Sumida Crossing

[KenS]

Of I ever do DCC your coming to my house and wiring it 

I think mine was more than enough for me. 

Although it looks pretty bad (and was a lot of work) it's not really complex. Part of the mess here is that I'm using separate bus wires for the Commuter and Subway loops, which was due to an earlier misunderstanding of how much power trains draw.  I've kept that for future flexibility, but if I were starting over I think I'd skip it and have a single power bus for the track. 

Then it's just a matter of connecting the bus to the circuit breaker, the circuit breaker outputs to the first terminal strip, the strip to either the detector board inputs (blue wire) or the second terminal strip (gray wire), the detector board outputs to the second terminal strip (more blue wire), and that second terminal strip to the track feeders (with a blue wire looped through the white RX1 sensor for transponding).  As long as you keep blue and gray straight (which I managed to screw up in one place) and follow the rules for RX1 wiring (no wire w/in 2" of a detector w/o twists, and wire going through the sensor from printed side to non-printed side on the way to the track) it's not hard.

Trying to do a lot of that in a small space is a pain, but aside from planning where the wire runs will go to keep them out of the way (which took about 5 minutes) and planning how the track is broken up into detection sections (which took longer, but was mostly done months ago on paper) there wasn't a lot of thought involved.  Just repititious work.

Like ballasting, it's a boring activity, but once you start doing it, it's just "more of the same", and not really hard.

My real take-away is that to do this right needs more space to lay things out, so wires aren't all massed together in a small space, and that ease of access is going to be very important. What I'm thinking of for the future is a separate "detector board" with the circuit breaker and detectors and a bunch of terminal strips on a sheet of light plywood, which can be built separately and attached to the layout (via the terminal strips) and re-used in the future with different track designs. I'm thinking of something I can attach under the layout and hinge down for work without removing wires, or fully remove and take to a bench if necessary.

Digitrax shows something like that in one of their documents, but it wasn't really clear why they'd done it that way.

[scott]

Then it's just a matter of

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^    You lost me just about there. 

[KenS]

It took a long time, much longer than I expected back in December when I took the tables apart to start work on the backdrops, but it's all back together now, and wired up.  Most of the track is still missing though, as some painting needs to be done topside, and there's no point in putting the track back before that's done.  And I need to test all the wires/circuit breakers/occupancy detectors and see what I wired wrong (I always wire something wrong).

But while I was at it, I installed a test strip of LED lights in the right half of the subway station.  This is the "white" strip (about 5000K, near "daylight" in color) that I'm thinking of using for fluorescent lighting.  It looks a bit too blue (although not as blue in person as it comes across in this photo), but perhaps I want that.  I need to think on it a bit.  I'm going to install a similar strip of "warm white" (3100K) lights on the other half of the subway station for a comparison test, but I ran out of crimp-on spade connectors (another 100-count box gone!) and need to visit the store before I can do that.  I expect the Warm White lights to look a bit reddish, as the room lighting is around 3400K (compact fluorescent spots in track lighting fixtures), but we'll see how it comes out.

I installed a 20 inch strip (30 LEDs), using the red/black leads that came on the end of the strip to wire it to my lighting power bus under the table.  They're pretty bright: I took the larger photo showing the train hand-holding the camera, set to f/5, 1/30 sec, ISO 1600, exposed for the front of the layout (the close up was taken at f/8, 1/30, ISO 800, trying to get an exposure more suited to the locomotive and more depth of field). The plexiglass needs a good cleaning, or I need to play with manual focus and shallow depth of field to focus on the train, or both.

The strip is installed at the very front, along the underside of the metal bar you can see in the larger photos, with the LEDs pointed down.  There's a Kato platform between the two tracks, so the locomotive, which is on the rear track, is being lit by spill from the side of the LEDs and bounced light.  I was thinking I might need a second strip down the middle of the platform to illuminate the rear track, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. 

I may add a small strip of heavy styrene between the LEDs and the window, so you can't see them. But they actually look a bit like light fixtures, so I may just leave them as-is. And this makes me want to add the back wall of the station (what you see now is insulation foam painted gray) and some advertising posters, so the view through the windows is more than just a bare gray platform in a gray tunnel.  So I may do that before putting the roof and the Shinkansen line back in place.

And yeah, the EF510 seems to be a bit lost if it's in a subway tunnel.  It was handy and I needed a photo prop; it won't normally operate in the subway.

[KenS]

More LED work.  I installed the Warm White strip (left window) so I could compare the two.  I also cleaned the plexiglass and used a tripod and manual focus this time; the results were much better.

Power consumption adds up: between the two strips (60 LEDs) I'm burning nearly half an amp.  That's only about 15-25 mA per two-inch strip, which is low for this model.  Of course there's 20 two-inch strips here, but three 6-floor buildings would be about the same. I'm thinking of re-doing my lighting power to use a larger supply than I'd previously planned.

The photos are a little misleading.  The camera just doesn't like the bluish-white "white" LEDs (which might be a good reason not to use them) and photographs them with a much stronger blue tint than I see.  I do see a blue tint, but they look better in person than they photograph; slightly on the blue side, but reasonable for a "harsh fluorescent light" look.  The "warm white" LEDs photographed better, although I still had to play with the white balance of the image to get the picture to look like what I see, but to me it looks much more like incandescent lighting.  Good for a house, and maybe for outdoor lighting (e.g., yellowish sodium lights), but a bit too warm for an office building or subway station.

This time I broke out the Tokyu Metro 10000, which will be one of the denizens of the subway line. It looks right at home.

[Bernard]

Wow Ken that 1st photo I think got the effect you were looking for all along...seeing a subway running while a whole city on top is busy. I shows that the busy is also busy underground, the backdrop makes the whole imagery work! 

[cteno4]

ken,

great stuff! i got a roll of those lights with this idea in mind a couple of months back and looks like it will be perfect for my use as well!

part of the blue is probably your camera's auto white balance. you might try setting the white balance on florescent light and see if that backs off the blue on the leds and hopefully not too much effect on the rest of the scene. some cameras let you set the white balance on a spot (ie piece of white paper under the lights) then use that for taking the pictures.

could also see about putting a tab of translucent paint on the warm whites to see what that might do to give a little bluer tint to them. i agree they look too much like sodium vapor lamps, bit too yellow.

btw im looking to see about using some of these strips in our new kitchen for some accent lighting and also to create some tall vertical light poles (in plex tubes) for our driveway as its long and folks back out of it and have a hard time telling were the edge of the driveway is. regular driveway lights are too low and folks just end up backing over them... the current does start to add up!

cheers

jeff

[KenS]

Jeff,
   It's not the AWB.  I did manual white balance (it's a Canon SLR), and then I played with processing the raw image in Aperture with different white balances when I didn't like the results. There's no single WB setting that produces a life-like (or what I'd consider life-like) result.  I think the problem is that LEDs don't put out a balanced spectrum, they have emission spikes, and camera sensors aren't linearly sensitive to all frequencies.  I think the LED is putting out a blue that overdrives the sensor.

It may be something I could adjust.  I haven't played with RGB adjustments before, so I'm not sure how effective that is. And on the one hand, I don't want to have to do too much post-processing to take a simple photo (my hobby is model railroading, not photography, after all  ). But on the other hand, part of taking a good photograph is doing more work than simply pointing and shooting.  Bother.

Warming the color with paint (or maybe some kind of translucent gel as used in theatrical lighting) is an idea worth checking out. Hmm, and I have some UV-blocking gel sheet that I used on my fluorescent lighting that might do interesting things.

By the way, they make a waterproof version of the LED strips for use in places (like kitchens) where water exposure is possible.  I'm not sure how they'd work outdoors, and you pay a premium for them, but it might be worth checking out.

Bernard,
   Thanks.  It is nice to see the results beginning to take shape and start to look at least somewhat like I'd hoped for. And that "busy and layered" look is a big part of what I'm aiming to achieve.

[cteno4]

ken,

ok figured you probably had tried, but though just check. yes i think you are on target here that too much at one wavelength is freaking the sensor. yes you would need to go into the rgb to try and tweak it out. i never got very good at that, but i have seen some wonders done by some graphic artists correcting things.

i think tamya also makes some translucent paint. lighting gels are great but hard to find sometimes in subtler colors.

saw the u/w strips. actually in the kitchen it would be under the cabinets, so no worries. the outside ones i have 5/8" heavy walled plex tubing and vinyl caps so should stay well sealed up. biggest issue right now is figuring out a ground attachment method that will tolerate getting hit and not snap. either something like a spring or a base that the rod can pop out of if hit. amazed at how many lights have been hit! moved them further out but still hit. low ones that would not get hit are not seen and if i move them too far out its the siren call to pull the tires off the driveway into the ditch on either side! maybe we should just get a drive thru car wash track system that pulls the cars in and out!

cheers

jeff

[Tenorikuma]

Jeff,
   It's not the AWB.  I did manual white balance (it's a Canon SLR), and then I played with processing the raw image in Aperture with different white balances when I didn't like the results. There's no single WB setting that produces a life-like (or what I'd consider life-like) result.  I think the problem is that LEDs don't put out a balanced spectrum, they have emission spikes, and camera sensors aren't linearly sensitive to all frequencies.  I think the LED is putting out a blue that overdrives the sensor.

Yeah, DSLR sensors and the circuitry that process them expect continuous-spectrum light rather than the emissive spikes of LEDs, sodium vapour lamps, etc. They're also designed to be more sensitive to the green component of colours — because our eyes are more sensitive to greens.

If you're using Aperture, try playing with the tint in addition to warmth and colour balance. Tint is useless for photos taken in natural light, but it's often good at compensating for artificial light spectra.

Playing with RGB values (say, in Photoshop) requires a pretty advanced sense of colour control.

[KenS]

maybe we should just get a drive thru car wash track system that pulls the cars in and out!

What you need are the rollers they use at the start of the guide to force wheels into it: just put big rollers around your driveway so the cars trying to angle out get pushed back. 

[rankodd]

I just got hold of the "warm" white and "pure" white LED strips, and I have to say that the warm white ones are very yellow :( I've got some individual 3mm warm white LEDs that have a much more realistic incandescent colour.

I'm going to try using some Gallery Glass in Snow White (translucent white colour, like a liquid styrene...) to try and adjust the colour. Early tests seem to show that the yellow will overwhelm it, though.

The pure white strip looks pretty good for fluorescent lighting, though. I'll likely go with that for the majority of my commercial buildings.

My roll came with the resin waterproofing on it, even though it wasn't mentioned in the listing. It's a slightly sticky, soft, rubbery plastic that is stuck on the  top of the strip, and has a half-dome shape. Fortunately, it seem easy enough to remove.

[KenS]

The pure white looks better in person than it photographs. But I still haven't convinced myself that I want to use the pure white in the subway, mainly because of the "how it photographs" problem.

I'm thinking that for now I'm going to leave both sets in the two halves of my subway station and do at least a basic interior, and just let it sit for a few months and see how I feel about it.  Most of the rest of my uses will be office building interiors (pure white) or houses (warm white) and I'll probably do a couple of those fairly soon to see how they look.

I have been wondering if I can find some kind of translucent white plastic trim that I can put over the strip of LEDs like a lamp diffuser that might soften the pure white kind a bit. I need to go wandering around home improvement and crafts stores looking for some suitable material.

[CaptOblivious]

The pure white looks better in person than it photographs. But I still haven't convinced myself that I want to use the pure white in the subway, mainly because of the "how it photographs" problem.

I'm thinking that for now I'm going to leave both sets in the two halves of my subway station and do at least a basic interior, and just let it sit for a few months and see how I feel about it.  Most of the rest of my uses will be office building interiors (pure white) or houses (warm white) and I'll probably do a couple of those fairly soon to see how they look.

I have been wondering if I can find some kind of translucent white plastic trim that I can put over the strip of LEDs like a lamp diffuser that might soften the pure white kind a bit. I need to go wandering around home improvement and crafts stores looking for some suitable material.

Mylar drafting film is perfect for diffusing light. You might also consider traditional vellum as a good option.

[Mudkip Orange]

What are you using for platforms in the subway tunnel? Just the KATO guys?

[KenS]

For now just Kato, although I've been thinking I'll switch to the new tile ones (which means stealing them from my Shinkansen station and ordering more) as they look better for an indoor station than the standard Kato "asphalt-look" ones.

They're actually not quite wide enough (the tracks are a bit farther apart than the standard spacing because of the curve across the river).  But the eye-level view forced by the small window on the side of the station disguises that quite well. Someday I may scratch-build a platform that's more suitable.

Mylar and vellum. Hadn't thought of either of those. Interesting idea, thanks.

[KenS]

Here's an update on my subway station.  I've crawling through the design phase, as I've had a couple of business trips in the last month that kept me from doing much on the layout. However I think I've got all my design issues settled now (except for the color of the lighting, which I'm still working on).

I'm going to use the newer Kato tile-surface platforms (23-107, 108 and 120) with some of the structure that would normally hold up the platform awning. The back wall will be tile, using Evergreen 4501 1/16” (1.6mm) styrene. To that back wall I'll glue some simple styrene billboards (offset from the wall with thin styrene mountings) and glue some fairly small printed photos to those.

The photos below show the mock-up I did for this (the side view has been color-corrected to eliminate the blue cast).

Although you can't easily see it in these two photos, I'm using the S248PC (20-875) concrete-tie single-track straight from the V15 set for the front track that can be seen through the window.

[Bernard]

Ken - I really like the 1st photo...having taken NYC Subways most of my life, I like how it's developing!

[KenS]

It does look more NYC than Tokyo with the girders.  All of the Japanese subway stations I could find hid platform girders inside cylindrical structures (concrete or perhaps just cosmetic), although riveted girders between the tracks were visible in older stations and are often seen in above-ground stations platforms.

Right now I'm planning to go with the girders, but I could hide them inside some kind of cylinder and still keep the overhead structure, for a more modern look.  I'm going to give that more thought.

[Mudkip Orange]

If you decide to stick with the NYC look, you need American Apparel ads. Lots of American Apparel ads.

[bill937ca]

Most Tokyo subway stations seem to have pillars especially those stations with side platforms.  Also many Tokyo subway stations are getting platform gates.  There are photos here of some Tokyo subway stations.

[David]

Most Tokyo subway stations seem to have pillars especially those stations with side platforms.  Also many Tokyo subway stations are getting platform gates.  There are photos here of some Tokyo subway stations.

I don't have a link but GreenMax has put out platform gates. I think they come in a package of 6 or 8, unpainted and ready to be used with any brand of platform.

[Bernard]

It does look more NYC than Tokyo with the girders.  All of the Japanese subway stations I could find hid platform girders inside cylindrical structures (concrete or perhaps just cosmetic), although riveted girders between the tracks were visible in older stations and are often seen in above-ground stations platforms.

Right now I'm planning to go with the girders, but I could hide them inside some kind of cylinder and still keep the overhead structure, for a more modern look.  I'm going to give that more thought.

Not at all...to me it looks more like Tokyo than NYC.....NYC is very dirt, sooty, billboards everywhere, no vending machines....the only thing in common is the crowds of people. You're on the right track.

[KenS]

Most Tokyo subway stations seem to have pillars especially those stations with side platforms.  Also many Tokyo subway stations are getting platform gates.  There are photos here of some Tokyo subway stations.

Cool link, thanks.

From that, I see only three stations with riveted girders in evidence, all three only appearing between the tracks.  In one, there is a pillar on the platform and a girder between the tracks.  So at least for the Tokyo Metro, it would appear that they always case the support structure if it's in the pedestrian area.  That makes me think I want columns.

Gates are a different matter.  While they may well be the future, they're not widely adopted in Tokyo yet.  Of those photos only the Fukutoshin, Marunouchi, and Namboku lines had gates (the latter was the only one with full-height gates). There may be others, but many of the lines are still gate-free.  I don't think I'm going to include gates, since they just get in the way of seeing the trains. 

My Greenmax Tokyo Metro 10000 (which runs on the Yurakucho and Fukotoshin lines) actually came with a set of half-height platform gates if I wanted to install them.

Mudkip: I think I Japan the iconic ads are weird beer ads, although I haven't found a good one.  I did find some others I'll use.

[Mudkip Orange]

I did find some others I'll use.

Watanabe vs Vader is EXTREME.

[KenS]

Here's another try, with columns and a bit of platform furniture (and yet more photoshopped ads).

And yes, those columns are beverage straws. They fit perfectly. I wonder how well they'll take spray paint.

I think I like this better than the bare girders.

[keitaro]

looks great or though maybe too green 

btw the wall what did you use to do that?

[KenS]

The back wall is just a sheet of Evergreen #4501 0.040" (1mm), 1/16” (1.6mm) tile-pattern styrene, unpainted as yet.

This is just the mock-up.  In the final arrangement, the columns will not by cut raggedly with a pair of scissors like these were, and they'll be painted. Probably white or the same pale yellow I'm planning to use for the tile wall to help warm up the color of the station. The overhead, which is presently gray, may get a white top to reflect light back down at the platform, and a flat-black front, to reduce light reflected back at the viewer. The seats will be painted as well (probably a bright plastic-looking color).  And the ads will be printed and glued to sheet styrene frames.

But first I have to decide what I want the exact look to be.

[KenS]

Wall assembly is happening this weekend.  Actually, the five wall sections are built and the last bit of glue is setting as I type.  If I get some sun tomorrow, I may get it painted. I haven't quite decided how to attach the styrene to the painted insulation foam that makes up the station backing, but I'm thinking perhaps I'll use rubber cement in case I need to take it apart someday.

Here's a test shot of one of the advertising billboards (it's propped up on some styrene beams for a height test; I'm not actually gluing billboards to the wall until after it's painted). This one is actually just one Ad, which I made to test the process out.

In the final version two or three Ad signs will make up a 35-45mm long, 8.5mm high billboard. The image is printed on high-gloss photo paper using a photo ink-jet printer, and glued to a strip of styrene using a 3M acid-free glue (Scotch Quick-Dry) I found in my local Crafts store.  Small styrene tabs are glued to the wall at the proper height, and the billboard styrene will be glued to those, making it stand out a bit from the wall, for added depth.

I've also attached an end-on view of the wall assembly.  The square bit at the bottom is a spacer to keep the Unitrack away from the wall, and the vertical bit on the end overlaps the next section to hide the joint (I placed these every 10cm along the wall, to look like support posts).

[KenS]

I solved my lighting problem.  How do you get ~4000K light when the only choices are 3000K and 6000K?  It should have been obvious: use both.

I added a second string of LEDs to my station lighting. The result is that the white balance reported by Aperture after I corrected to a gray reference, which had been around 5500K - 6000K now shows up as 4500K, and the result in person looks much better (it's also twice as brightly lit). Thankfully the support I'm attaching the lights to is a 1/2" aluminum bar, so there was just room for two of the 1/4" LED strips.

Photo 1 shows the test in question, with the newly painted platform and wall (I still don't have that done; there's no billboard on the wall yet, and the wall isn't attached.  I'm still undecided if the top bit should be flat black where it faces the viewer, instead of the white that it is now.  I want the rest of it white to reflect light elsewhere better, and there are prototypes for both clean white and dirty black on that kind of structure.  I think I'll leave it this way for now, and see how I like it.

Photos 2 & 3 are before and after shots of the painting, with the after also showing the painted wall with a billboard laid atop it (the paint needs to cure another day or so before I actually finish the wall; I still have to paint the vertical supports, then I'll feel safe attaching the billboards).

[KenS]

Just a quick note: I put the first (of five) platforms together once all the paint and glue (signs) had dried.  I still have a couple of things to fix before I do the other four, but the end result is clear now, and pretty much exactly what I wanted.  Yay!

Btw, instead of calling it the Riverside Subway Station, I named it Kawate (川手), meaning "riverside" or "near the river" depending on which translation you use, and made signs in the style of Tokyo Metro.  There's more info on my site.

[rankodd]

That poor fellow on the right is looking a little tipsy.

Gorgeous work. I'm stealing all your research to build my own subway station :)

[KenS]

Go for it! That's why I put it online. There's nothing better than knowing someone else found it useful.

Yeah, a couple of these guys got tipsy. I was able to fix most of them before the glue set, but the standing student didn't quite make it.  I'll have to remove him and try again.  It's the "tacky" Woodland Scenics figure cement.  You're supposed to wait for it to semi-dry before attaching the figure, and I usually get impatient.  I also need to remember to file/sand the figure's feet flat.

[KenS]

As someone who never seems to finish anything, I'm feeling quite content: the Riverside subway station is done.  Done! Done!!!

Yeah, I'm happy. 

I ended up repainting the overhead structure I was using as a lighting valence, and painting the front side flat-black to kill reflections from the front-mounted LED lighting.  I also painted the support under the platform a "concrete" color, after noticing the Kato platforms were actually made from the couple of slightly differing colors of "gray" plastic.  That looks much better.

And I re-did the signs to make them hang lower, and thus easier to read from the side. And then I put it all together, glued the back tile wall into the station, attached figures to the platform (a mixture of 1:150 and 1:160 figures from a half-dozen manufacturers).  Painted a few other little things by hand. And finally, I made some vending machines from photos glued to the vending machine detail parts Kato provides with their platforms.

Tokyo Metro Kawate Station is now a happening place for commuters and the local schoolkids.

Now I just need to get back to the electronics work so I can run trains through it.

[john_ibw]

Looks good KenS and thanks for sharing the pictures! You can be sure that I will be incorporating your design elements as I build mine. Credit goes to you of course.

[quinntopia]

Excellent job Ken! I've enjoyed watching your progress on this!  The detail with the girls at the vending machine is awesome!

[KenS]

This thread has been quiet over the summer, since I've been working on other things (and on my expressway model for the Project Party, which I hope to get back to eventually and finish).  Part of the distraction was converting my website off iWeb, which involved re-doing every page for the new software, and consumed most of my "modeling" time for two months.

But I'm back to working on the layout, and finally returning to working on the DCC power systems.  Back in March (see the end of page 3 of this thread for photos) I installed a couple of Digitrax PM42 circuit breakers and BDL168 occupancy detectors under my Riverside Station scene, where they've sat collecting spider webs since I needed to do a lot more of them before I could use those tracks.  One thing I didn't like then was that the space available really wasn't large enough to do a good job.

So I decided I'd mount those components on separate boards and hang them under the layout, rather than trying to cram the circuitry in between all the other wiring on the underside of the tables.  This week I built the first of four sets of equipment.  When I'm done, the layout will have six BDL168's and seven PM42's, and both the Commuter double-track loop and the subway double-track loop will be fully wired for DCC with occupancy detection and transponding sensors, which will eventually allow me to have a degree of computer control (probably used to run subway trains while I play with the more visible ones).

Here are some photos of the new board. Photo 1 shows the boards being marked up to attach the terminal strips (there are three boards that will be virtually identical, the fourth will be a bit different and I'll do that later.  Photo 2 shows the wiring soldered to the two card-connectors in place, and photo 3 shows the finished board, with six of the BDL168's 16 outputs wired through RX1 transponding sensors to the output strips.  Finally, the last two photos show close ups of how the RX1 sensors mount to the board (velcro tape, mainly).

It may seem wasteful to only use 6 out of 16 detectors, but the reason here is partly because they're broken up into four sets, each of which is wired to one of the PM42's four circuit breakers, and I don't mix tracks (each of the four circuit breakers corresponds to one track on the commuter and subway double-tracks) so that any short that trips a breaker only affects that track.  Some tracks only need one or two blocks within a table (section of the layout). It's also partly due to the way I built the layout in sections to permit moves, and my desire to minimize wires that went between sections (between tables).  There's a cost to that, although it's actually not as high as you might think.  And the final bit is that I wanted all of these sections to have transponding, and the BDL168 only supports 8 transponding sensors.  That wasn't strictly necessary, and I could have done it other ways.  But since I was already expecting to under-use the BDL168s anyway, I didn't try to combine blocks too hard. There's one exception on the Riverside Station scene where two occupancy detectors share the same RX1 sensor because it saved from from buying another BDL168.

[The_Ghan]

Neat setup Ken,

Why do you plan 7 x PM42?  That's 28 separate sections! 

Cheers

The_Ghan

[KenS]

Each table of the sectional layout has one PM42 and BDL168 (a total of six). Part of the reason for that is to minimize wires between tables (to make the layout easier to disassemble for moves).  But part of it is because I needed that many BDLs, and I wanted to match up the PM42s with them.

Each of the four tracks making up the commuter and subway lines uses one quarter of a PM42 (there's an extra PM42 for the express tracks) with one quarter of the BDL168 available for occupancy detection on that track within the table. Thus any short within a table only affects the one track. I could have done that with four DCC buses and one PM42, but aside from the amount of wire it would have added it would have raised the current through the PM42, and DCC circuit breakers work better if normal draw is significantly below the trip setting, so having more will let me set the trip current lower.

That many BDLs potentially give me 96 detection sections. I actually only need 49, so I'm leaving about half the potential BDL capacity unused. But I wanted to have transponding in every detection section, and that's limited to eight per BDL, so I'm actually being as efficient as I can be.

There's a table of the block assignments on my Wiring Standards page if you're curious.

[The_Ghan]

Hi Ken,

I just read your page and get what you're doing.  Pretty big expense though to save on wiring connections.  I've grouped my tables into 2-3 to be a little more efficient on the BDLs.  I'm having many more wiring junctions than you.  As things develop my end we might compare the outcomes.

I'm working all weekend again, so there's nothing happening this week (again)!   

Cheers

The_Ghan

[KenS]

Well I needed the BDLs anyway, and I would have needed more than two PM42s to keep things a bit compartmentalized (i.e., I don't want a problem in the subway/commuter junction affecting either of those lines on the far side of the layout in the urban station), so the extra cost was probably about $300.  For that I get much less work running wire (at a cost in soldering, but I can do that at the bench so it's easier), and easier tear-down and set-up if I need to break the layout (for a move, or to replace the water heater behind it, which I had to do once with my old HO layout). That's about one train (always convert layout expenses to "trains" so you'll know what you aren't getting when you make them  ). I figure my time's worth it.

And I'm also positioning for future growth.  If I make these scenes part of a larger around-the-wall layout (this depends on buying a larger house) then I can potentially make more use of the BDLs through shared use of the RXs, or add additional BDLs on each PM42, as I extend the stations to have more running track between them.  That's more of a vague hope than a plan at this point, but I am thinking about future expansion.

[KenS]

It's been a long dry period for the layout. But this month I finally got back to working on it in a serious way (well, serious for me, I'm still slower than grass growing). Those who follow my website will have seen this in more detail, but I figured it would be good to put a summary here.  And I hope to be doing more work on the layout this month as well.

I'd done my first photo backdrop using "presentation paper" on 8 1/2 x 11 pages, glued up with a spray-on glue.  Over time that failed and the pages began to peel off.  Last year I'd done my other backdrops using a photo print made at a print shop and attached with a photo-safe paste glue.  I'd wanted to re-do the original one, but had other things to occupy me.  This past summer, the humid weather put paid to the old glue, and most of the pages came off entirely (my new photo backdrops held up just fine). So I finally re-did the backdrop.

It's the same photo, but enlarged a bit more (I used a fractal image-enlargement program, Perfect Resize, to blow it up about 6x) and located slightly differently, to make it look more distant.

Photos 1 & 2 show the old backdrop (in an early test when I didn't have the avenue lined up) and the new one. Photo 3 is a close-up view.  And Photo 4 shows what I did with the back side.

[KenS]

I've been working on a model the last couple of weeks.  I'd posted a bit about it on my site last week, but I've got the lighting in now, and finished off the details, so I thought I'd put some pictures up here. This is the first model I've built for the layout, actually it's the first I've built in about 15 years.  It's definitely whet my appetite to do more.

The model is the Tomix Substation, but I painted it and made a number of alterations, including adding a second transformer (a resin casting I found in a local store) and shrubbery.  I've also included a sign on the fence, made from one of Grant's photos of a similar railway building and a couple of figures.  The wires are EZ-Line attached to the insulators with super-glue. The roofing is Testor's sandpaper attached with Liquid Nails. The original roof had mounting holes for vents I didn't use, and was just a flat sheet of plastic, which looked really bland without the vents.  I think this looks more like a typical older asphalt-and-stone roof structure (I have no idea if those were used in Japan, but it seems likely).

The final touch was to build a simple interior and add lighting.  The interior is just a loosely-fit base to give it a second floor, with a control panel along one wall (made from a photo), and a figure. There's a mezzanine above, which holds the LEDs up out of the way (the diagonal plastic in the first photo is both a reflector and a holds the LEDs in place). Four I-beams hold up the mezzanine, and look like interior structural supports (I painted them rust brown, so they show up against the white floor). 

I'd originally planned to use a pair of 800 mcd yellow LEDs, but found a pair of 8000 mcd ones instead, and I'm glad I did. Because the LEDs aim at the white diagonal reflector, and bounce light off the upper walls and inside roof to light the floor, it's actually fairly dim.  Some surface-mount LEDs pointing down might have worked much better, and I'll keep that in mind for later models.  I do like the yellow color though, as it gives the impression of an older building with poor incandescent interior lighting, which is what I wanted.

You can't really see the interior, but there are impressions of shapes inside, rather than just a clear view of the inside walls, so I think it was worth doing (it took all of about a half-hour anyway, aside from waiting for the glue to dry).

[cteno4]

ken,

really nice!

youll need to add a bright white smd onto one of the transformers on a long random flash circuit to make an arc effect from an over load!

jeff

[Mr Frosty]

Thats a clever idea.

[Bernard]

Nice work, very realistic sub station....loved what you added to the structure.

[KenS]

As readers of my site know, I've been doing some work customizing buildings in the village area.  That's still a work in progress, so there's nothing final to see yet, and I'll post more here when there is. But I thought I'd provide some mid-project photos to show the current state.

Among other things I'm customizing a Kato Gilbert Gardens Apartments (23-402A) with paint and an interior.  The building comes with a sheet of plastic for a second-level floor, and mostly just snaps apart and together, so it's an easy one to work on.  I actually chose to use the existing plastic as a support, and built a floor assembly that rests atop it (just in case I make any mistakes, so I can discard it and start over without losing the precisely-fit original).  The existing floor snaps into tabs that are part of the window assembly (which is a set of full-size sheets of plastic on the interior walls).

Note: snapping out the windows is hard, and putting them back in is harder. Much care is needed here to avoid breakage, and since they hold up the floor, as well as forming the visible windows, breaking even one would be bad.

After measuring things carefully, I cut out a floor sheet (several actually since I'm doing two of these buildings, and each needs two floors), clamped all the floors together and carefully drilled a hole for wiring where it wouldn't be noticed.  Then I cut strips of 12mm (1/2") x 0.5mm (0.020") styrene for interior walls, and cut them to length with my NWSL Chopper II.

The building shell itself had the interior painted as a light block (two coats of flat black, one coat of white) and the exterior painted in a dark brown color (it ended up darker than I expected, but I decided to live with it).  The roof also got a coat of flat dark gray.  And while I was at it, I hacked four holes in the interior ceiling.  This was mainly for lighting purposes, but it also turned out to be a great help when inserting and removing the second-level floor, as I could use my fingertips to hold one side in place while pushing on the other to position it on the clips.

Photo 1 shows the original floor (left) marked for planned wall positions, the new floor (center) with wall sections above it, as well as a couple of tatami-mat photos for flooring, and the building shell on the right.

Photo 2 shows the interior (of the other building, painted a lighter tan) without the glass.

I forgot to take a photo of the first floor unit assembly before installing it for a test-fit.  I'll get one later when I take it back out, but Photos 3 & 4 show how it looks installed without any paint or detail other than a couple of mats.  Note how close the floor is to the window; any gap there is very obvious, but without a gap there are problems getting it over the clips. I haven't decided if I need to deal with that (more precise cuts, or something to obscure the edge) or if in practice it won't be visible.

BTW, the Tatami-mats are just photos I made from patterns found online in other photos, assembled into sets in Photoshop Elements, and shrunk down and printed using my ink-jet printer on glossy photo paper (I may try non-glossy before I finish this) and cut out.  One reason for the test-fit was to see how well they show up though the windows, and they do even with the light color.

I've included the full-size room-mat photos I used (at 300 dpi these make individual mats of 6mm x 12mm), feel free to use them yourself.

[quinntopia]

Power consumption adds up: between the two strips (60 LEDs) I'm burning nearly half an amp.  That's only about 15-25 mA per two-inch strip, which is low for this model.  Of course there's 20 two-inch strips here, but three 6-floor buildings would be about the same. I'm thinking of re-doing my lighting power to use a larger supply than I'd previously planned.

The photos are a little misleading.  The camera just doesn't like the bluish-white "white" LEDs (which might be a good reason not to use them) and photographs them with a much stronger blue tint than I see.  I do see a blue tint, but they look better in person than they photograph; slightly on the blue side, but reasonable for a "harsh fluorescent light" look.  The "warm white" LEDs photographed better, although I still had to play with the white balance of the image to get the picture to look like what I see, but to me it looks much more like incandescent lighting.  Good for a house, and maybe for outdoor lighting (e.g., yellowish sodium lights), but a bit too warm for an office building or subway station.

Ken, yeah, these little LED's can add up!  I basically have a several power strips that each have multiple 12v DC wall warts to power all of my buildings....the do start to take up some room after a while.  I was originally using 1amp wall warts - which would seem adequate for LED's in buildings, right?    But am now looking for more amperage.

Your comment on how cameras see 'light' is a yet another thing that resonates with me!  I know exactly what your saying!  I've gotten a lot of 'helpful'     tips over the years about my building lighting being "too bright, too blue, too white, etc..." but I don't think people really realize that what appears in the photo does not look exactly like the real thing.  It has helped me to understand photography a lot more than I did but yeah, photographing LED's is pretty rough!  I also think its really easy to look at the photos and go "Oh, the warm white one looks a LOT better" (that was my first thought and probably everyone else's as well), however I also know what the 'blue-ish" LED lights look like in reality and they make much better 'fluorescent lighting' colors for things like station platforms than the 'warm white' LED's do (You area already aware of this so I'm just being redundant!).

[cteno4]

ken,

nice work! fun with the interiors. why arent you weaving your own tatami mats?  ;-p

some day here im going to have to get to this for the Kumamoto castle floors and walls! was thinking the walls might use something like your mat photo printouts. floors already come with 3D mat patterns, but lots o lots of detailed painting would be involved to detail them all, so printout stickers might work!

on that note does anyone know of any special ultra thin paper (maybe partially plasticized) that will hold up printing thru inkjet or laser printing? ive sanded stuff down in the past after printing but doing that for more than just a few bits gets old very fast!

cheers

jeff

[KenS]

Jeff:
I've been thinking of printing on decal sheets (I think you can get ones that work with inkjets, although I'll admit I haven't looked for anything yet).  You'd need to paint the wall white as a backdrop, since printers generally treat white as a "don't print anything" instruction, but otherwise a photo on that should work. 

I'm going to use photos on walls for room interiors (I've found a few via google, but mostly copyrighted so I can't share them), but the problem there is that you end up reproducing a 3D space on the back wall in 2D.  That can work for some things, but most photos of rooms include furniture, and that's going to look a bit odd, I expect.  I plan some tests in that direction.

I'd try weaving my own tatami mats, but I manage to fat-finger working with 30-gauge magnet-wire, so I suspect the necessary dexterity is beyond me. 

Jerry:
On the subject of LEDs: I really find the bluish "white" (6000K) ones too blue to make good fluorescents, but that's partially a matter of taste and partially a matter of room lighting.  If I lit the room with daylight fluroescents, I'd probably have a very different opinion.  I tried that when I was experimenting with room lighting a couple of years ago, since many people do light layouts that way, but I didn't like the results.  Models aren't painted to look good in "daylight", they're painted to look like it's daylight when they're indoors.  All the colors pick up a blue cast under daylight fluorescents.  And that's what I think happens with those LEDs, the colors turn too blue. But it is likely to be highly subjective.

For power, I eventually settled on using 1.5Amp wall-wart DC supplies last summer, and built a "fuse box" that takes a bunch of 2.1mm jacks on one side, runs the "+" line through a 1.25 Amp cylindrical automobile fuse, and gives me "+" and "-" screw terminals on the other side I can wire to the layout.  So far I've got three of these set up for the three sections of my layout, but I can easily add more as needed (I built eight into the fusebox and could build a second fusebox in an afternoon).  This gives me a good amount of power at a reasonable price. I figure I can draw at least an amp continuous on each, maybe a bit more, and that's a fair number of LEDs. I'd thought about using a 2 Amp supply, but the ones I found were much bulkier and cost more than 2x (I'm using regulated supplies, which adds some cost).

If I had as many large buildings as Quinntopia though, I might want to pop for the 2 Amp (or something even larger) supply.

Of course the other approach would be to take an old PC power supply, which can put out 12V at tens of amps. You can find instructions online for how to make a cheap 12V bench power supply from one of those. But there's room to do a lot of damage with that much current even with a fast-blow fuse. And while a bunch of small ones will cost more than that approach, the modularity and lower risk of starting a fire or melting my buildings (which aren't exactly cheap) seems like a win. I went with wall-warts since it was easy.

One way to make the PC supply idea work would be to have a case with one power supply and a bunch of individually fused 1 - 1.5A outputs.  That way any individual short would be small, but you'd only have to buy the supply/case once, and adding another output would be a short bit of drilling and soldering and a couple of dollars of parts.  You could even do it with an old PC (just chuck the motherboard and disks, and mount the fuses and outputs on the non-removable side panel). If I ever do a really large "around the wall" urban layout, I might take that approach.

[cteno4]

Jeff:
I've been thinking of printing on decal sheets (I think you can get ones that work with inkjets, although I'll admit I haven't looked for anything yet).  You'd need to paint the wall white as a backdrop, since printers generally treat white as a "don't print anything" instruction, but otherwise a photo on that should work. 

Interesting idea. There is white decal paper.

I've got a little project where I want some tiny printing on very thin paper that needs to wrap around a curved shape. Not sure it's going to be possible.

Jeff