What's on your workbench?

JR59 Jan 29, 2006

  1. Zscaleplanet

    Zscaleplanet TrainBoard Supporter

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    I guess it is too much to ask for an ARIENS in that lineup?????:whistle:

    Those are really nice and the painting is incredible. Nice work!!!!!!
     
  2. MMR283

    MMR283 TrainBoard Member

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    CB7672A4-72F5-44FC-AA40-9E851A836972.jpeg 348096B4-1F82-4BCC-BC2A-E0463CF7E0C6.jpeg A70512B0-8F85-4C5F-B935-2D82CEC48DFE.jpeg 62AECCCE-DC74-4C2F-A736-F7733DE3855B.jpeg C84B3ECE-4A40-4C0F-9ABD-71FC4E3EA6BE.jpeg Here’s my latest project to display some of the buildings that Robert Ray created and built. I believe that whenever we have a chance, we should promote Z scale to our fellow modelers! Many of us are in the NMRA that have regional and divisional shows with contests. This is a perfect way to show off our work! My idea is that some of my buildings can change from my layout, and placed on these display boxes that I built. Then after a show be taken off and placed back unto my layout. This is a great way to show other modeler’s what can be done in our scale.

    What is nice is you can really get close up and see the interiors of the buildings, along with all the outside details. These display boxes are a simple one afternoon project to make.

    I purchased 4”x4” boxes from Amazon. They also have 6”x6” boxes for larger buildings. I installed a 9 volt battery pack and wired a switch in the back. This makes it easy to turn on and off the lights, when placed on a table for display. Magnets are placed on the underside of the buildings with screw heads on the box, which holds down the buildings into place. Look at photos how the wiring is done on the underside of building, and the wiring of the display box. Then I painted the sides gloss black, with concrete color on top, and then glued a paper parking lot next to buildings. Final step yet to be done, is a decal made that reads “Z scale” in front of the box.
     
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  3. Kez

    Kez TrainBoard Member

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    I just said the last one for the time being, not for good. (y)

    Stay tuned. My eyes need rest now. :giggle:
     
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  4. Kez

    Kez TrainBoard Member

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    I guess nobody else is working on anything..... :whistle: :p

    As you can see below, we've had to pull out all the stops at KezLines to try and advance the work on the yard renovations. We've brought in every resource we could scare up, including our big brothers from N scale, and also some non-conventional and antique means of getting the work done.

    Great progress has finally been made, and we are wrapping up the pouring of concrete, as well as surface finishing of all the walkways/roadways.

    Optimistically, sometime in the near future (with continuing generous funding), we will see a restored station and yard tower appear on these premises, and, with any luck, an operational railroad museum may actually come to fruition. Wish us luck!

    20230204_100156.jpg 20230204_100239.jpg 20230204_100124.jpg
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2023
  5. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    That is a Most Awesome collection of work vehicles and heavy equipment! Looks like you have a "Construction Plan" for this module finally? :D
     
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  6. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Today I am planning my accessory power bus, and testing the 12V lighting on the coal dock module:
    Module Lighting.jpg
     
  7. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Last night I received some USB Adjustable 3-12V 2A Boost Charger Converters. Sounds like a lot but they are a 1" board that lets you charge a Lithium battery AND it converts the 3.7 volts from the battery, adjustable, up to 12 volts. I also picked up some push on push off latching switches, and some 18650 battery holders. So Clyde gave me one of his 4" square boxes to display lighted buildings on, and I decided to give it a go.

    What I did was to cut the box in half, height wise, so I can get 2 boxes out of one. I just need to laser cut a 4" square top piece to make the other box. Then I had 2 dead Black and Decker power tool batteries, a 30 watt hour and a 60 watt hour that no longer charge, so I took them apart, and harvested fifteen 18650 lithium cells. Out of those cells, only 2 were still good. I tested their capacity at 4.395 and 4.441 watt hours capacity, so they are now re-purposed for these display box projects.

    This is my first box, still under construction but as a test case, and it seems to work just fine. I laser cut a hole for the latching push button, and for the USB charging cable, seen on the bottom right side:
    01.jpg


    So I can power up this building, and show the ceiling fans operating as well as the room lights going on and off:
    02.jpg


    On the base I laser cut holes for magnets to hold the building down and for the wires to make contact with the building. I just have to paint the base and add a bit of scenery material to make it a mini display module:
    03.jpg


    And here is the underside showing the charger converter board and the battery. This module is ugly underneath because I did not do all the laser cutting in order. I needed to place a piece of metal in the box to prevent the laser cut from burning the other side of the base while burning the USB port and power button holes, and because I laser cut the magnet and power wire holes after I had hot glued in the components, so the hot glue caught fire. Lessons learned on proper planning the order of construction for the next module. I'll do better next time. :D
    04.jpg
     
  8. JoeS

    JoeS TrainBoard Member

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    Always amazed how you can take something that wound seem complicated to do and neatly pack it all in clean and simple. Just fantastic!
     
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  9. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Next level right there, wow!
     
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  10. CNE1899

    CNE1899 TrainBoard Member

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    Rob,
    I like your take on the box diorama as well. Your electronics skills are mad.

    Scott
     
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  11. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Not only are the modeling and animatronics skills on point, but Rob's carpentry skills, even in such a small size, are legit! Look at those tight miters!
     
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  12. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I finished my display pedestal, it has a 4 watt hour lithium battery with USB charging, and runs the ceiling fans and lighting just fine. Not sure how long it will run because there are 2 stepper motors and 2 micro controllers running. Tomorrow I will test it by running it all day.

    03.jpg


    04.jpg


    02.jpg


    01.jpg
     
  13. MMR283

    MMR283 TrainBoard Member

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    Excellent finish on your hotel. Besides a great looking hotel, I like how you did the parking lot!
     
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  14. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Get a video if you can!(y)
     
  15. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I have these three of the building:







     
  16. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Not much today, milling around the garage and I did some basic TTZ wiring on an un-sceniced corner module. This module has too little access to use the panel mount Powerpole bulkheads so I just drilled a hole and fed front track, rear track, and accessory pairs through and used a 2 pin boot on them. I also made a basic 12V accessory terminal strip with room for 4 connections and hot glued it in place:


    Basic TTZ Wiring.jpg
     
  17. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    This is absolutely insane! OPERATING ceiling fan??:confused: In Z??? :eek: The effect is so cool!:D:D(y)(y)
     
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  18. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Working on the layout electrical today, I installed the layout fuse panel and 12V 360W power supply, and to the right of the 12V supply is a 24V 200W supply for the layout LED lighting. Not visible, but just behind the red drill bit box is an RGB+CCT smart lighting controller, which lets me use Alexa voice command to turn on any color layout lighting I want. RGB+CCT is red, green blue, and correlated color temperatures, which means I can set the white color temperature anywhere from a warm 2800K to a cold 6500K:

    Layout Power Supply.jpg



    After the power supply work, I wired a TTZ module with the standard wiring. The red line is the outside track, the yellow line is inside track. And white is the 12V accessory buss. Again, since it's a corner,I just made a 4 output terminal strip for the accessory power. This module mates to a narrow staging yard module, so I am able to use the standard Anderson Powerpole panel mounts. A little hot glue holds everything in place.

    Standard TTZ Wiring 2.jpg
     
  19. Dave Rutan

    Dave Rutan New Member

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    (snip)

    Can you tell me where you got the decals you used for these Z-scale milk tank cars? Thanks!
     
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  20. drken

    drken TrainBoard Member

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    Rray, 200 Watts? Just how many LEDs are you going to have on at one time?

    More progress on my layout, which also involves LEDs
    20230210_164218.jpg
    Here's my Rokuhan 110 mm bridge with 4 red LEDs glued to it, Rokuhan track, Custom Signal Design signals, and 3D printed (acrylic painted) viaducts. The wires for the signals and bridge LEDs run under the track and down the first support. I'm very happy with how the signals came out. Richard did a great job. I'm also very happy with the bridge. The track connects to each side of the viaduct, which can be attached to the track spanning it using zscalehobo's 1mm track screws. It's very solid. I might do something with the wires on the bridge, but I'm hesitant to mess with them.

    20230210_164621.jpg This is my passenger yard for the main terminal with Digitrax signals in test positions. Eventually, they'll all be sitting over holes like the one I dug for the far left signal. I quickly realized I'd have a better time of installing everything if I took the foam out from under the tracks where I'm working, but the switches are a bit wonky like this, I'm hoping that'll clear up when I put the foam back. This takes up 3/4 of a SE74, with the bridge signals (including 6 more mainline signals) using an SE8. Now I have to fire up my RasPi4/tablet as both switches and signals are MUCH easier with PanelPro.
     

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