Feather River Canyon in N-scale

[rodsup9000]

  The layout will have 4 or 5 sawmills. I have Long Valley Lumber from N Scale Architect built and it will be in Quincy.
In Blairsden, I have about a area that's 14"X36" for the next one I need to build.




 The one that's in Quincy.





 Quick CAD of the next one I'll be building. I'll have a build log thread in the Scratchbuilding.

 

[rodsup9000]

     Wow, I can't believe it's been over a year since I've updated my build. A lots has been going on and I'm slowly getting it ready to have a operating session sometime late December.
 Got the icing dock for Portola built and painted. Sill need to mount it in place yet.



 







 A few structures built. Here's two of them

[rodsup9000]

 
  Started body mounting couplers using the guts of truck mounted couplers in 3D printed boxes.









 So far have about 400 cars done. Guessing have another 400 to do yet.

  Installed some sound decoders in some Kato F B's using speaker chambers I printed.

[rodsup9000]

  Installed some of the fascia at Portola. Can't finish till I get the rest of the track laid.













 As I mounted couplers, I also weighted the cars. 40' and under is 23 grams, 50' weights 34 grams. then as I add them back to the layout, I make the car card for them





 

[nkalanaga]

I body-mounted the couples on my KD/MT cars by buying just the boxes from MT, as it was a lot cheaper than buying new couplers.  3D-printing the boxes would be even cheaper.  Congratulations for thinking of it!

[Cajonpassfan]

You've been a busy boy, Rodney! Maybe I should be spending less time on here and more time in the trainroom, like you. Outstanding progress, good to see you back. And those coupler boxes are a great idea.
Otto

[rodsup9000]

   
  I needed a place to store my radio throttles. So I installed a little wall under Williams Loop. Drew out the throttle box parts in Sketchup. Fired up the laser and cut them out of some smoked acrylic that I had on hand.


 Box parts





 Back side of the wall




 Boxes glued together and mounted





 

[Wolf N Works]

That is very nice.

[rodsup9000]

 

That is very nice.

 Thanks, Wolf

[rodsup9000]

 Last Tuesday evening as I was switching some cars on the trim end of Oroville yard, I discovered some trackwork that might hinder the efficiency of the trim operator. They couldn't get to class tracks 1 and 2 if any trains were arriving or departing. Also was having some derailments on the turnout off the siding to the A & D tracks.

 Here it is before the change







 New turnout installed with revised trackwork and getting ready to install the bell crank linkage for the servos.






 

[rodsup9000]

  Got all the bell cranks done and the Arduino mounted




 Ready for servos

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I think you might run into some clearance issues with those mounted like that 

Joking aside, the rapid progress you make "at scale" is impressive and inspiring.

[TrainCat2]

Rodney,

Is the Arduino being instructed to control the turnouts by DCC or a front panel with std toggle switches? Was your choice of servos over switch machines such as Tortoises driven by economics, or another reason??

[rodsup9000]

I think you might run into some clearance issues with those mounted like that 

Joking aside, the rapid progress you make "at scale" is impressive and inspiring.

 Thanks Ed.



 

Rodney,
Is the Arduino being instructed to control the turnouts by DCC or a front panel with std toggle switches? Was your choice of servos over switch machines such as Tortoises driven by economics, or another reason??

   boB,

 I use several different ways to throw them, but no DCC. From track side switches, matrix with a rotary switch, and switches on panels.
 Economics, being the major factor, but ease of doing rotary switch matrix also was up there with economics. When I figured the cost back when I made the decision, I was somewhere around $3.75 for each turnout (servos, DPDT switches, LED's, wire Arduino Mega, sensor board, and limit switches).

[rodsup9000]

  One of the major drawbacks to servos, is that the signal wire cannot be longer than 60" or somewhere there about.

 There is a couple of ways to wire servos
 One, is run all three wires back to the controller
 The other is run a buss with 5 volt positive and negative for the servo power, and only the signal wire goes to the controller.

 On most of my mine, I've done the all three wires back to the controller (Arduino)