Completed??? Almost Done.... Roofs done here... The front of the roof flips over, chickened out from gluing the roof
Benches Thanks to Jeff I got some ideas to make some scale benches. The pictures dont do justice to these benches...
Added a few lights, this one is the Marklin light.. Cant make up my mind on how to lay the benches There will be more benches around the station too. Here is the second light
Where does the station GO? It is a circular spinning golf layout that I started working on years back.... Here is the spinning mechanism
The benches REALLY came out nice. Much better than the first ones you showed me. I like the angeled look, not the in-line. But you need to either put some shrubs in pots or create a little area for the benches to be out there. Or put them up againt or more parallel to the building. Cool. Really cool. Gotta go check out the video now.
Wow, incredible work. Looks like cool little Layout you'r working one. The only negativ thing that comes in my mind are the Märklin Turnouts.
Jurg, I know the M! Turnouts are making it look bad but this was my first track laying many years back and I spent too much time laying it, so I am too lazy to break it up now and re do it. I'll try to cover it up with extra ballast. I got some time last night to add some people on the outside
WOW! Kim, every time you post more photos it just overwhelmes me with the amount of detail you keep adding to this station!! Looks outstanding!!!!!! I have some questions of curiosity. Micro-controllers! What would be the best kind of micro-controllers to seek further knowledge into? I have been doing a good amount of reading and searching the internet on the subject, hitting the electronic sites, and ebay. I don't know where to start. What would you suggest for me to gain the most info for a person who knows nothing about micro-controllers? Thanks!!!!!! Hobo Tim
Tim, For most animation any microcontroller will work good, having said that I would select one chip and learn to use all its functions. I would say go with microchip and use the chip 16F628a. it is a 18 pin chip with PWM which can be used for motor control and 16 I/O pins for enough animation. You should also get a programmer to program the chips, search for DV164120 at mouser.com or microchip.com it is called 'pickit 2 starter kit' and you should be able to get both the chips and programmer from either place. That is all you need to start programming. You will be able to program in 'C' or assembly with the starter kit. If you need to get going real fast I would recommend a BASIC compiler. This is the most expensive part http://www.picbasic.org/ Once you have the programmer I would get the 16F628A chip and download the free BASIC lite version which programs a limited chips like the 16F628a. if you like the ease of programming you could buy the compiler. Both the BASIC compiler and the starter kit has a lots of demos to get you running in minutes. I would not look in Ebay for microchips, way too expensive and outdated versions. Microchip sends free chips if you request them for samples, I think you can request up to 3 chips per month or week. Anyway these chips are cheap for what they do. If you want to go smaller chips you can use 12F675 or 12F629.. anyways If you need to get started I could always help you anytime. Kim
Thanks. Yours look better than my Paper Creek station. Must be the "Greener Grass" syndrome or maybe they make a better looking one now. I built the model about two years ago. ..don
Don, I got the paper creek station kit and an extra sheet of the shingles many years back (4?). I found the sheet that came with the kit was significantly better looking than the additional sheet I got so I assumed that the one in the kit was made better for the station. Now after reading your post, I guess Paper creek runs the printer to print the image till the toner cartridge is bone dry and the ones towards the end of toner life is printed lighter. So my assumption is the extra one I got and the one you got was printed towards the end of toner life. Kim
Well, I got out my 'calibrated eyeballs' and put a 10 power magnifying glass on my Paper Creek Model and a close look of your photos. Bottom line, both are pretty similar. It appears blown up on the screen they are sexier looking than the knat's whiskers size shingles in real life. I guess that is true of lots of stuff. I still wish Paper Creek would whip out some new models. ...don ...don
Looking for Ideas.... Here is what I was thinking that will be cool to have, a 1" or 1.5" square with some nice model on top , like a shed, garage, theater, house, rr crossing or something that has a few things animated on the top, could be a combination of lighting, LED's or EL lamps with 1 or 2 simple mechanical animation. I say simple to avoid magnetic coupling which is time consuming to make. I want to make a series of them and also willing to make for those interested. You could cut a square hole in your layout and put it in or just collect them as cool toys. So I am looking for ideas. make it simple for the first one and can make it progressively complex based on interest. Feel free to post your thoughts. Kim
I was looking at some RR magazines last night and found some animations using forklift it gave me some ideas....for the next one. I am thinking of a garage/godown/warehouse with a sliding door and a forklift that moves. The forklift comes to the door, the door slides open the forklift goes out and drops the load then backs into the godown, the next time the forklift comes out, it picks up the load and goes inside the godown. The challenging part would be to drop and pick the load consistently, because of its small size and weight. I also found the steam donkey to be a nice one to make, not much to animate but could have the motors with all the gears spin. Donkey reminds me I promised to make a nodding Donkey for Jeff... Kim
Kim, I have some N scale corrugated aluminum, perfect for the roll up door. Glue two plastic strips to backside, push/pull up and down over an upper 1/4 round. :
Hi Kim, Harry shows on the ZCentral a Utube video from a moving excavator. This is moved by hand control as I have seen. But with your processor skills I'am sure that a lot of people could be interested to own such animated excavator. (me included) Just control over two axes like you propose, 2 servos. This should become a big runner. What you think about serial production ? :w20z6q:
