Modutrak Searchlight Signals (WAS: Building BeNscale Signals)

[peteski]

Do you solder SMD components at 800 deg?  Or futz with the knob first?   

Geez!      I don't know how I manage somehow.   You know, stripping wire and soldering SMD LED are 2 distinct operations.    I never found it problematic to strip the wires first, then solder the components.

But if that is too complicated for you....  Whatever. 

I have a 3-channel PACE rework station.  If futzing with the temperature selection was too cumbersome for me (which it really isn't), I could just plug in 2 hand-pieces and have each running at a different temperature.  Having the right tools for the job makes the job easy. 

[Sokramiketes]

Geez!      I don't know how I manage somehow.   You know, stripping wire and soldering SMD LED are 2 distinct operations.    I never found it problematic to strip the wires first, then solder the components.

But if that is too complicated for you....  Whatever. 

I have a 3-channel PACE rework station.  If futzing with the temperature selection was too cumbersome for me (which it really isn't), I could just plug in 2 hand-pieces and have each running at a different temperature.  Having the right tools for the job makes the job easy. 

I just know that my motion is clip magnet wire, tin iron, strip end of insulation with iron, solder wire to pad that is shared by a SMD resistor.  Dropping a hand piece, or dialing back temperature and waiting, just sounds like futzing is all.   

[peteski]

I just know that my motion is clip magnet wire, tin iron, strip end of insulation with iron, solder wire to pad that is shared by a SMD resistor.  Dropping a hand piece, or dialing back temperature and waiting, just sounds like futzing is all.   

Whatever works for you - thanks for the explanation.

BTW, ceramic-body SMD resistor is not a delicate epoxy-encapsulated SMD LED - it can easily withstand the 800 degrees for even few seconds.

[randgust]

Wow, those bases are excellent.   

The wire I got from Tomar - on their leads - measures .009.  I'm not sure what gauge that works out to, but it's obviously a heck of a lot heavier than the stuff you guys are using.

I'll post a picture here when I get them painted and decaled.  From my standpoint, this is a huge improvement.   Compared to what you guys are doing, it's still pretty much blacksmith.   It's not quite the 3' rule, these are a good 18" back off the layout edge.

[randgust]

OK, I got the project installed, if not completely finished.

Here's the 'before', with the  NJI masts, two aspect, with the bulbs:



Not awful, but......

Here's what I've got now, thanks to Mike:  White City/Tomar/BLMA/Sunrise - signals 285-3 and 285-5 in front of the Winslow depot:



It's a bear getting photos of these, had to drop the Iphone in there, way too tight for a regular camera.

[skytop35]

Nice improvement 

[robert3985]

Nice improvement 

LOL...what an understatement.  That's a HUGE improvement! 

[Sokramiketes]

Looking good Randy, glad the parts worked out!

[mcjaco]

Delicious, Randy! 

[JSL]

Kickin!

[dnhouston]

The new signals make an impressive difference.
Question though, is the ladder on 285-5 on the wrong side?

[Sokramiketes]

The new signals make an impressive difference.
Question though, is the ladder on 285-5 on the wrong side?

Nope, funny as it looks, there is a prototype photo up thread!

[randgust]

For years this area of Arizona was left-hand running, due to the fact that the 'second' main line track back from Crookton east was on the 'wrong side' and had easier westbound grades.   When the tracks were together, the odd left-hand running stayed, leading to all sorts of weird things like the cantilevers and signal bridges on the main to put the signal aspect where it was mandated to be during the steam era.    For many years, Flagstaff-Winslow-Belen was all left-hand Rule 251.    When the Crookton Cutoff was built in 1960, the double-track bidirectional CTC was put in on the new bypass, and also extended to Winslow.   At Winslow, everything reverted back to left-hand running Rule 251 again headed east, so Winslow was where the 'signal and crossover scramble took place between the mains between the two systems.   Today it is all double-track bidirectional CTC, but that didn't get changed over until like... 2004?    Remember today you can put a signal on the left hand side of the track facing the engineer, that wasn't the case then.   Had to be above or to the right of the governed track. 

I can only guess that at one time the 285-5 signal was Rule 251-directional the other way, and as things evolved in Winslow they just swapped around the head.   It certainly is strange.   And it's a very real reason why Mike's signal parts were PERFECT for what I was trying to build.

TRAINS ran a full article about this oddball system as well, written by the same guy that wrote the web page.    Marvelous.   When I first started modeling it never occurred to me that 'not everybody' ran a two-track main line on both directions on both tracks.   Or left-hand running.  And like everything else as you learn a particular prototype/era, the more you learn the more interesting it gets in modeling it.

For years I'd collected Sunrise signal parts just because they looked so good, but there was sure no practical way to make them operate that I could see.   I just really want to say thanks to Mike for advancing this one area of the scale in a rather significant manner.   His etched parts are a quantum leap forward, and I'd be making the full heads as well if I had the soldering talent.

This summer I also had the privilege of stumbling on a genuine ex-SRR multi-aspect vintage cantilever on the NS at Biltmore Village, NC, and sticking around for night photography on it.    And when I was in Waltham, MA, and discovered the tower was still intact with the train order signal still on it, another session.   My now-adult kids certainly think I'm a vintage signal junkie, let me tell you!

Oh, and if you care, there's still a surviving, vintage, position-light PRR signal at Corry, PA, on B&P, guarding the ex-EL diamond as an absolute interlocking (first in-first out).  Fewer and fewer of those left.  Google Earth at 62 PA 426, Corry PA.  Look left for the Climax Locomotive mural and straight ahead for the position light.

[dnhouston]

Thanks for the info, and as I said before, the new signals are very impressive.

[randgust]

OK, this has been loads of fun.   Lets talk about dwarf signals.    Back about page 2 you were talking about using fiber optics with a commercial head and this LED?

Updates?   Thoughts?     I'd tried fiber optics years ago and never been too enthusiastic about doing signals that way.