tilt sideways to allow one wheel to drop. No doubt the slots in the axleboxes/bearing will already be wide enough to do this.
Thanks, thats useful. Yes my view is to follow your comment and Dave's about being able to dismantle the chassis with drop-out wheel sets. I may need some more help/advice/direction on that but we'll hang on till I get there!
Winander wrote:Are you using DC or DCC?
DC was the initial plan, but it may well be DCC with Zimo chips - my preferred when I modelled RTR 7mm scale. Certainly for the initial layout, DC would be fine, but if this build goes well and the rebuild of my garage into a railway room happens next year, then all of this would be a build up to a slightly bigger project and I suspect DCC would be the best with that. But probably DC to start with.
davebradwell wrote:That's the second time I've messed up looking at the photos - mine aren't sharp and I just can't read the writing, particularly at the top so hadn't bothered. At least my incorrect comment wasn't important. First time was more a memory problem. Anyway, good news.
Dont worry Dave, I keep having entire mornings like that! I am interested that you say yours aren't sharp - I found that if you click the photo in the thread it opens the full size file (which I deliberately left as full size) and then you may need to click the subsequent picture once so it zooms full size rather than compressing to get on the screen. They were taken on my Apple iPad, but are certainly sharp as a button here?
Julian Roberts wrote:Regarding gear ratios. Dave has demonstrated his locos to me and there's no doubt of the rightness of his approach - given DCC. I am in the DC analogue timewarp and likely to stay there. So I gear my locos for the top motor rev to give me my maximum required speed, about 35 mph. This gives me good slow speed control which is what I want. Most of my locos use the highest gear ratio HL do, a couple have such big lower revving motors that 80:1 does the job. Yes there is motor whine at the top speed but sadly most places they run don't require that top speed for long, most of the time being spent manoevring at low speed.
Hi Julian, thanks for chipping in. Lovely layout coming there in both videos btw! I am probably in the same boat to be honest, as I hate to see locos flying around on a layout, but it could have something to do with having worked for the real railway and realism is a big thing of what I am aiming for. Slow movements and a 30-35mph top speed I think is about right for most of what I am looking for. I think my plan will be to go for the 45:1 ratio an see how things pan out - if it ends up being too quick or too high top speed, I can always swap the gearbox out at a later date.
If there is a motor whine that does not bother me too much, as long as it isn't overpowering which it certainly does not seem to be on that first video. As a matter of interest, which motor did you use?
Thanks again for all the input guys! I might not get online tomorrow, so hopefully the next post from me will show a little bit of progress, rather than talk, with the actual kit!
Rich