RobertsfieldAfternoon All, and Season's Greetings! I have been continuing to work on both the layout scenic plan and the physical control panels. The scenic plan is (I think) beginning to fall into place now and I have been focussing on avoiding the ‘clangers’ by ensuring the baseboard joins and backscene ‘junctions’ are disguised as best as possible. I’m hoping the scene will give the feel of a small town serving agricultural and light manufacturing industries, but still have a slightly rural feel. The control panels are progressing fairly well, I have assembled four of the facias with the fifth ready for adding the printed laminates to the aluminium sheet. My friend Rob Cottrell has kindly been working on the panel boxes and a transit/storage unit for them. I need to assemble the MERG units for the panels and then can start installing the wiring, although I’ve recently found that my order for the pushbutton switches was one fiddle yard panel short in quantity, another order to Mouser after payday methinks! I think the panel wiring will be a slow laborious process, and I’ll have to be careful to fully plan and document all the connections to ensure the panels are identical within the types and make the programming as simple as possible later. Below is one of the scenic panels, front and rear view: And one of the fiddle yard panels, front and rear view: This is the first time I've used aluminium for a control panel, previously always having worked with perspex. Unfortunately the laminated prints don't appear to correctly line up with the holes, I know a few of the holes ended up slightly offset, but not to the extent as seen with the facia on. What I don't understand is why there is such a big difference the expands across the length of the panel when the prints were all from the same document on the PC and the same printer.
Equally, the holes needed for the switches are not as big as advertised in the switch specs document, so there is a bit of wriggle room there. Is it frustrating - yes, will it do the job - yes, so am I going to correct it - certainly not! Probably won't be too much tangible progress over the next few weeks, I've only got a couple of days left to get ready for Christmas (tidying up etc - the shopping's all done!) before I go back to work - night shifts finishing Christmas morning! I've got the last three baseboards with wiring changes to complete so that I can then clear some space around the modelling desk before I attach the panels properly. Cheers, Mark
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December 2020
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