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Craigs Garden Railway


doublecee
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I rank my soldering abilities in the minus frame and I am loathe to start doing the jobs that I know need to be done. Hence, I am still re-shifting fish plates along with a tap from a small hammer to generate electricity!

But maybe help is at hand as the other day I came across this in a newly opened discount store over here.

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Todays soldering, on the advice given previously, worked a charm.

Clean the rail

Apply flux to rail.

Heat rail until flux simmers and evaporates

Apply solder (Which now runs and fills the entire cleaned and fluxed section (about 1cm)

Heat wire, apply flux, heatt until Flux simmers, Tin....

Offer up tinned wire to tinned rail. Apply heat from iron (contact not essential, and watch as the solder liquifies, covers both parties and then sets.

Did this on a track section in my office and then tried to pull the wire of the rail. Guess what happened... the wire stayed and the plastic sleeve slipped off.

Same grand results in the garden.

Here is where I was going wrong previously....

Approach rail, solder in hand... melt solder onto cold rail. Scream as it balls up and rolls off the rail. Look to the sky, curse.... try to tin the wire. Success. Offer up tinned wire to rail. Solder ball melts, wire sticks to.... plastic sleeper.... look to sky... curse some more.

Today was just fantastic. I have wire feeds to all the track sections on one side, and some bonding to the smaller pieces that run into and out of the points and crossovers. It actually looks just like the real thing a little bit

Did a test... 13v at every section that has a Buss feed.

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...Hmmm... Maybe you need a tunnel where the birds visit.

Isn't that typical of Griff. He's away on walkabouts and as soon as he returns he has a solution!

Not good news with the live steamer. What's been the problem with it this time or is it still the same fault?

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Where do I start?

Best i just paste in the email I sent to Hornby last night...

Many thanks for the swift service and return of my Mallard Live Steam Loco

I placed it on the rolling road, and to let her steam. OIl was checked, and she steamed in about 5 mins.

I opened here up to the whistle and then further till the whistle stopped, anticipating she would start to roll

Nothing. So i opened her up some more. Still nothing. I continued until she had gone round the gear once and back to the whistle. A couple of jerky movements on the wheels was the most she mustered.

I let her cool down, and then topped up the boiler... same results. No matter how many times I tried, nothing.

She would steam, but it feels as if the regulator never fully opens.

I took the body of, to see what was going on inside. A gentle nudge of the main gear, and she wheels would turn a little, but there doesn't appear to be enough pressure in the valve gear to sustain normal operation.

Reading your tech report, it says that it was checked. Did you manage to get her to run normally? If so, I cant see why she wouldn't run now.

I also noticed some plastic spokes from one of the wheel loose in the rolling road when I removed her.

Please can I send her back for further evaluation, as there is clearly still a problem with it. I have also noticed that operation on the red and green lights is intermittent, sometimes not coming on at all.

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Well that really does sound as if Mallard isn't too well. I had Papyrus and Flying Scotsman and yes, they are difficult to get to grips with at first. I knew absolutely nothing about them at the time and I thought mine was faulty but after a couple of attempts I began to get the hang of it and from there on in it was okay. Sounds like you already have some experience of them so it's clearly not something you aren't doing.

Let's hope you can get this resolved soon - it's not a good experience and we all want to see Mallard in steam :)

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what I really want to see is her traversing a long viaduct on a cold winters day (to enhance the steam), with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and camera in another....

I can tick all those boxes bar the viaduct. You already have me toying with the idea of building one.... but first I most focus on getting Mallard fixed and the Power buss completed.

Im just hoping Hornby can say "oh yes, thats ok, we know what that is" and fix it.... Id hate for them to tell me I just bought a stinker

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.... Id hate for them to tell me I just bought a stinker

Oh that reminds me.....

I already had the 2 live steamers, Flying Scotsman was totally unused, when I noticed on eBay someone selling a complete live steam Mallard set (track, controller, loco etc) in 'as new, condition. I resisted the temptation to place a bid and it didn't reach its reserve price (£325 I think). It was re-listed and I ended up paying £225. When it came, oh dear... It was in a terrible state. The controllers were all battered and the loco was covered in scale - someone not using distilled water? It was totally unuseable. After a lot of hassle and the intervention of eBay I did return it to the north-west and received a full refund. That would have been about 3 years ago.

The viaduct? go on, you know you want one!

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...Hmmm... Maybe you need a tunnel where the birds visit.

Isn't that typical of Griff. He's away on walkabouts and as soon as he returns he has a solution!

Not good news with the live steamer. What's been the problem with it this time or is it still the same fault?

Well... I was just re-enforcing his original comment about needing a track cover. Then again a tunnel could lead to issues with moles. :lol:

i have to admit that as much as I love birds, and I really do like em a lot, bird poop on the layout is just gross.

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fortunatly the area in question (well, the entire layout really) is raised, so moles are not a problem.

Come to think of it, we dont have moles in the area anyway.

So what I need to build is a structure that goes up, over and behind the raised wall....

I did design one a few months back.... I shall have to dig it out

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so, I ordered one of those HD 808 key fob camera's. Unfortunately, the wrong one arrived. This one does AVI recording, which is basically 640 x 480 upscaled to 720p.

What I needed was the true HD version that records H264 .mov files (which is what I ordered!)

Still, rather than mess about with ebay feedback politics, I decided to keep it and have a play...

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Rough but I do see some interesting potential

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Yeah, scale speed went out the window yesterday. What looks ok from a distance is really wrong when you are at a scale level and travelling.

Proper version of the camera on the way, so more tests to come. Who knows, maybe even some live steam (pending its 2nd return from the dead)

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Thanks.

Its opened up a world of possibilities... Cant wait to have the buss all done so I can really have some fun.

This weekend I finally decided to go DCC, so now looking at all the options.

One of them is ipad control, so I dont have to run any controllers in the garden, but instead control my workstation with the iPad. So looking at (for ease of use and accessibility, dont shoot me down) a Hornby Elite and Rail Master.

One other thing I have decided should be the most important accessory for garden rail... bug repellant. I got eaten raw today!

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