Latest Acquisitions – Part II

It had been nearly a year since we added to our equipment roster, until our recent addition of a Mikado, described in our first installment. This time around, it’s an Aristocraft Pacific. It’s as good a deal as could be found. Not as good as the Mikado, but close. It’s a little more expensive and a little less impressive, but only because it’s the early version with plastic side rods and such.

It does have the original sound system in the tender, and it still works. It’s missing the whistle and the bell, but the bell harp is still there. It does have the “cow catcher”, unlike the Mikado. The one big feature it sports is it’s in the B&O Royal Blue livery. And like its ten wheeler predecessor, it’s a bit on the wobbly and unreliable side. But there’s hope for it. It should be fine after a much needed tune up.

Being the early version, it still has the “glowing firebox” feature, no longer present on the more recent Mikado. Best I can tell, the Pacific is pre 2003 and the Mikado 2003 or later. The difference is the Mikado has an added Battery vs. Track Power switch stacked with the Motor On/Off switch in place of the glowing firebox door in the Pacific.

The Pacific has Motor On/Off on the cab floor, along with the Lighting On/Off switch, also on the floor of the Mikado. The Pacific placed the Smoke On/Off switch at the front of the engine on the pilot frame. The Mikado has its Smoke On/Off switch on the cab floor, opposite the Lighting switch.

B&O Royal Blue Pacific
B&O Royal Blue Pacific

Initial Findings

I did manage to find the manual and more information on various large scale sites. It appears to match the “Old Pacific” manual. And now my searches are turning up the ART-5400 PWM controller for use with it. Still haven’t found the “magic words” for the search to find the waveforms. But then again, that was probably a closely guarded bit of secret information (read intellectual property) when they were still in business.

I won’t go into all the details of our foray into PWM motor controllers here. It’s pretty much covered elsewhere. The long and short of PWM, for me anyway, is the annoying buzz at anything in the audible frequency range, and the lack of response from any built in constant lighting circuitry at any frequency greater than a few kilohertz.

Considering this locomotive also sports its own track powered sound system, not sure how Aristocraft managed to get the PWM concept to work, let alone together with it. It does require a fair amount of voltage before anything works. IIRC, the wheels didn’t even start turning until around 8V.

Original Aristocraft Sound Card
Original Aristocraft Sound Card

We Have Sound

It took some doing to figure out how this sound board works. When I first opened the hatch on the tender looking for a battery, not only did I not find one, I didn’t even see the 9V battery clip laying inside there on the very bottom. It became very apparent when I removed the tender shell to get a look at what was going on inside.

At first glance I can tell this is old technology, likely from the ’90s judging by all the discrete components surrounding four Dual Inline Package (DIP) style integrated circuits. One’s a quad comparator op amp, one’s a decade (÷10) counter, another’s a hex inverter/buffer, and finally a dual channel audio amplifier. I finally got rid of most of my DIP style parts recently, deciding I’d never be using parts that were at least 30 years old in any design.

Of course the first thing I have to do is look up which post is which on a 9V battery so I can attach the bench supply with the correct polarity. Let’s try not to let out the magic smoke, shall we? So with that knowledge in hand, I power on the bench supply and… Nothing. Adjusting the voltage has no effect. Neither does adjusting the current limit. What about spinning the wheel with the sensor on it? Nothing.

Or Do We?

All this is going on while trying to record a video of it, and paying more attention to that, the lead that fell off the bench supply goes unnoticed at first. Not sure what the first clue was, no current draw perhaps? With the power now connected, the faint sound from the speaker of amplified noise together with one of those old style analog bell resonator circuits, right on the edge of ringing, riding on top of the noise can be heard.

Adjusting the volume knob has the expected “crackle”, another remnant from analog days where any DC voltage present on the adjuster arm detects every speck of dust in its path and creates a loud “pop” in the speaker when it finds it. But the real payoff comes from spinning the wheel with the sensor on it. The bell comes to life, then the chuff, chuff as the wheel spins faster.

It does manage to make reasonable bell, chuff, and hiss sounds, but will be replaced once the I2S sound sketch is up and running. The short exposure to that Phoenix 2K2 card spoiled me. It’s less than half the size of this thing, makes much better sound, and can be controlled simply by connecting external reed switches or programmatically via DCC or other means. And even that one’s obsolete!

 

Does It Run?

Jumped the gun describing the sound system first though. Once the tender’s open, it’s obvious more research is required. Testing out the engine came first. I set it on a short stretch of track and connected the test leads from the bench supply. It does run, if only for a short time before it runs off the end of the track. Reversing the polarity sends it the other direction.

So it does run, but how well is unknown until the first set of run in stands is finished printing and assembled. It takes six for just the three driver axles. Those together with the other ones I already had printed and assembled should be just enough… If the mix matched colors isn’t an issue. That set took all but the last one of the roller skate bearings. Time to restock those and the other hardware.

It probably wouldn’t have taken as long if the assembly steps hadn’t been recorded as well, but at least they’re finished. Once on the run in stand, it’s obvious this has a lot of slop designed in, most likely for tight radius curves. There’s at least a quarter of an inch (~6mm) slop side to side in each of the driver axles. Couple that with the middle axle being driven only by the plastic side rods and it’s a wobbly ride!

 

Death Wobble?

Don’t know if it’s “death wobble”, but she’s certainly a rockin’ back and forth and side to side! With a slight tug on the cab the wobble is tamed somewhat, but not entirely. While the first and last axles are physically linked together by a shaft to the motor, that middle axle is free to “float” between the side rod links. There are two of them, not one solid single side rod like on the ten wheelers.

One link is connected between the drive pins of the middle and rear drivers. The other connects to the that link and the drive pin of the front driver. The connecting rod from the piston and cylinder shares the middle driver’s pin with one of the side links as well as the arm to the valve rod. The sector arm rocks back and forth around a centered “Johnson bar” with the valve rod action.

That’s the extent of valving action. I’d like to draft up a CNC design to mill out metal side rods and operational valve links with prototypical reverser action. Unfortunately, the Mikado suffers the same valve action limitations with rigid cast plastic in place of the expected moving mechanism. Just now thinking about, it may be possible to borrow valve parts from the ten wheeler replacement mechanisms. Hmmm…

Saving The Best For Last?

More like saving the boring for last. The first installment of this series focused on catching up with where we’re at and why expanding the roster wasn’t a priority. Then it moved on to how most of these historic items are no longer available except for those rare offerings on eBay. The occasional item may pop up in an online dealer’s list of previously owned items, but they’re usually way overpriced.

With that being said, the particulars of the deal were held until the last this time around. This particular acquisition was one of those buy it now or best offer deals on eBay. Most of those available were in the $750 – $1150 “Buy It Now” price range. Not sure what the original price was back when Aristocraft was still in business, but even so, that’s pretty steep.

The offer was half the ask, and the seller countered with an extra $50 tacked on. Combined with tax and shipping it was a little over $500 all told, not quite a hundred dollars more than the Mikado deal, where the tax and shipping together were still less than just the shipping here.

Stupid eBay Tricks

Guess it’s a common “trick” eBay sellers use to avoid having to pay more of a surcharge or lose as much when some buyer tries to rook them, but when I see shipping costs of more than a hundred dollars, it better be hand delivered, straight to my hands, and not tossed around by the postal system until it’s dropped at my doorstep. Literally.

One thing I didn’t cover in the first part was all the offers I got from sellers I hadn’t extended and offer to… Way to scare me off. Folks I’ve never met nor reached out to, already “leaching” out to me. I already think what they’re asking is overpriced to begin with. Those offers only put the price in the ball park of other sellers, before I make any offers. No thanks. I’ll keep looking.

I know what these items are worth to me, regardless of what the sellers think they’re worth. “No lowball offers. I know what I got.” comes to mind. But enough about eBay sellers and tactics. I bought the item I wanted for a price I was willing to pay. Granted, it’s not what I thought I was buying, but it’s a good enough start to know better next time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll design my own CNC version of the mechanism and 3D print the rest.

The Best Part

The best part is all the video material recorded while exploring these “new to us” models. It’s been way too long since we’ve posted any new videos to our YouTube channel. They pretty much stopped when our beloved Brigel crossed the Rainbow Bridge mid 2022. There’s a short of Brigel’s last days with us to mark the anniversary of his passing, but nothing since.

That’s not the only reason, but it definitely took its toll on us. Another source of concern was the aging computer system we use to edit and render the videos. It was a real screamer in its day… A decade ago! Now its age is definitely showing. Nick gave me an older video card he had that was still more powerful than the one I built the system with. That’s helped for a while. But the old girl is tired…

But not retired. That system has roughly 20TB of storage. Some of it SSD, most of it spindle drives. It provides network access to all our collected works, knowledge, and projects. When we lost two of the 2TB drives, meant to be backups of each other, we lost most of our pictures from 2013 and parts of 2014. It was the motivation to pull the trigger on a new machine.

A New Hope

The new system is more than capable of creating videos. There were some hiccups along the way, like when the boot SSD failed, and it could have been bricked for more than two months. And all this just after finally getting everything squared away and ready to go. Seemed like we just couldn’t catch a break. I took the opportunity to rebuild a new boot drive without all the extra fluff included with Windows 11.

Back up and running, all the while waiting on a warranty replacement SSD. At first it was a struggle just to figure out who was on the hook for the warranty. Once that got resolved, things didn’t improve much. Not until I finally convinced someone in support that having a new computer that’s essentially a brick sitting under my desk for the last two months wasn’t the user experience I expected when I bought it.

He sent me a new 2TB boot SSD express! The best part was I got another 2TB replacement SSD a week or so later through the standard warranty channels! So I bought a set of USB drive cases and now have two external 2TB SSD drives for portable storage. The new computer itself was already treated to an upgrade of a second internal drive, a 4TB SSD!

A New Video

With all that being said, it’s time to start putting out the videos again. I managed to collect up all the relevant material in a “starter” project I can “save as” to any new video project, then just remove the content that’s not related. Maybe I should just export all the bins and import just what I need into the new project. Guess I’ll try both ways.

I use DaVinci Resolve for making videos. It’s just the free version, but has plenty of features even so. Microsoft was pushing their latest Clipchamp “freebie”, but it’s barely capable of editing out the unwanted parts just creating a short excerpt video. Guess I’m spoiled. I’m using version DaVinci Resolve 18.6, but they’ve already pushed out the new 19 release.

The short video clips in these new posts were created just for them, saving the full up content for new YouTube postings. All we need now is that “flashy” intro for the channel. Maybe even a trailer to boot. Just need the inspiration…

Much more to come. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3D Printed Casting Mock Ups – Round Two

This is a short follow up on the original 3D Printed Casting “Mock Ups”. Considering the length of the original post, that’s an understatement. But sometimes it’s necessary to fill in the blanks when progress is low and discouragement is high.

Even though progress has been slow, it’s actually been beneficial in this case. The original design is based on our “fleet” of Bachmann passenger cars, literally dozens and dozens and dozens of them. Some modified with our Passenger Car Lighting systems, some still sporting the original 9V battery twin light bulb version. All of them suffering from flimsy, rubberized plastic handrails.

I wouldn’t mention those handrails except we’re talking about 3D printing. What better replacement for plastic than plastic? Well, metal for one. Brass to be exact, but then we’d need jigs for bending the brass to shape, most likely 3D printed as well.

Steps Barely Clear Capstones
Steps Barely Clear Capstones

Design “Flaws”

Just like those original handrails that failed the test,  so did our original casting design. Well, at least the mock up did. The first flaw was discovered when first fitting the 10′ diameter curved track section. A redesign doubled the number of segments to better fit the curve. This was discussed in the first installment and it works quite well.

The next “flaw” is genuinely a “new” one, as in there’s not enough clearance for the new USA Trains Heavyweight passenger cars. And before you ask, no, there are not dozens of them. But there is a decade of them. There was a bulk deal on ten of them around Christmas time, so I pulled the trigger, as well as ordering a pair of F7 A-B units for A-B-B-A running.

They’ve been packed away since then, awaiting completion of all these “infrastructure improvements”. After unboxing one of them to test with, it was readily apparent the design was too narrow for these behemoths. The car is longer than the mock up! The wheels just fit on a single curve section though.

The steps and the equipment boxes both will interfere with the platform or the capstones. Back to the drawing board! It took some doing, and some days to do it, but I managed to add a “crude” approximation of the new passenger car to the mock up design.

Steps Interfere With Pillar Capstones
Steps Interfere With Pillar Capstones

Back To The Drawing Board

The test fit also reveals a flaw in the “track trough”. Not sure where I picked up that fault, but for whatever reason, the track is sitting proud of the platform rather than flush with it. To give an idea of how the prototype fits together, most platforms are slightly higher than the track, by about 4″ (10cm). In scale, that’s roughly 1⁄6″.

I figured giving the equipment that little bit of a height boost would hopefully compensate for any errors made while measuring their dimensions. Looks like I worried about the wrong measurement errors. Add that to the list of things that need fixed.

I’m back and forth with whether to try to forcibly disassemble the mock ups or just print all new pieces. I say try because the chemical solvent I use to cement the plastic pieces literally melts the two together into one part. Printing all new pieces is going to take a lot longer.

Each 4″ x 7″ retaining wall segment takes 4½ hours to print. Two of the pillars that join the wall segments take 3½ hours. An 8″ long track trough takes 5 hours. It should have been obvious when the curved track trough only took 3½ hours to print.

Anyway, these flaws are certainly obvious now. Not to worry though, the entire reason for all these mockups is to find the errors and flaws before they’re cast in stone, er… concrete.

Time Better Spent As Debby Approaches
Time Better Spent As Debby Approaches

Time Is Of The Essence

Alright, being overly dramatic, but time certainly is the essence of the conundrum. As in there is not enough of it to get ahead of everything that needs done. So little to do and so much time… Strike that. Reverse it.

Some say if deadlines are not set, they’ll never be met. Tell that to hurricane Debby. Now instead of spending time moving closer to the goal of running trains, it will now be spent preparing for a hurricane.

Retract the SunSetter™ awning. Stash any loose items that will blow away, like lawn chairs and cushions. You get the idea. Now add to that the garage where those items are usually stored is still the disaster it was right after the A/C decided to leak all over everything.

Progress is slow, but progress is progress. The large empty storage bin that used to sit in front of the table saw because there was no place else to put it is now filled with HO scale items that used to occupy a slot on the bookshelves in the office. It will fit beneath the work cell, taking up the wasted space under it.

Next Steps

Immediate steps are hurricane preparation, like dumping the work cart full of dirt at the end of the driveway where it has washed out around the apron and sidewalk, then retract the awning so as not to create a cart full of mud.

Beyond the immediate, back to the drawing board. The track trough and curved section redesign has already begun, old hold temporarily to prepare for Debby. I don’t like leaving the 3D printer sit idle for any length of time, but short of printing more 4″ x 7″ retaining walls, it will have to wait for the new part designs.

The big ticket item is capturing the step by step process for actually creating the station platform from all the separate cast pieces and how to create forms with them for a concrete pour. So far the mockups have captured segments of the final product, but not the process of creating those final products.

The garage needs a few more items completed before it’s ready for casting concrete patch into those retaining wall panels. There’s a stud space or two where the sill plate is totally rotted that could use a new chunk of 2×4 before setting the table saw in front of there.

The new shelves are already installed but need some thought put in to organizing what should go there and what will fit. All the things that haven’t been used and won’t be any time soon were thrown out to make more space.

It continues to evolve, like the wall cabinet for electrical items expanding to occupy two cabinets. Next is going through that cabinet that has all the “might be useful” items for the model railroad, ripe for harvesting more trash that will never be used.

Long Term

Long term is 3D printing with PETG, a more suitable material for use outdoors. Definitely more heat resistant than PLA. Not sure about its UV resilience, but paint can mitigate any shortcomings there.

The first designs will be concerned with ties and insulated split jaw parts. The originals printed in PLA lasted about ten minutes before they started to melt and deform in the Florida heat. Those stainless steel rails get mighty hot in the sun!

Next will be structural items, like window and door frames, “gingerbread” decorations and supports on buildings, etc. The ultimate goal is to create our own switches and turnouts, custom fit to the needs of the Barkyard Railroad.

Stay tuned. Much more to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3D Printed Casting “Mock Ups”

I’ve been busy 3D printing lately. So busy I’ve gone through nearly eight 1Kg spools of filament so far. That’s almost twenty pounds of plastic and I’m not finished yet! Why so much? Well, that’s a bit of a story, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

I’ve been struggling with optimizing the casting process, or rather, processes. Roadbed bricks. Buildings. Infrastructure, like retaining walls and culverts and such. You name it. I’m struggling with it, and how to marry the castings with pouring concrete using the castings as forms for the concrete.

It’s difficult to visualize how all the parts need to come together to make one final piece. How do all the puzzle pieces fit together? How to hold the castings in place? How much concrete and where? A lot of questions with no answers, even with many design drawings to help.

Lone Passenger Car Testing Mock Up
Lone Passenger Car Testing Mock Up

The photo shows the initial mock up for the culverts and retaining wall of the station siding along the patio. That passenger car looks mighty lonely sitting there all by itself. Why so much mockup? I’ll blame learning curve for that. Learning from the mistakes of the initial design, and iterations that followed, to reach the final design… For the mockup.

And that’s just the tangent (straight) part. The curved portions require their own designs, and one for every different curvature! While one design is printing behind me, I’m sitting at the computer working on the next design element, be it a different part or an iteration of an existing one.

The work bench is littered with inadequate parts from failed designs. Stacks of parts yet to be assembled await the remaining pieces necessary to put the next 8″ unit together. Be it tangent or curved, each unit is based on an 8″ length.

Pieces Parts Awaiting Assembly
Pieces Parts Awaiting Assembly

Design Constraints

Why 8″ and not some other length? There are two main reasons why that size was chosen. The first was a matter of print volume. The old 3D printer’s bed is roughly 8½” x 8½”, capable of printing to a height of a little over 9″. All my original designs had to fit within those limits.

The new 3D printer has a print volume of 12″ x 12″ x 15″, so my later designs don’t have that constraint, except for the second reason. The sectional curved track requires a certain number of sections to complete a circle. The smaller the diameter, the larger the track section can be, requiring fewer sections to make a circle.

For example, the 10′ diameter sections are roughly 32″ long, and require only 12 to complete a circle. By contrast, the 20′ diameter sections are nearly 48″ long, and require 16 to make up a circle. So here’s some math for you. What’s the lowest common denominator for those two sizes? That’s right, you guessed it, an 8″ length!

Design Constraints Made Easy
Design Constraints Made Easy

The next choice in the design may not seem so obvious, but it’s time to select the angle occupied by each roughly 8″ section. In the case of the above design capture, it takes three 10′ diameter curve sections to create that 90° arc. It takes four of those 8″ units for each curve section, by three sections, for a total of twelve segments. Each sweeps a 7.5° angle.

While the wood stringers and other structures made up of thin, “laminated” strips may be formed into continuous curves, we don’t have that luxury when it comes to concrete. Granted, continuous monolithic slabs can be formed.

But when multiple, separately cast parts are involved, not so much. The design has to be segmented to allow for many individual parts to be cast independent of one another. And at different times. These cast wall parts are made in assembly line fashion, one or two at a time.

Design Decisions

The whole point of 3D printing these mockups is to better visualize the overall casting approach. Let’s take a closer look at what we’re dealing with. Near the center and moving to the right are the casting molds for a cut stone retaining wall and 8′ diameter arch culvert. Note those additional pieces on either end.

Developing Casting Sequence of Events
Developing Casting Sequence of Events

These pieces can be fitted as necessary to create 7″, 7½”, and 8″ long castings, roughly ¼” thick, made using concrete patch. This is very similar to the process used to cast the Downtown Marketplace building faces. Those older castings were made using a brick pattern sheet and crude foam blocks. But that’s another story…

Another piece is precision fit to the arch of the culvert section, knowing the difficulty of slicing a piece of foam to fit that opening. The piece on the very right is meant to cast the “pillars” used to disguise the joints between each of the wall or culvert sections.

The top left portion shows how the various parts, including the casting mockups from the bottom half, fit together. This helps to visualize developing a plan around pouring concrete, the external mold parts, and the steps involved.

It doesn’t reveal all the pitfalls that await, like how to form that depression for the track or how to form the pillar in place over the joints, but it will help to reduce the number of avoidable mistakes before they become mistakes.

Discoveries

That’s not to say I’ll find every problem by constructing these mockups, but it sure does help to get “hands on” experience with parts before the first casting is created. It’s too late to find out the track won’t fit in the casting or the passenger car steps will hang up on the pillar capstones once the concrete’s already set.

Bachmann Passenger Car Test Fit
Bachmann Passenger Car Test Fit

I’ve already found that the track won’t fit the curved mockup, we’ll call it a “track trough”, so the design needed modification. Even then it’s a tight fit, but hopefully that will help hold the track from going places, especially with the pups pounding on it.

And while the Bachmann passenger car steps clear the capstones with no problem, I have yet to try it with the new USA Trains heavyweight passenger cars that are nearly twice as long. At almost three feet long, it will require two of those 32″ sections to accommodate testing even one car.

I suppose with a little “modification”, those early sections already assembled with the faulty “track troughs” could be reworked to allow the track to fit. The original straight section was divided into two straight segments at half the angle each.

In other words, if that design drawing above had 24 segments instead of 12, and each 8″ unit included two segments rather than one. Looking ahead at the next steps is much easier with mockups in hand.

Next Steps

Speaking of next steps, what are they? Now that mockups can be made in assembly line fashion, it’s time to address how things need to come together to produce the desired outcome, a more or less permanent concrete fixture.

First is to define the process, from start to finish, and the steps involved. This includes what forms and external rigging are needed, along with an estimate of the amount of concrete needed, optimizing for 60# or 80# bags if possible. Of ultimate importance is how to keep it puppy proof while curing.

Once the process is defined, it’s time to test how well it works, making changes as needed. But even then, many questions remain. This will most likely be an iterative process, experimenting with different approaches before deciding on the final definition.

  • Will the new, “wetter” mix allow the track relief to be worked in place?
    • If so, will a mold need left in place (to overcome slump)?
    • If not, will it take a roadbed brick equivalent to be laid on top of the fresh pour?
  • Will each 8″ unit need to be poured solid or can it be made hollow, like a concrete block?
    • If solid, how to allow for segments and/or expansion joints?
    • If hollow, could a sacrificial 3D printed insert be used and left in place if necessary? How will that affect simple footing?
  • Will the retaining wall and culvert castings require a dedicated footing? The designs simply use a block of wood in place of a footing currently.
    • No dedicated footing – Simple formed and allowed to run out the bottom as one monolithic pour.
    • Dedicated footing – Needs to be poured first then built upon.
  • Determine how capstones work. Cast as separate piece and placed atop the pour?
  • Modify designs for “staircasing”, i.e. gradually build altitude above terrain or lose it as terrain rises.
  • Measure and record terrain height map. See if it can be imported into SketchUp.
    • What format for import?

And honestly, some of the next steps have nothing to do with mockups, or even casting at all. It’s been a balancing act between work, home improvement, and making progress toward these Barkyard goals. There’s always something else that needs done first!

Excuses, Excuses!

Work has been absolutely brutal lately, busier than it’s been since I started there more than two years ago. As for home improvement, let’s just say it’s not our goals, it’s our individual goals combined. Ann wanted the raised bed planters along the fence by the driveway removed.

I wanted to get all these 3D printed mockups and jigs complete enough to get the assembly line started, saving all that hard work of removing the planters until Fall when the weather finally cools down from the “feels like 107°” by eleven o’clock in the morning, already here at the start of Summer.

Ann removed one of the planters and even transplanted the ponytail palm herself. She did not ask for, nor want my help. Unfortunately, that left me with bent screws and the aftermath of just ripping everything loose. Not wanting to sound like sour grapes, but not the kind of work I prefer doing in the Barkyard either.

That left behind a large area of dirt in need of turf. I’ve had a 7′ x 13′ roll waiting for placement elsewhere that got “requisitioned” for this task. The hardest part was getting that old chunk of turf out of the way, now full of dirt, and twice as heavy.

Always Something Else That Needs Done First

That revealed the ragged, rotten bottom edge of the 6′ tall fence panels we put up not even five years ago. Add to that one of the 4×4 posts is rotted out right at the ground, allowing the fence to sway with the breeze, and it’s time to replace that fence before it blows over.

And while replacing the fence doesn’t necessarily mean the other raised bed planter has to go, it does mean the dirt has to go somewhere while the fence panel gets replaced. The fence used to be only 4′ tall, but was replaced with 6′ tall fence to keep Brigel from jumping over it and chasing the neighbor’s cats into their yard.

Now that Brigel has crossed the Rainbow Bridge and the neighbor cats are seldom out during the day, we’d like to go back to the 4′ fence.  Well, guess what Lowe’s no longer carries in stock and must be special ordered and delivered, to the tune of an added $75? All for three fence panels!

Plan “B”

Time for plan B. B, as in cut off the rotted Bottoms of the 6′ panels to make them 4′ panels! I got set up with the makeshift bench on saw horses, ready to make the cuts and coat them with wood preservative, while Ann and Nick handled wrangling the panels and posts.

We got ahead of ourselves on the first panel. It went up before I could cut the post down. Try as I may, I couldn’t get a clean cut, even with Nick removing the panel out of the way. It wasn’t certain that the rotted post was rotted off until the last screw holding the panel to it came out and the post toppled over.

Nick was able to fish the rest of the old post out of the ground. What was left of the post was just tall enough to go back in the same hole, once I gave the bottom a coat of preservative that is. Cutting those last two panels went quickly, but Nick was having a time of it, getting those two gate posts separated.

That gave me time to cut the gate down as well. One of the gate posts needed cut to length, and both needed a coat of preservative before they went back in the ground. Things kind of went downhill from there.

All Downhill

The drill bit broke off when it hit a screw in the post while Nick was making a pilot hole for the new hinge location. That meant even more work as the entire hinge needed relocated on the gate to avoid the bit still stuck in the post. Then one of the carriage bolt’s threads were stripped when it hit another screw in the post.

But even with all the trouble at the end, we managed to knock it out in just two and a half hours! The only things that remains is installing a new gate latch. I mentioned I may have one in the garage we could use, but Ann was having none of that. She’ll go pick one out tomorrow.

Tomorrow came and Ann went to Lowe’s, only to be disappointed they didn’t have the latch she wanted. Turns out I had the exact slide bolt latch she wanted sitting right there in the bottom drawer of the desk in the garage the night before. Oh well, all’s well that ends well.

If you thought that was the last of the distractions, the relentless things that needs done first, think again. Ann decided to remove the other planter and transplant the other ponytail palm a bit further away from the fence.

Then came the inevitable new turf to replace the old, now inadequate to cover the area required of it. The new roll is sitting outside the fence, waiting on me to cut up the old piece into strips more easily handled than the entire chunk all at once.

But wait, there’s more!

The split unit A/C in the garage decided it was going to flood the shelves, workbench, and table saw beneath it when the condensate line clogged up. I had just spent the last few weekends getting things squared away enough to start using the casting and trestle workbenches again.

Nope. Not this weekend. Now I get to move everything out of the way, everything I just moved out of the way of the casting bench by putting it away! And now I get to climb up and down a ladder with my bum knee just to get thing apart enough to work on it.

In the end the fix was to vacuum out the clog in the drain line. Sounds easy enough, but when the vacuum is on the other side of everything that had to be moved out of the way, now in the way of getting the vacuum out… Can’t win for losing sometimes.

The good news is everything is put back together and working again, without flooding the garage. Again, not so much sour grapes as comic relief for others. Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans indeed!

It’s easy to see why it takes me so long to get anything accomplished on the Barkyard.

Other 3D Printing

And the 3D printing hasn’t stopped with casting mockups. I’ve even designed multiple trestle jigs for assembling the massive curved trestle from the deck to the new bridges and beyond.

Beyond that, it’s time to do something with that PET-G I’ve had for over a year now. Everything I’ve printed so far has been PLA. I bought so much PLA, and in so many different colors, that I didn’t notice my favorite maker, 3D Solutech, went out of business!

They are the only filament manufacturer I’d found that had such a wide variety of color selections. All the other have red, green, blue, black, white, gray, and that’s about it. Maybe yellow and orange. None of them have denim blue or steel blue or wheat or even brown for that matter.

Thankfully, white and gray will do for now, and I have plenty of it. At least another 8Kg anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Trestle From The Deck

We recently raised up the deck by an extra 3½” with the thought of placing new bridges high enough off the ground so the dogs can safely navigate beneath them, without hurting them or themselves. The next step is to raise up the track to match the new deck and bridge height. The problem is the wooden stringers. You guessed it, they’re rotted.

The wooden stringers were a means to an end, and that end was to run trains. Needless to say it’s impossible to run trains when there’s no track to run on. The track is, well, was secured to the stringers every 8″. But not anymore… With two dogs we could barely keep ahead of them and the maintenance. With three it’s a losing battle.

It’s hard to describe how much destruction the pups have caused to the Barkyard Railroad. Imagine most of the track on the ground from the bridges to downtown missing, parts and stretches ripped loose and removed a little at a time, until there’s no track left. Nothing left but the stringers, if they hadn’t already rotted away that is.

A New Approach

It’s obvious that the previous track arrangement no longer fits our needs. We need a new approach. While the roadbed brick production is ramping up to remedy the situation, we still can’t keep up with the destruction of the track on the ground.

Even so, the roadbed bricks can’t address the elevated stretches of track and stringers that need attention. The plan has always been to replace certain elevated stretches with trestles. The time has come. The old infrastructure allowed us to run trains until it didn’t. No regrets.

Soon to be Trestle
Soon to be Trestle

We’re no strangers to scratch building trestles. At least not the straight kind. We even scratch built a four foot long Howe truss bridge. It used to stretch across a pond with a waterfall. But like everything else, it didn’t hold up to the dogs or time.

The new part to all of this is the curved aspect. All the jigs and such we made way back when only deal with straight (tangent) sections. If you’d like to know more about the history of the railroad, you can refer to the Bit of History section below.

This trestle from the deck will have both 14′ and 20′ diameter curved sections, along with the tangent sections. So far there’s a design for the 14′ diameter sections, already 3D printed and ready for testing.

There’s added complexity in addition to the curvature. The trestle has to rise at more than a 2% grade, a full 6″ over 23′ of track. From 18″ at the deck to 24″ at the bridge. Previously the ruling grade was kept to 1%, but that’s out the window with the triple decker (re)arrangement of the upper loop.

Trestle Bents With 14' Curve Jig
Trestle Bents With 14′ Curve Jig (Shown in White)

The Particulars

To put things in perspective, each bent must rise above the previous by 3⁄16″, and each bent is about 8″ from the last, for roughly a 2.34% grade. For the 14′ diameter curves there are four bents per track section, 16 per circle, roughly 32″ long and 22.5° per section.

By the time the fifth bent is reached, the track has climbed ¾” from the start. The plan is to make the bents for each section all the same height, and account for the rise by increasing the height of the footings, to be cast of concrete. Each footing will be roughly 2″ x 2″ x 16″ long, adding 3⁄16″ with each successive footing.

The footings are reset to 2″ when the next track section is reached, again grown by 3⁄16″, and height of the bents for that next section increased by ¾”. The photo doesn’t do a very good job of showing it, but there are six 14′ diameter track sections, then a 20′ diameter track section, followed by a 3′ tangent section.

But that’s a lot of talk with no pictures to show what we’re talking about.

Arrangement of Increasingly Taller Footings with Single Height Bents
Arrangement of Increasingly Taller Footings with Single Height Bents

The previous bridge approach trestles sat loosely on concrete block “caps”, roughly 2″x8″x16″, placed together and leveled. Nothing attached the approach trestles to the block caps. They were free to be repositioned every time the dogs smacked into them.

And smack into them they did! I don’t know how many times I would find the approach trestles upended or cocked at an angle, with the track and the bridges on the ground. We’re hoping to anchor the bents to the footings this time around to at least slow down the “remodeling”, pun intended.

New Needs Means New Jigs

So far only the jigs for the 14′ diameter curves are reality. The design for the 20′ diameter section along with the tangent section will begin soon. The design is made up of a number of identical parts with a handful of unique parts to address the areas where specific size and shape is necessary.

The trestle jig parts either press fit or snap together. The only gluing required is to attach the progressively taller adapters to the standard bases. This is only necessary to allow 3D printing of all the parts without needing supports.

The standard base cradles the bottom of the trestle bent in a 3⁄16″ deep notch. Because the base is only 8″ wide and a standard 20″ tall bent is nearly 16″ wide at its base, the jig has index marks to align with the bent’s center leg.

Each standard base has two legs designed to press fit into the next. Each base is at an angle to the next. Each successive base is 3⁄16″ taller than the last, hence the glued on adapters. The first base has no legs and needs no adapter.

Testing 14' Diameter Curved Trestle Jig
Testing 14′ Diameter Curved Trestle Jig

The design provides alignment for five trestle bents and stretches over 32″. Next are the cross arms that hold the bents vertical. There are two sets of cross arms, one set for the inner curve, and one set for the outer.

Each set has its own inside and outside components that snap together in the middle. These cross arm assemblies then snap onto the legs that connect the standard bases together. The arms have a block, a peg of sorts, that fits in the ½” gap in the horizontal members of the bent section.

Of course, now that I’ve 3D printed an entire set, it occurs to me that this will only work for those bents that have a complete section at the bottom! DUH! But this is why we mock up the models and test fit. Back to the drawing board!

This further reinforces the shortcomings of trying to consider everything from just the drawing board. My need to have hands on pieces to manipulate and consider other options that never would have come to mind is the reason why we’re testing the designs before committing to them.

Close Up of Base and Cross Arm Interaction
Close Up of Base and Cross Arm Interaction

Model vs. Prototype Considerations

There are many more considerations, like limitations of models as compared with the real thing. For the sake of this discussion, it’s not limited to just modelling, but modelling a prototypical railroad.

Curves

As with any model railroad, some “allowances” are made for the model compared to prototypical practices. The best example is that of curvature. Most model curves are far tighter than anything in the real world. Prototypical curves are far straighter than anything we have the space to model.

Track also doesn’t just change dramatically from tangent (straight) to curved. The use of easement curves on the prototype helps ease the train into the curve without abruptly slamming everything into a corner. Think of a spiral that goes from nearly straight to tighter and tighter curves.

Our tightest curves are ten feet in diameter, huge compared to the toy like four foot diameter curves. Even so, 10′ diameter curves are really beyond anything seen on the prototype, including the tightest industrial sidings and spurs.

Those 10′ diameter curves are only used where space is at a premium on our pike, like the station spur and the tight fit of the mainline behind the shed. Everywhere else, we simulate an easement by starting with a 20′ diameter curve leading into the 14′ diameter sections.

That doesn’t help much when they’re all 20′ diameter sections though. Other parts of the layout are “flex track” which allows us to bend it to any curvature. Here we’re able to ease in to the curve by slowly increasing the force when using the rail bender, creating a more gradual curve.

Trestles

So why all this talk about curves? Beyond the modelling consequences related to track alone, it also influences modelling the structures that support and convey the track off the ground. In this case, trestles. And because the curves are tighter than on the prototype, allowances must be made for those structures too.

The way the prototype did things, each bent grew from the top down, growing the length of the legs as necessary. This leads to sections of standard height, with only the lowest portion varying from one bent to the next. We chose scale twenty foot section heights, or 10″ each at 1:24 (half dollhouse) scale.

The key take away from this is everything is designed from the track level down when it comes to a trestle, each section depending on the one below it, in a standardized fashion. The reason for this top down design is to ensure the stringers are directly supported by each bent without the need for shimming.

The rail stringers are perched atop the bents directly because the bents are built exactly as tall as required. Shims would diminish the strength and stability of the structure. These stringers are made up of staggered members, whose lengths span three bents, landing on the two outside bents in a joint.

This is to ensure there is at least one solid member at every joint atop a bent, and bolted together, again to increase strength and rigidity. There’s a stringer beneath each rail, generally with three individual members to provide redundancy for failure of any one of them, and each spaced apart to provide an air space so water is not trapped between them.

Making Allowances

So why does that matter to us? It all goes back to the discussion about curves and the allowances we need to make in our models. That staggering works great for tangent track, but not so much for curved track on our model. The prototype spacing between stringer members is around 3″. That’s 1⁄8″ in scale.

Unfortunately, the spacing between the members on the curved sections far exceeds 1⁄8″! At scale, each 8″x18″ member is roughly 5⁄16″ x ¾”. Over the 32′ length, a scale 16″, the overlap would be more than ¾”. That’s more than double the scale 5⁄16″ thickness of each member!

That means the stringer members can only span between bents without a noticeable deformation that would look totally out of scale. Of course, the shorter than prototypical member length will also be noticeable, but not as much so once the tie strips are in place.

Generally the prototype used longer ties to provide a walkway of sorts on at least one side of the track. These longer ties, bridge ties, are also more closely spaced on a bridge or a trestle. That along with a railing made it much safer to walk along the track that high off the ground.

Back in the days of steam, red hot cinders could fall from the ash pan onto the trestle timbers and set them on fire. A fire barrel filled with water or sand was placed every so often along the walkway, on even longer ties so as not to block the walkway, to provide a ready means to extinguish a fire.

Model track comes with one option, standard length ties. For that reason, a slide for the table saw was created that allows notching wooden “guard rails” to fit over the ends of the wooden bridge ties to be assembled into 8″ tie strips, long enough to span between two bents.

Unfortunately, that only works for tangent track sections. It would need reworked to accommodate curved sections if not totally remade just for curves. In this case, I was overly obsessed with true to prototype realism in my modelling.

That’s a holdover from my HO scale days where anything that’s out of scale stands out like a sore thumb, making everything look toy like. It definitely kills the illusion of realism. In the case of the notched tie strip guard rails, not all railroads notch them.

For the sake of simplicity and rapid production, the Barkyard Railroad will no longer notch its guard rails.

 

A Bit of History

Back when we first moved here to Mount Dora in 2014, we had to tear up all the track we had laid at the old house in Wekiva. There were plenty of projects that took priority over getting the railroad out of mothballs and back up and running. Slowly but surely we renovated pretty much the entire house.

One of the earlier renovations was the garage. With just two stripes of concrete and a dirt floor, it was a carriage house in every sense of the word, complete with carriage doors. You guessed it, they were rotted and needed totally replaced.

But first we had to do something about that dirt floor. It was like silt, a very fine mix of dirt and sand, stirred up into a cloud at the least provocation, sticking to our legs, ankles, and feet. Better plan on taking a shower if working in the garage.

Adding a Floor to the Carriage House
Adding a Floor to the Carriage House

Nick helped us install a plywood floor over the dirt, using the foundation blocks and concrete stripes to support a 2×4 framework covered with ¾” tongue and groove plywood. Benches soon followed along with a new table saw.

About that time we had to replace the dilapidated fence between us and our neighbor to the west. Most of the fence panels were rotted away to nothing, but some of the wood that still had some life left in it was saved as raw material for building trestle bents.

Early Trials

It was a brave new world learning to use the new table saw and fashioning a crude template to hold the pieces of a trestle bent together while assembling it. In case you’re wondering, a trestle is made up of individual trestle bents, lashed together with horizontal girts and diagonal cross braces.

The bents themselves have their own cross braces and other means of securing the legs together which divide the bent into multiple sections. So the crude template used small chunks of wood, strategically placed, and screwed to a chunk of plywood.

Assembled Bents
Assembled Bents

Repeatability was questionable at best. That is to say no two bents were interchangeable. Originally each of the legs was cut individually, and required new setups for the three different angles in involved. Getting a repeatable length was nearly impossible.

It soon became apparent that a better quality template was necessary. The new template was custom cut on the table saw to the correct angles, making dado cuts to hold the entire length of the legs in position, along with the horizontal joining members.

Other changes were made to increase productivity as well. The new design accommodates using the template as a “sled” for the table saw to trim all legs to the proper angle and length in one operation. Runners to fit in the T-slots were attached to the back, holding it in perfect alignment with the saw table.

That Was Then, This Is Now

All that seems so far away now, around Halloween of 2015, sitting in the living room, assembling trestle bents into an approach trestle for the scratch build Howe truss bridge. Fast forward to the task at hand today. The simplistic jigs I fashioned back then for holding the bents together did little to align or secure them in place.

And they were only meant for the straight sections to boot. Back then I would have been happy to have even the tangent trestle I built survive, but too many other things had to happen first, and many false starts, before we could think about a permanent garden railroad.

Again, permanent is a relative term. The dogs and the elements would beg to differ with the “permanent” moniker.

There is much more to come. Stayed tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roadbed Bricks – Round Three

So here we are again, talking about roadbed bricks. Third time’s a charm? Well, not exactly…

While this go round is certainly an improvement over last time, there’s still more fine tuning that needs done. And while I’d love to say we’ve moved into the production phase and show how easily all the stringers for the ground level trackage were replaced, that’s not the case.

The wetter mix is definitely the way to go. And even though the release agent was used this time, the concrete still shrank and pulled away from the forms in the same jagged fashion. I’m thinking I’ll take the “draft” out of the 1×4 sides of the form and see if that helps.

Unfortunately, the new, taller dividers I 3D printed for this go round were too tall. Their height prohibited an end to end screeding sliding the shovel along the top of the form. But that’s easily remedied with a new round of prints for the next go round.

A Wet Mix Even Wetter
A Wet Mix Even Wetter

How Not To Screed

All things being equal, this time it took two glue sticks to prepare the form instead of one the first two times. I use hot melt glue to attach the 3D printed ballast profile molds to the bottom of the form as well as attach the dividers. It’s not a big deal that it uses two, but the inability to explain why it took two is bothersome.

The beauty of using hot melt glue is twofold. First, it’s not a permanent attachment and easily removed after a pour. Second, I can use the cordless glue gun to avoid tripping over cords. The battery still has plenty of power left after prepping the entire eight foot long form. Time to pour concrete!

Unfortunately while screeding this time around, I end up knocking one of those tall dividers loose, creating a goofy “wedge” slope between two of the bricks. I did this the first time around as well, trying to work the drier mix into the form. Again, not a big deal, as long as those two bricks are used together as a pair.

Round Three Roadbed Bricks
Round Three Roadbed Bricks

Taking A Different Approach

The main difference this time around is keeping the concrete wet. The hope is it will prevent the shrinkage and increase the strength of the bricks. I may have gotten a little overzealous while spraying down the excess concrete spilled on the driveway, by not missing the fresh concrete in the form by as much as I should have. Oh well.

I tried to wet the bricks every few hours, but even that wasn’t enough to keep the bricks from shrinking away from the form in the same jagged pattern as last time. Maybe next time keep the fresh pour out of the sun and a tarp? Regardless, the bricks remained in the form for a several days until I finally took the time to free them.

As much as I’d like to blame an uptick in work escalations, the truth is I got a bit lazy about it too. When I saw that same ragged edged shrinkage as last time, even using a mold release agent, it just didn’t seem as important anymore. Once the bricks were carted to the Barkyard, the 3D printed pieces were left strewn across the driveway, haphazardly stacked, for days.

Warped 3D Prints
Warped 3D Prints

That’s a mistake not to be repeated. The PLA plastic is not all that heat resistant, so it doesn’t take much to guess what happened to them, in June, in Florida, on a concrete driveway. That’s right, they melted. Well, they didn’t really melt, but they certainly became warped and misshapen from the Florida Summer heat.

In a moment of disgust with myself at leaving them stacked atop one another long enough to warp, I decided to lay them out flat on the drive, individually, to see if baking in the sun would flatten them out again. And it did! Talk about surprised. Once they were flat, I stacked them off to the side, where they would be shaded.

So a few more lessons learned on this batch. Don’t leave the freshly poured concrete or the 3D printed mold pieces out in the sun. Don’t have dividers that are too tall. Don’t wait to wash the concrete off the 3D printed pieces after breaking down the forms to release the bricks.

Prepping For Round Four

Along those lines, for next time I’m considering cutting that eight foot long form into two four foot long forms, hoping to be able to more easily move them after a fresh pour. The addition of a third four foot long form should help to avoid the waste when mixing up an 80# bag of concrete too.

I’ve already 3D printed a new, shorter set of dividers, and test fit them to be sure. I may need to 3D print more of the ballast profile molds as well. Several of them were printed with less UV resistant PLA than the others, and they turned yellow and brittle sitting out in the sun for days on end. Some others need glued back together.

The biggest change will be removing the “draft” angle formed between the 2×6 base and the 1×4 sides of the form. Hopefully this will help reduce the amount of shrinkage and eliminate that ragged gap, or at least minimize it.

Are We There Yet?

Not yet. I already bought a couple more 80# bags of high strength concrete mix. Hopefully the next post will show some real progress in roadbed brick laying. There’s much more to accomplish before that can happen, and even more work to be done to run trains again. Baby steps.

If you read the previous post about the casting mockups, you may remember the setback when the A/C split unit in the garage “flooding” the table saw, shelves, and the casting bench beneath it. It’s setbacks like that to take away any momentum I had to start the concrete patch castings for the station retaining wall and culverts.

I had just spent the last few weekends getting things squared away and put back in their place enough to start using the casting and trestle workbenches again. All that work was wasted when I had to move everything back out of the way to gain access to the A/C indoor unit!

Bet you can’t guess where everything was left sitting afterward. Disgusted and discouraged I turned my attention to better organization, both in the garage and in the office. Along those lines, I picked up a couple of 12″ x 8′ shelves to replace the waterlogged and now hopelessly swollen and warped cheapo depo laminated ones the garage.

New Shelves Over Casting Bench
New Shelves Over Casting Bench

For the office, I bought a 16″ x 6′ shelf to replace the functional but stupid looking 2×6 over the window. Is it really stupid if it works? Here it would depend on the definition of stupid. If we’re talking stupid looking, yeah, it still looks stupid. Not for long, but that’s another story…

Making Progress… Slowly

I’ve been moving a chunk of furniture grade plywood around the office, generally every time it’s in my way again. Time to remedy that. It’s roughly 24″ x 45″, so ripping it down the middle yields two 12″ x 45″ shelves. One of them is now “floating” above the monitors for the work cell, thanks to the leftover floating shelf brackets from the previous shelving upgrade post.

The other shelf is now above the doorway to the bedroom, in hopes of relocating all the ½” plywood remnants from my old HO layout at the other house. AS part of this latest organizational effort, I cataloged all the pieces and their sizes in a spreadsheet. I went full OCD and captured models of them in the SketchUp drawing of the office too!

But let’s get the Barkyard back in operation before even thinking about yet another layout to build and maintain! The plan is to relocate those plywood pieces, mainly various radii curve sections, from the top of the shelves they are prone to falling off of to an out of sight and out of mind perch on that new shelf.

Speaking of OCD, I took pictures of the trestle bent inventory when last organizing in the garage, and created an inventory spreadsheet with all their sizes as well. This complements the design drawings for the various trestle templates. There is much more detail in the Trestle From The Deck post.

Next Steps

Most everything that needs done has already been captured, but prepping for round four did not include any activities outside of casting more roadbed bricks. The casting mockups for the curved approach to the station retaining wall sections revealed the original design is too narrow to accommodate the new USA Trains heavyweight passenger cars.

Thankfully there’s space for all these 3D printed mockups with all the new shelving, but there’s still more work to do there before we can expand the concrete casting to include those detail castings as part of the forms. It won’t be long now though.

Stayed tuned. There’s plenty more to come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roadbed Bricks – Round Two

We finally got around to the second pour of the roadbed bricks. The first pour was not the best, and for a number of reasons. First was the quality of the form and the 3D printed mold inserts used to shape the concrete into a roadbed profile. Second, and more importantly, the quality of the actual concrete mix itself.

The form itself held up well, but the sides need to be tighter against the bottom if we’re going to try a wetter mix. Breaking down the form after the first pour reveals enough of the mix managed to get into the gaps between the sides and bottom. Gaps large enough that the concrete needs cleaned off the pieces before the form can be reassembled.

Closing those gaps is easy, just add more screws between the ones already there. The 3D printed profile molds now fit snugly as well, which should help hold the 3D printed dividers in place better than the first time around. The problem the first time around was the dividers moved on us, probably because of using the brick trowel to work the mix into the form and breaking them loose.

Ready For Second Pour

Fitting the molds and dividers in place takes the same amount of hot melt glue this time around as it the first time, one stick. That’s a dot on each of the four corners on the molds themselves and two or three dots on each divider. Somehow it seems more sturdy than the first time. Here’s hoping…

The weather is still pleasant enough to sit outside on the deck this time of year while we prepare the form for the pour. As you can see, the railing provides a suitable work surface for assembly. It can also slide back and forth on the railing as needed. The added bonus of easy access for Rocket to bring the Jolly Ball makes it even more enjoyable to sit outside in the Barkyard.

Enjoying it while we can. It won’t be long before the oppressive heat will keep us indoors all but early mornings and late evenings. We’ve already had a few record breaking days recently in the 98°-99° range. Soon it will be every day in the upper nineties, without relent, until Fall.

Ready To Mix

Time To Mix

Now that the form is ready, it’s time to mix the concrete. The first time around, we used ~5 quarts of water, not quite twice the maximum of three quarts recommended on the bag. This time we’re mixing it wetter, “soupy” is the term, “Thick as a milkshake, but not so thick that you can’t suck it up with a straw.” Now the only problem is how to translate that into quarts of water per 80# bag of concrete.

Starting with 6 quarts, the mix is still too “dry”, as in not wet enough for all the mix to be easily incorporated. Adding another quart still isn’t enough. One more quart makes it a total of 8, and finally wet enough to call “soupy”. Beginning to wonder if they meant three gallons and not three quarts. After all, eight quarts is two gallons.

A few more quarts would make a fairly thin mix, but still workable if pouring. Maybe nine quarts next time? Let’s not count the chickens before they’re hatched. It’s certainly something to consider, but let’s see how this batch turns out before making more changes. It would be nice if this batch wasn’t so crumbly like the first batch for sure.

“Soupy” Mix Ready To Pour

Time To Pour

Well now we know eight quarts equals soupy. This time all it takes to fill the form is to shovel the mix into it. No working the mix into the form is required. It’s certainly hard not to be sloppy though! Each shovelful fills about two brick “slots”. Screeding the mix toward the next empty slot helps to level off with the top of the form.

It helps to angle the shovel toward the middle of the form to keep from pushing the excess mix over the edge and onto the driveway, but there’s no amount of careful that can prevent even a little spillage. We’ll wash that away with the hose when we’re done. It also helps to turn the mix over a few times before the next shovelful to keep the water from floating up and separating from the mix.

It’s about this point I remember I never sprayed the form with WD-40 as a release agent, even though I reminded myself twice before starting. Oh well. Too late now! Guess we’ll find out how much we really need a mold release agent. Hopefully it won’t cause too much trouble.

Round 2 Pour Complete

Once the pour is complete, it’s time to clean off the driveway, starting with shoveling the excess mix off of it. Next is a good wash down with the hose to push any remaining concrete off the edge of the driveway, carefully avoiding the fresh pour.

Now We Wait

Nothing left to do but wait for the pour to setup enough to remove from the form. Because the first pour was so crumbly, we’re waiting longer than a day. Besides, it’s way too hot the next evening to even think about doing anything with this latest pour. I do saturate the concrete with water to help keep it hydrated, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I was curious to see if the lack of a mold release agent will keep the concrete from pulling away from the sides like it did the first time. I was surprised to see that not only did it NOT keep the concrete from pulling away from the sides, it actually caused a jagged separation line, like part of the concrete wanted to stick to the sides while the rest pulled away from it.

It’s disappointing to say the least. I’m wondering if maybe I should have worked the mix into the form better. Maybe the mix didn’t fully fill the form, leaving it weak enough to separate in that jagged fashion. Doesn’t quite explain why it did it along one side and not the other though.

Disappointing Results Without Mold Release Agent

Mixed Results

Noting the telltale cracks above the dividers, it’s time to release this batch of bricks from the mold. Taking most of my lunch hour to remove them, I drag the form through the gate onto the back stoop, where I can sit and work on it. The bricks fall right out of the form one by one, splitting cleanly along the crack at the dividers without fail.

But I find another problem related to the lack of a release agent. While the bricks may be popping right out, the 3D printed molds are sticking to them like glue. For the most part, the dividers pop off without issue. All but two. Those crack along the ear on one or the other, snapping apart at the ear that’s still stuck to the concrete.

It takes quite a bit more force to pry those 8″ molds loose from the concrete though. It acts like a vacuum tight fit, where once the seal is broken, the rest of it peels right off. But even those suffer damage from overstressing the glued joints, often splitting the joint, sometimes for the full length. A number of them are now separate pieces again and will need to be reassembled.

Lack Of Release Agent Causing Breakage Of 3D Printed Molds

Better Results

While these bricks are crumbling along the jagged separation line, they are NOT crumbling anywhere else. The bricks from the first attempt would have broken with the amount of force it took to remove the molds from this time. These bricks have much more strength. They’re holding up well to the strong arm handling.

In fact, they’re resisting my attempts to trim where the dividers didn’t quite reach the top of the form. That’s one change we’ll be making for the batch. I’ll need to print a couple of replacements for the broken ones anyway.

Another thing that worked quite well was the placement of the dividers and they stayed where I put them. Not working the mix into the form with the brick trowel seems to have saved us from having misshapen bricks. They also peeled right off with the bricks and didn’t require removing the sides of the form like the first batch.

The best part is the 100% yield! All 12 bricks came right out of the form and none of them are cracked or broken. I can even read the writing from the embossed text on the dividers! Round two is a success! We’ll give them the rest of the week to cure and put this idea to the test.

Comparison Of First Batch and Second Batch

Time To Lay Bricks

Well, almost. First we need to clear a path for the bricks to sit on. The two concrete blocks with the chunk of 2×6 across them is to protect the puppies’ paws from the sharp ends of the track. We’ve been losing ground lately with three puppies pounding things to pieces, having to remove more and more track to keep it from getting damaged and them from getting hurt on what’s left.

In fact, all that’s left are the stringers that survived where the track used to lay. This “experiment” is meant to mitigate that damage and provide a means to protect the track and the pups. Time to pull the stringers out of the way and replace them with the roadbed bricks.

It only takes removing a few screws and the first stringer is free, after releasing it from the join with the next stringer of course. Now we need to lay out the bricks and cut the turf along the edges to make room for them. But first we need to rake all those leaves out of the way!

A leaf blower will just make a huge mess everywhere and a big rake won’t fit, so it’s a good thing we have a “mini” rake that’s about as wide as the bricks are. It makes quick work of moving just the leaves we want out of the way. Pretty handy. Not our first either. IIRC this is our third.

Replacing The Stringers With Roadbed Bricks

Bumps In The Road(bed)

Anyway, time for the Dremel saw. It does an adequate job of cutting the turf without much effort. If there is a single complaint, it would be the lackluster locking mechanism for the foot. It’s a flip / twist handle that gets cinched down to lock the foot and set the depth of cut, but the damned thing is at its end of travel before it actually tightens, constantly coming loose!

It would do a great job if the depth of cut didn’t need constant attention. You may think you’re cutting, but guess what? That damned foot is once again set to not cut at all! This time it’s taking two, three, even four tries to get a cut, and the cuts are now crooked and ragged. But enough “belly aching”, it’s just another unnecessary annoyance due to poor quality control.

Part of the problem is uneven terrain and cutting along the edge of the bricks, laid out in the circular pattern where they’ll sit. That uneven terrain is also causing an “elevation” problem with the first few bricks after the track leaves the 4×4 roadbed. The problem is twofold. First is having to make up for the height of the 4×4 itself and second is the 4×4 is sitting proud of where it should.

You can see how the track is dangling off the end of the 4×4 in the picture above. Those PVC pipe risers were also in the way and have been removed. Because the first batch of bricks is so crumbly, it begs the idea of crumbling them into “rubble” to restore the elevation needed.

Time To Play (Jolly)Ball Dad

Rocket is helping too, making sure to pace me by “pestering” me to throw the Jolly Ball… Constantly! But that’s okay. He didn’t get much play time this last week because we’ve been so busy with the latest “emergencies” at work. “We must overreact immediately!” comes to mind. Can’t wait to retire and kiss all that constant chaos goodbye!

On the plus side working remotely still has its advantages. After all, I was able to spend my lunch hour to get these bricks out of the form and ready to work with now. We get to stay home with the pups so they don’t have to go to “Doggy Daycare”, and we still get to play with them during the day, even if it’s not as often as they’d like.

Crumbling Infrastructure

What was originally a disappointment is quickly turning into an advantage, an opportunity to use those crumbly bricks in a way they were not originally intended. Where’s my hammer? My favorite place. Somewhere. Oh well, hopefully the “mini” hammer will do the trick. Let’s finish the job of crumbling them into rubble.

Rocket Inspects My Work Waiting For Me To Throw The Ball

The idea is to crumble them the rest of the way and use them as fill to make up the height difference at the end of the 4×4 roadbed. One won’t be enough. Turns out even two isn’t enough. Three? Nope. More. In the end, all but four of them are pulverized to become fill beneath those four that remain. But not all at once.

I start with a first course of crumbled bricks, spreading it even and level until more is needed. Then start the next course, levelling it, and so on. As I sit there pounding those bricks into rubble, I continue to test fit until pleased with the progress.

One thing’s for sure, that 4×4 needs to sit down in the ground at least another ½”, if not more. The track doesn’t like bending over the edge of that 4×4 much. Side to side, sure. But not a sudden drop of ½” or more. A concrete block coerces it into position for now. Maybe the tie strips can be adjusted to leave an opening so the track will sit down over the end of the 4×4.

Close Up Of Troublesome 4×4

Lessons Learned

  • DO NOT FORGET THE MOLD RELEASE!
  • Tamp the mix into the form with the shovel to ensure complete fill, then screed.
  • Vibrate the mix to remove trapped air and eliminate gaps.
  • Make the dividers extend all the way to the top of the form (redesign).
  • Increase the font size for the end marks or just assume one size fits all?

The first two are fairly self explanatory, plus I covered them earlier. What I didn’t cover was the amazing amount of detail the wetter mix captured. I can see the layer lines from 3D printing the molds in the concrete! The only thing that spoils it is air bubbles and “inclusions” where the concrete didn’t quite fill the gaps. Need to try vibrating the form once tamped and screeded next time.

Making the dividers tall enough to meet the tops of the 1×4 sides of the form should avoid having to snap off the jagged excess by hand to make the ends flush. That means a redesign of the divider model then printing more with the new STL. Some of them broke and need replaced anyway.

While we’re at it redesigning the dividers, it’s time to think about a one size fits all approach. Rather than having bricks of varying degrees of curvature and having to stock many different types, including tangent, why not have one that can be used for everything? The difference between the various curves is at most 3.75°, so a small gap one way or the other will barely be noticeable.

Another bonus is tangent track can be accommodated by alternately rotating the bricks 180°, such that the angles point left, then right, alternating to effectively create a straight section. If you look close in the picture with Rocket inspecting things, you’ll see I had to do that in a few places to help adjust accumulated error in the curvature, a straight section as part of a curve.

More to come, so stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Concrete Roadbed – Initial Brick Version

We finally threw in the towel! Using wood stringers as a roadbed is just not working out. It’s been one thing after another using wood. The first setback was rot. We finally found the answer to that, but the next thing was keeping the track fastened to the stringer – with a couple puppies constantly pounding on it. Even adding screws every 8″ didn’t help! We now have track with much larger holes in the ties where the screw heads pulled through them.

Fast forward. We’ve added yet another puppy to the team, Jasper. Alright, three full sized German Shepherds! None of them are little puppies anymore. We were barely keeping ahead of things with two puppies pounding the track into the ground. But now we’re fighting a losing battle with three, we’ve been removing track, not adding it. And that’s moving in the wrong direction!

Concrete roadbed should certainly hold up to the constant pounding, if sidewalks and driveways are any indication that is… Beyond that, the idea is to shape the concrete with a center depression, a “well” of sorts, that will “cradle” the track. The only question left is whether molding roadbed bricks will work better than forming concrete then screeding the profile.

After all the trouble we went to on the forms for the trial version of casting concrete roadbed, only to be thoroughly disappointed with the results, we’re hoping the roadbed brick approach will be more successful. This time around we’re counting on the forms to produce a much more defined profile and a better defined well for the track to sit in.

3D Printed Casting Molds for Curved Segments

The Design

The molds are all 3D printed a “standard” 8″ in length, with a ballast profile. A picture is worth a thousand words. At the top of the diagram are the individual parts on the right and how they are assembled into a casting mold, or form, on the left. At the bottom are the “dividers” for the various diameter curved segments.

The molds are designed with the deep well profile, the center part of three. The other two are meant to emulate a standard ballast profile. The three parts are glued together, held in place with three of the “assembly jigs”, seen beneath the assembled 8″ brick mold. This assembled mold consists of a 2×6, with sloped 1×4 sides, and the assembled 3D printed parts set inside the “U” shape formed by the lumber pieces.

The dividers are designed for the three different curved track segments we use, 10′, 14′, and 20′ diameters. Each has a different angle and number of segments for the associated diameters and there are left and right version for each diameter. You can see the text slightly raised above the divider body, and mirrored so as to emboss the brick casting correctly. Can’t wait to see if it works.

The relationship between the three designs for 10′, 14′, and 20′ diameter curves are shown in comparison below. A quick explanation will help to understand the information it contains. Obviously the arrangement of the bricks into the three different curves demonstrates the 8″ segmentation, but not so obvious is the arrangement with respect to the track segments.

Relationship Between Various Roadbed Brick Curved Segments

The Explanation

Note there are two angled guidelines. One is 22.5° with respect to horizontal and the other 30°. These angles are related to how many track segments required to complete a circle of track. For 14′ and 20′ diameter circles, 16 pieces are required, 22.5° per piece. The 10′ diameter circle requires only 12, 30° per piece.

Let’s look at the 10′ curve to begin with. Counting the number of bricks required to complete the curve to the 30° mark, we count four. Observe that while the nominal size is 10′, it’s really 59.055″ because Aristocraft decided to try to stay compatible with European track makers. Doing the math, one of those track segments is ~30.92″ long, just shy of 32″… That’s roughly four 8″ bricks.

If we round off to ~31″, we need to lose roughly ¼” per brick, making them 7¾” long. Note that these dimensions are along the centerline of the circle. Adding the extra 1¾” to get to the outside edge of the ties is ~31.84″, which rounds nicely to 32″.

Now consider the 14′ diameter curve. This time we’re using the 22.5° guideline to count bricks. Again four are required for a single segment of track. And again, it’s not really 14′, but 82.677″. That yields a length of ~32.467″, again roughly four 8″ bricks, only this time we add about 1⁄8″ to each brick.

The 20′ (118.11″) diameter curve is similar, using the 22.5° guideline except now we count six of those 8″ bricks to match a segment of track, ~46.382″ in length. Again we subtract roughly ¼” per brick, making them 7¾” long. By now it should be abundantly clear why the 8″ length was chosen.

Roadbed Brick Casting Form Ready for Pour

The Decision

If all that math hasn’t turned your brain to mush, the key point is all the bricks are roughly the same length, with roughly the same angle on their ends. The angles range from 3.75° to 7.5°, but they must be halved to obtain how much the end angle diverts from perpendicular with respect to the centerline. It’s 1.75° to 3.75°, which is large enough to be discerned with the naked eye.

So let’s start with the 20′ bricks, the ones with the smallest end angle of 1.75°, and see just how noticeable it is. While the picture shows an independent 8″ mold for each brick, a more practical approach starts with an eight foot or ten foot long 2×6, and matching length 1x4s. The ten foot length is preferred since an 80# bag of concrete mix will just fill it, give or take.

Unfortunately all we have on hand is eight footers, but that just means a bit of wasted material, roughly three bricks worth. The thought is to attach the 1×4 sides in a sloping fashion to provide enough draft that the casting will slide out of the form. The 3D printed ballast profile has a built in draft angle spacer effect, this is it’s slightly wider than the 2×6, which should cause the 1x4s to splay out by just enough.

Sounds good anyway. In practice, putting this together demonstrates how imprecisely everything actually fits. Every single piece of wood is warped. Trying to precisely fit the dividers at the precise angle is an exercise in futility. At this point, those 3D printed parts are held in place with hot melt glue. The main 8″ piece gets a dab in all four corners and the dividers get a bead along both edges. That rechargeable hot melt glue gun sure did the trick though!

Close Up of the Form Ready to Pour

The Pour

The directions call for 3 quarts of water for the entire 80# bag. Despite using one of the measuring buckets to dispense three quarts exactly, the mix is too dry. Adding another quart results in a mix that’s still too dry. Not quite another quart and now the mix seems too wet. This time I used the correct (read larger) mixing tub and still manage to spill some of the mix over the edge.

Oh well, I’m more worried about getting it mixed and tamped into the form, which lays across the driveway just outside the gate. About the only place I can put it that’s pretty much level and leave it sit for a few days. Tamping the mix into the form then screeding it off with the same square shovel floats quite a bit of moisture from the mix.

I should mention I liberally sprayed WD-40 over the entire form as a mold release agent before mixing the concrete. Continuing to shovel the mixture into the form until it’s full, the extra goes in the spot along the drive where the old well used to be.

There’s quite the story about having the trees removed from the Barkyard and the crane’s front wheel “falling” into it up to the axle. We filled it in with chunks of the trees and old scrap concrete and whatever was available at the time, but over time it’s slowly settled, leaving a void beneath the edge of the drive.

The Cure

I think my phone is messing with me. I’m pretty sure I took pictures of the pour right after and the next day. Guess what? No pictures! GRRR!!! Looks like I need to get in the habit of checking afterward. Seems like this isn’t the first time it’s happened either. Guess I’ll have to describe what I saw…

Just hours after the pour, the edges had shrunken back from the sides of the form already! That seems odd. It’s definitely unexpected. The next morning, I noticed thin cracks had formed above the divider locations. At first I was worried they didn’t stand quite as tall as the 1×4 sides, but figured the stress on the small amount of concrete would make it easy to split the bricks apart anyway.

Removing one of the sides of the form later in the day, I noticed the concrete itself was still quite crumbly, more unexpected oddness. I did expect where the concrete seeped through the cracks would be weak, but not the entire brick. When the brick on the end started to crack and split into pieces trying to remove it from the form, it was decided to use a different approach.

Perhaps just rolling the entire form over with the other 1×4 side still attached would give them more support and aid in removing the entire form all at once. Considering how some of the dividers stayed with the wood and tried to pull the bricks alongside with them, that was probably a mistake too.

All in all, nine of the twelve bricks survived the rough handling. Two of them pretty much crumbled when exposed to any sort of stress. Another split along the entire length at the edge of the well. The “crumbles” got thrown in the spot along the drive where the old well used to be on top of the extra concrete.

The Nine Survivors out of Twelve

The Result

While 100% perfection was not the expectation the first time through, a 75% yield of lesser quality, low strength bricks is less than pleasing. Worries that too much water was used soon turned into questioning whether not enough water was added, leaving the mix dry and crumbly.

If you’ve ever seen one of those videos where they compare the strength of “dry cast” concrete, tamped in the forms dry, then wet afterward, to casting already mixed wet concrete, the bricks had the strength of the dry cast method. Hopefully it’s as simple as that, mix it “soupy” next time and compare the results.

Perhaps a slump test would prove more useful, but it’s easier to just measure out the same amount of water per 80# batch and go with that. Once the magical amount is known that is. Nick says mix it soupy, so soupy it is for the next round.

The dividers sticking is another issue to be dealt with. A redesign may be in order both to help better align them without the need for tools and to eliminate the need to hot glue them in place at all. Aligning the divider angle within the accuracy of even a few degrees is difficult without some sort of alignment tool.

Hot melt glue is the quick and dirty method of “loosely” assembling the mold parts into the forms. There were a few that had too much hot melt and refused to let go. Clean up is a pain too. Normally the blobs of hot melt will pop right off with a bit of persuasion. Too much persuasion for wet fingernails!

Crumbling Lengthwise Split at the Well

The Comparison

As far as the amount of work involved, the most work is mixing up the concrete by hand with a shovel, but that much is required using either method. Let’s compare the two methods, which takes more work, and the pitfalls of each, starting with the trial version first.

By far the method involving the most work is setting the forms in the ground and screeding the profile into the wet concrete. It takes days just to get everything formed proper and level for pouring. If the mix is too dry, we know using a screed tool won’t work, it needs to be a trowel. And that trowel’s a guess since it hasn’t been tried. If the mix is too wet, the profile will slump regardless of what method is used to create it.

Using the casting molds approach is much simpler to prepare for pouring, using a dab of hot melt glue on each of the four corners to hold the mold to the 2×6 form base. A couple more dabs of hot melt to hold the dividers in place and we’re off to the races. The best part is the only screeding required is to level the top of concrete with the sides of the form.

As far as pitfalls, the formed in the ground method is almost as much of a pain to disassemble and it was to assemble. The form slats are held to the stakes by one small brass screw, removed one at a time, the same way they went in. Granted, disassembly can be accomplished in hours compared to days to assemble. At three days for every ten feet of right of way, it will take forever to finish.

For the brick molds, it takes a few hours to clean them up too, washing away the remaining concrete residue and removing all those hot melt globs. Those raised letters are nearly impossible to read. Vibrating the form may have helped alleviate some of the small voids and filled in around the letters more, but just working the mix into the form with the shovel did a pretty good job otherwise.

Cleaned Mold Parts Ready for Reassembly

Next Steps

The advantage goes to the brick mold. Those parts can be turned around and assembled into a form ready to reuse in about an hour. The first thing to try is a wetter mix, perhaps even vibrating the form too. If that fixes the voids and the strength issues, then maybe a few tweaks on the dividers. It would be nice if they were thicker and snapped in place instead of needing hot glued.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Lighting Gadget

Another lighting gadget? Why? Because it’s necessary. If you’ve read the post about the office refit, you’ll know why “Data Central” needed a new lighting gadget. If not, let’s get you up to speed. Recently the office got a “facelift”. To be more precise, many of the issues with the office arrangement were addressed. In fact, this new gadget addresses an issue that way caused by the refit.

We added a new shelf over the monitors on the desk. Those monitors shared space with lamps hidden behind them. The lamps shone upward and bathed the white ceiling with light, then reflected and scattered back into the room, softly illuminating it. That is, until the shelf effectively covered them.

Well, it didn’t exactly cover the lamps, but it effectively blocked their light from doing anything but backlighting the monitors. And the monitors don’t need backlighting. The overhead light on the ceiling fan is too bright. The LED fixture over the gadget bench is WAY TOO BRIGHT. Now what? We need a new light.

Inspired by my latest lighting adventures controlling lithophanes, I decided to dig out those LED strip corner frames I bought years ago to use for the train station lighting. The train station we no longer have, lost when we removed the raised bed planters along the patio. Anyway, the idea is to place the corner frame along the back of the shelf over the monitors, facing toward the ceiling and out into the office.

Those corner frames have a face at 45º to either side, meant for the LED strip to stick to, and a snap in diffuser over top of it all. While I didn’t really need the scheduling additions from the lithophane lighting sketch, I did want all the updates and bug fixes that came with it. I also expanded the “build from config” feature to get us closer to not having to create a dedicated HTML page just to control all the different lighting arrangements.

ESP32 Arduino Testing LED Strip

Designing The Fixture

The picture shows the ESP32 I’m using to test the sketch, connected to the first 55 of 110 LEDs. The shelf is 72″ long, so I cut two of the meter long (39.36″) frames and diffusers to 36″ each. The plan is to connect the two at the middle to make a 72″ long fixture of sorts. But to do that I’ll need to design some sort of end caps that emulate those that come with the frames.

At full intensity those 110 LEDs will consume 60mA * 110. That’s 6.6A! I don’t think even the powered USB 3 hub will handle that much current. Time to order a dedicated power supply for this project. All I can find is 6A and 8A, but the 6A version will take too long to get here, so I go with the 8A version. It may be a bit overkill, but I’d rather have too much than not enough.

The frame extrusion is hollow behind that 45º face so the plan is to power one end and run the wiring through that hollow space to the middle to evenly distribute power between the two halves. The difficult part is trying to shoehorn an Arduino as well as the power connector into the smallest box at one end.

LED Strip Illuminated Running “Flicker” Effect

Baby Steps

Sounds easy, right? Let’s start with copying the end “stopper” to get the dimensions correct. It takes a few tries, but eventually the part snaps right into the end of the extrusion. From there, it’s a new design to snap over the extrusion rather than snap into the extrusion. The reason is original has a long “snout” that fills the hollow space we want to run the power wires through.

We need the snap over design to provide a “window” for the wires to pass through where the original snout would be in the way. That much is a no brainer, but it still take a second try to get it right. The next step is to figure out how to reduce the size of those “default” 3 pin connectors. For the life of me I cannot find a name for those standard black connectors.

But it doesn’t matter because they’re too big to use anyway. One of the JST connector styles in one of those assortments may work. Turns out an XH3 works just fine. Three pins on tenth inch (2.54mm) centers. Add that to the cap design, one opening for the power lines and one for the XH3 connector. We’ll need one on the power supply end and two for the connection between the two halves.

Making It Fit

Now all we need is some sort of box to house the power connector and the Arduino. The ESP32 we’re using is too big and way overkill for what we need it for. Even the ESP8266s we normally use is too big. One of the WeMos D1s ought to work. It’s the smallest we have that still uses the ESP8266 core.

Starting with the power connector for initial dimensions, the design is just the box with a hole in it for the connector. It takes two tries just to get the dimensions of that hole correct. Rather than design some elaborate attachment scheme, it’s assumed the control box will be glued to the end cap. For now the goal is to fit everything inside the box.

Shoehorning the Arduino in there pushes the dimensions a bit larger than desired, but it’s still roughly a ½” deep by a little more than the dimensions of the WeMos D1. Why ½” deep? Because there’s not much more space left between the wall and the doorframe to fit anything else. After capping the shelf with ¼” thick screen mold, it’s already 72½” long anyway.

End Cap and Control Box Design

That much is done. Now we need to modify the design to add a snap on lid that we’ll glue to the end cap to keep everything attached to the end of the fixture. The snap effect is decisive and holds tighter than the end cap snapping over the end of the fixture. Considering that control box will rest up against the wall that shouldn’t be an issue.

Not shown is the access port for the USB micro connector on the Arduino. It serves two purposes, the first of which should be obvious, programming access. But the real reason there’s an access port at all is to help align the Arduino and keep in in place as well as reducing the overall length of the box since the connector extends beyond the edge of the circuit board. It’s a small amount, but not negligible.

Joining The Fixtures

Seems like this should be the easiest to do, after all, we’re just sticking them together, right? At first I was thinking just a pair of connectors, one on each end, and maybe some sort of back to back plugs to connect the sockets together. That went out the window with how much the connectors would extend past the end.

The next idea is to allow a single connector from one end to extend through the opening in both and a plug with a short pigtail from the other end to connect them. The only concern now is how short of a pigtail and will it interfere with any of the LEDs. Sounds good. Until considering the power leads, or rather, failing to consider them.

Rather than take the time to drill holes in the aluminum extrusion, it’s quicker to just drill a couple holes in the 3D printed plastic end cap, then loop the wires from the bottom hollow section up and through the holes to solder them to the power traces on the LED strip. There are copper “pads” every LED, so the connector will solder to the pads at the end of the strip and the power wires to the next set of pads.

Adding The Controller

It’s a bit of a hack, but it works. With all the wiring work done for connecting the two fixtures together as one, it’s time get to work on the controller end. Time to “ohm out” how these fine Chinesium power jacks work. Three terminal, only need two, but which? There’s usually a set of switched contacts that provide continuity until contact is broken by inserting the power plug. Then only one of them is in contact with the plug, breaking the connection with other.

Generally the power connection would be switched, but in this arrangement, it’s actually the ground. Tip is power, ring or shroud is ground. Before all that, the lid needs glued to the end cap. Then the power lines can be run through the opening in both and soldered to the power jack. The jack can then be mounted to the control block, passing the wires through the lid unit.

That leaves the connection to the Arduino. And that means crimping the pins for the plug of the “harness” to the Arduino. Unfortunately, the crimper is loaned out. There’s a “backup crimper” that sort of works, but just as many pins are wasted as there are good crimps. There isn’t room for pin headers to be soldered to the Arduino, so the harness wires are soldered directly to it.

First Test of Assembled Lighting Fixture

The sketch is already loaded on the Arduino and it’s ready to go! The Arduino fit in its space, plugged in, and the box snapped on, all that remains is to plug in the power supply and wait for everything to come to life… And it does! WooHoo! Just had to try changing effect right off the bat. Christmas TruTone® effect, complete with blinking! Looking good!

Now to see if everything will fit on the new shelf over the monitors and continue to work. A few last minute tweaks to the sketch, including setting up the config for a warmish white. Well, try as I might, these LED strips are the finest quality Chinesium and it shows. There is just no way to make these things look warm. It’s either that pinkish “grow light” white or a harsh blue white, but at least it’s ready to deploy to the shelf.

Well, at least it’s sitting on the shelf and operational. Fully deployed would mean clips attached to the shelf or the wall to snap the fixtures into. And that sounds too much like work at this point. We’ll save that for later since the shelf will be taken down to stain and finish in the near future. It makes more sense to wait and do it then, if at all.

If anything needs done, it’s adjusting the brightness and tone of the light to match the desired lighting for the room, and that takes some doing. These LED strips probably weren’t the best choice. The red power and green power don’t seem to balance out to a warm yellow or amber. It’s either way too green or way too pink, with no happy medium between the two.

New Lighting Fixture Deployed on Shelf

Future Changes

Having spent hours trying already, it’s time to look for a better LED strip. If anything, those LED strips need swapped out with some quality Alitove strips. The problem is there are so many different “brands” available, most of which are cheap knockoffs, that it’s difficult to know what you’re buying beforehand. Paying for quality counts.

There seems to be a bug with the power button in the UI as well. It works fine after short delays up to hours, but overnight it somehow only enables the red of the first pixel. Turn it off then back on again and everything’s fine. Must be something in the loop handler for the power, or the effect, or both. For now, it works well enough to use as office lighting.

I’d really like to finish the “build from config” feature to get get away from having to create a dedicated HTML page for every gadget that has to address every minute detail of controlling it. There’s really no way to avoid having a dedicated page though. For example, favicons will differ along with files included based on what is being controlled.

But automating the control portion of the page based on configuration and what is being controlled will save plenty of time

New Office “Grow Light” White Lighting

If anything else is lacking it’s an Amazon Alexa interface. A quick and dirty way to enable that would be to just plug the power supply itself into a already Alexa compatible smart outlet. Eventually I’ll figure out what it takes to add that to the Arduino sketch. More like once there aren’t so many other pressing issues on the Barkyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Office Refit

This post is a bit off the beaten path compared to other posts about the Barkyard itself. Why a post about the office? We’re refitting “Data Central”, the heart of Barkyard designs, gadgets, and posting of course! Just about everything associated with the Barkyard starts here in Data Central. An idea starts here and grows here. Whether it’s online research or Arduino coding, it all starts here.

What used to be drawn up with pencil and paper is now captured electronically, and has been for years now, decades even. And over those years, the applications used have changed, many so old they are no longer supported by modern operating systems. For example, while my favorite Windows 95/98 programs continued to run on Windows XP, they absolutely will not run on Windows 10 or 11.

What does all this computer speak have to do with refitting the office? Everything. Within reach of my office chair are two servers and three laptops. The two servers share physical keyboard, mouse, display, and USB devices via a KVM switch. While not really necessary, it certainly comes in handy when we can’t reach the Internet for whatever reason, when I can’t use Chrome Remote Desktop to access the other server.

The Start of Good Things To Come

Computers Are Great… When They Work!

These posts are created on the new computer, with a brief hiatus while the failed boot drive was replaced. Short version is just before the year warranty ran out, the 2TB SSD failed miserably and the computer refused to boot. I put in a warranty claim, then waited months before I was finally able to talk to someone who cared, and he express shipped a replacement SSD to me.

What’s the kicker? By the time the normal warranty chain played out, they ended up sending me another replacement SSD a few weeks later! As much as I complained about their cumbersome and exasperating support process, or lack thereof, it serves as a striking example of how not to do things. But it paid off for me in the end! I’m still chuckling about it.

Whether designing a new gadget or coding a new Arduino sketch or writing a new post or just plain research for the Barkyard, computers are a vital part of it. The older server provides large data storage and backup, both for applications and data. The new server is optimized to compose and render videos, perform CAD/CAM, and provide enough local storage to save all the collective research.

A Bit of History

There are two work cells, one devoted to personal servers, the other a gadget work cell “around the corner” from the first, now shared with work computing. That’s where the laptops come into play. When I started back to work more than two years ago, I needed another computer work space, separate from my personal computing space, for the work laptop and its associated devices and monitors.

The original gadget workspace was a set of cabinets, one 42″ and one 36″, that supported a ¾” cabinet grade plywood top. The 42″ cabinet forms an “L” with two more 36″ cabinets along the back wall facing the Barkyard. All in all, it’s a Galley style arrangement when the computer desk is added along the opposite wall.

I wasn’t pleased I had to share my gadget assembly and testing area with my work computing. Work by day and projects by night? Sounds good until there’s a project laid out that can’t be put “back in the box” the next morning when booting the computer and getting back to work. At least it pays the bills.

Preparing to Install the Split Unit

Original Rework

The makeshift computer work cell using the original 42″ cabinet was not optimized for computing. For that matter, it wasn’t meant for computing at all. The cabinet sat on the floor, which runs downhill toward the back wall. Originally this was the sleeping porch, now closed in and under air. In fact, it has it’s own dedicated split unit now to handle all the heat those computers and printers throw off. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

About the only thing that can be said is it’s level so things don’t roll off it. It’s home to all sorts of electronics and parts assortments and Arduino kits, haphazardly arranged on a custom shelf arrangement that was previously meant to store CD jewel cases. Thankfully the top shelf is just wide enough to hold up another set of monitors.

It doesn’t take long to realize that not only is it not optimized for computing, it’s in no way ergonomic either. The pain in my back, through my hip, and down the side of my leg is telling me something has to change. Assuming it’s constantly fighting that tendency to roll downhill since the pain is on that side. Of course, having to keep my feet up in that cabinet probably doesn’t help.

That 42″ cabinet has to go. Go where? Out. It doesn’t matter where. But that doesn’t help fix the downhill slope of the floor. The plan is to lay down a 4×4 sheet of ¾” plywood, strategically supported to keep it level. The only problem is that 36″ cabinet, but there’s nowhere for it to go. Now what? There’s just enough space to push those other 36″ cabinets along the back wall far enough to spin that 36″ cabinet around and inline with the other two.

Long story short, the floor is now a level sheet of plywood with a nice rug to cover it and the gadget workspace is now a dedicated counter supported by a set of custom brackets. Custom brackets that used to support my HO scale layout at the old house, sitting in the garage waiting to be useful again nearly as long as we’ve lived here.

Data Central Two Years Ago

The Problem

Well, there’s more than one problem, but the main problem now is the haphazard arrangement of everything in relation to everything else. There are five 27″ monitors, and no two sets of them are at the same height. The two monitors dedicated to personal computing are at just the right height off the desk, sitting atop its “Pidgeon hole” cabinet, roughly 9″ at the base. The middle of the screen is just at eye level. No neck strain.

The base of the single monitor dedicated to the surveillance system sits right on the gadget counter, but that sits about 3″ lower than the desk, about 12″ lower than the first set of monitors. And even though that counter is lower, the custom shelf arrangement holds the base of the two monitors dedicated to the work laptop at a good 6″ – 7″ higher than the personal computing set.

As if that isn’t goofy enough, the counter isn’t long enough to complete the “L” with the desk, so there’s a gaping 20″ chasm between the wall and the edge of the counter. That monitor for the surveillance system teeters precariously over the edge and the USB hub sitting next to it is always falling into the abyss. What should be a Galley style arrangement isn’t. The issue is the metal and glass shelving unit that promised to be more useful than it turned out to be. All it does is collect dust and it needs to go away too.

Another problem is the loss of storage space with the loss of that 42″ cabinet. To that end a drawer was added under the counter and between the custom brackets. But because it wasn’t well thought out when installed originally, a compromise was made. More like a complex set of pieces were needed to force the drawer and slides to fit, even after it was cut down from its original wider size. Between that and constantly banging my knees against it, that will need to be addressed as well.

The Solution

The solution to these problems and more is a refit. That is to say a retrofit to re-fit everything together in a more purposeful, organized fashion. I’ve been updating my office layout in SketchUp, mainly to try some “what ifs” without having to tear everything apart to test fit ideas. It definitely helped me figure out where that 42″ cabinet would fit, along with the rest of everything else.

I’m not going to lie. Part of that effort was to catalog and look at some “what ifs” for placing the old HO scale layout sections in a bookshelf layout arrangement, fitting and reusing the various shapes and pieces of ½” plywood sub base that’s been waiting to become useful again along with those custom brackets. But that’s on hold for now. More pressing matters to address.

More pressing matters like continually deteriorating infrastructure and soon to be installed fiber service. That’s right, it’s finally here. Nearly twenty years after we were originally promised fiber at the old house, and by the same company no less! It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that until their trucks showed up out front or I would have told them to pound sand! But that’s another story for another time.

Not that we were unhappy with our service provider, 250MB per second download speeds are nothing to sneeze at, but we’re lucky to get 10MB – 12MB per second upload speeds. The one and only time we tried to go live failed miserably because of those limited upload speeds. With fiber we can speed less and get more, like 1GB per second down and up! In fact, we can cut our costs further by going with the 500MB per second plan.

Before Slicing and Dicing
After Slicing and Dicing
Plywood Sheet Conveniently Cut Into Shelves

The Refit

That’s the motivation for the refit, and the motivation to get the refit done now, before they come to install the fiber. So what exactly is the refit? Good question. Glad you asked. To boil it down into its most condensed form, it’s slicing up a 4×8 sheet of ¾” furniture grade plywood into dedicated shelving that solves all the disparities already listed.

  • A new counter section that not only fills the missing gap, but also adjusts the height and solves the constant knee banging.
  • A new shelf to align all the monitors at the same eye level height along with increased storage space.
  • A new shelf along the wall over the personal computing and surveillance system monitors for more storage space.

It begins with the shelf over the monitors so there’s someplace to put the Gramazon, and the track and rail cars sitting on top of the work monitors, and anything else that needs a temporary home while fitting the new counter and the other shelf. The shelves are cut 12″ deep for the 8′ length of the sheet. That leaves the remaining 24″ for the new counter. All that remains is fitting to length and capping with screen mold for a clean, finished look.

“Hidden L” Brackets

Originally I was going to make custom wooden brackets for the shelves but the more pressing need to finish before the fiber is installed put an end to that idea. Looking at various options online, I came across the “Hidden L” arrangement. Essentially a thick, flat piece of metal with an attached mounting bracket at a right angle that is partially hidden by the shelf it supports. My only concern is how much they’ll sag under load.

The Rethink

The shelf for over the monitors is shortened to 6′ to fit the available space between the wall and the door frame. Then the screen mold is glued and brad nailed into place. Finally the piece is sanded smooth and ready for placement. After attaching the brackets to the wall at every stud, 16″ on center, the shelf is set in place. I can pull the shelf down at least ½” applying a lot of force. Even though they’re rated for 100#, I imagine I could bend or break the brackets if I hung my full weight on them.

I’m pleased with the fitment and the resilience of the brackets but soon realize I forgot to cut the angled notch out of the corner for cord relief. No matter, there’s enough clearance on either end that only the fattest power cord wouldn’t fit. Considering the only power cord so far is for the amazon dot and it could fit in the space between the bracket mount and the back edge of the shelf, roughly 0.2″ thick, it’s not a big deal.

The New Counter and Monitor Shelves Waiting For Trim In The Garage

The office isn’t quite 8′ wide, roughly 90½” from the inside wall to the outside wall. The original plan was to place the counter from wall to wall with those 36″ cabinets lifted and levelled to match, mainly to allow access to the floor plywood to rework the levelling supports beneath it to firm things up. Best laid plans…

After seeing how the wooden bracket that supports the 3D printer shelf would interfere with the back runner on the cabinet and how much trouble it was trying to maneuver the new counter into place, the plan to make everything level was quickly abandoned. Cutting to fit wall to wall turns out to be a bad idea, an awful idea in fact.

After multiple back and forth trips to trim the length it’s still a bear to get the thing maneuvered into position. Short of nearly standing the thing up just so the corners clear when rotating it into place, it’s nearly impossible to clear what used to be the porch banister, still a major structure on that wall. Add to that the overhang sagging on either side of the custom brackets and we need a new plan.

The Replan

More like we need a replan. We can add another one of those custom brackets on the end by the desk, but we’re out of luck on the end over the 36″ cabinet. The decision is made. The counter will be cut to fit up to but not cover the 36″ cabinet. That is to say we’ll remove 24″ from the 90½” length. We’ll also add that third custom bracket near the inside wall to support the sag on that end.

Next step is to rework the mounts for the drawer slides. Starting with a 1×4 doesn’t give enough clearance for the contents of the drawer. The big offender is the mixer board, stashed there until needed. The idea is to leave it connected and just pull out the drawer when we want to use it. Switching to 1x6s. My knee aren’t smashing into the drawer anymore, just the corners of those 1x6s!

The new shelf for the other monitors is cut to fit wall to wall, which is still a bad idea. After multiple back and forth trips to trim the length it finally fits. The biggest issue this time is it deviates from the plan and there’s not quite enough space for the surveillance system monitor in its planned position.

New Counter and Monitor Shelf, Complete With Third Starship Liftoff!

The picture above shows the halfway point so to speak. This is the work laptop setup. On the left in the foreground, glowing green, is the new power supply for the audio amplifier. Behind that is the surveillance system, it’s PoE ethernet switch for the cameras, and the battery backup (UPS) for those and the amp. The monitors and the laptop itself have their own dedicated battery backup (off screen to the right).

The keyboard and mouse sit atop a piece of 1×6 that spans the front of the drawer and acts as a keyboard shelf. The dedicated microphone and audio amplifier for the associated speakers is visible on the right, left speaker visible on shelf to left. The surveillance system monitor has been relocated to the right side of the work monitors. Regardless of its placement, the work monitors must shift one direction or the other. Time to go back to plan.

The original plan calls for a “round the corner” fitment for the shelf on the left end, pretty much where the left speaker and Gramazon are sitting. What’s a Gramazon? Good question. Glad you asked. See that blue thing there that looks like a gramophone? The base contains my Amazon Dot 3 and the gramophone part guides sound to and from it. It’s one of the first 3D prints I made, starting with one for Ann’s Dot 2.

“Around The Corner” Shelf And New Fiber Modem/Router

Time’s Up

Because they had to locate the utilities, pull the permits, and trench in the new fiber before they could connect us, it gave us a bit of a reprieve of maybe a week or so. The picture above shows we’re still working on getting the refit finished. It didn’t stop the installation or even slow it down. Having to go through three different fiber modems set us back more than our refit, still in progress, but at least they figured out what was wrong with their system and fixed it.

You can see the fiber modem/router in the picture above, white case with a green light. I dressed out the ethernet cables from the surveillance cameras using short lengths of Velcro® looped around on itself, and the excess length coiled beneath the fiber modem. To the right of that and under the square chunk of shelf is the surveillance system (NVR) and the PoE switch to manage all the connections.

At least this time I remembered to cut the cable relief in the back corner of the shelf. Still missing is the planned angled cut on the front corner facing out of the picture. The plan called for an 18″ square piece with a 6″ triangular relief cut from the front corner. That plan was modified to avoid having to move the shelf bracket. So 16½” it is. Hopefully that will provide enough space for the surveillance system monitor to sit above it.

Installation Finished

Both the fiber modem and office refit are installed and we’re happy with both. It certainly took some doing though. What started with dropping the Internet connection a few times a day turned into swapping modems twice, each time getting worse, not better. The last attempt and we had maybe ten minutes of connection before dropping again. Totally unacceptable! Now I’m wondering if we haven’t allowed the same company to totally screw up our Internet once again.

Both Ann and I have 100% remote jobs that require a reliable Internet connection. At least Ann has an Air Card supplied with her work laptop. Me? Not so much. I had to tether through my phone until they fixed it! They had to replace some “filter” downtown at the office just blocks away from us. This played out over the course of a week or more.

I must admit, now that it’s working reliably, 540MB per second speeds both down and up is really much better than we had before. Maybe we’ll try one of those livestreams again to really test it out. It certainly was a distraction from more pressing issues, not to mention the extra stress of having to deal with it at all. Now back to the matter at hand, the refit.

Refit Installed, Monitor Shelf and Counter Shown

A place for everything and everything in its place is the ultimate goal for the refit now that the new counter and shelves are installed. Even the idea of hanging the battery backups from the underside of the monitor shelf panned out. Most of the project “pencil boxes” are back where they sat on the counter, but all the parts kits and such are still sitting in a large tub in the corner of the office, their place yet to be determined.

The picture shows one of the benefits of having a second computer space for laptops. That’s my personal laptop, but it can share the same docking station that came with my work laptop. Convenient. Very convenient. Both are ThinkPads, but my personal one has the super sized screen, which is why it’s folded down to fit on the counter. I do like having three screens for sure.

As an aside, the Windows 11 driver for the CH340 serial controller doesn’t work, but the Windows 10 version does. You’ll never guess what’s running on the new computer. Good thing I can connect the laptop and have it talk to the Arduinos that use that CH340 chip! In fact, that’s pretty much what’s going on in the picture.

New Gadgets

Speaking of Arduinos, the refit inspired a new gadget. A new lighting gadget. You can see the first cut at it above running the “Christmas Tru-Tone™” effect. A little setup first might help. The monitors aren’t the only things sitting on the desk “Pidgeon hole” cabinet. Behind the monitors at each end of the desk are a set of lamps. Those lamps have Amazon Alexa compatible smart plugs attached so I can say, “Alexa, turn on Office 1” and the lamp on the left will light.

Convenient. Much more convenient than having to run the lamp cord by hand just to find the inline switch every time I want to turn one on or off. Unfortunately, the new shelf over the monitors on the desk blocks the light from the lamps. What used to illuminate the white ceiling and cast light throughout the office now provides just a backlight to the monitors. An unwanted backlight. We need something to replace the light we lost.

Inspired by my latest lighting adventures for controlling the lithophanes, I decided to dig out those LED strip corner frames I bought years ago to use for the train station lighting. The train station we no longer have, lost when we removed the raised bed planters along the patio. Anyway, the idea is to place the corner frame along the back of the shelf over the monitors, facing toward the ceiling and out into the office.

Those corner frames have a face at 45º to either side, meant for the LED strip to stick to, and a snap in diffuser over top of it all. While I didn’t really need the scheduling additions from the lithophane lighting sketch, I did want all the updates and bug fixes that came with it. I also expanded the “build from config” feature to get us closer to not having to create a dedicated HTML page just to control all the different lighting arrangements.

I’ll save all the exciting details for a separate post. Suffice it to say that it took some doing, both in hardware and software. The end product does what I want, provide a soft backlit atmosphere for the office, perfect to see what you’re doing but not so bright that I have to squint. This picture shows the shelf over the monitors. You can also see the split unit and the Gramazon on the right.

Let There Be Light! The New Office Lighting Gadget In Operation.

Finishing Touches

If anything remains to be done it would be to apply a finish to the new shelving. I think I’ll save that for when I have a week off of work and can take the counter and monitor shelf offline long enough to stain and finish them. I can take down the shelf over the monitors pretty much anytime I want, but I’ll probably wait and do them all at once. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get motivated to stain, finish, and level those 36″ cabinets too!

I may even break this into two parts, seems kind of long winded, even to me. Let me know what you think in the comments.

 

3D Printer Fowl Up

After years of reliable service, our Tevo Tarantula Pro (TTP) finally bit the dust. Well, better to say I pushed it over the edge. After the disappointment of the formed concrete roadbed, we switched gears and starting printing casting molds for roadbed “bricks”, and they were printing like clockwork… Until the nozzle clogged. That’s not the end of the world, we’ve had clogs before, but this time it was the death knell for the hot end.

Without going into a lot of detail, it boils down to the leads to the heating element frayed over time, to the point where they became intermittent. This caused the temperature of the hot end to randomly fluctuate drop below the melting point of the plastic filament. Try as I may to replace the clogged nozzle, fiddling with it for more than a week, all I end up doing is snapping off the new replacement nozzle in the hot end.

I manage to extract it, but in my attempt to replace it, all I manage to do is break off the heat break in the hot end. The ensuing attempt to extract the threaded part of it still stuck in the hot end reveals the threads have been damaged from one or the other breaking off in there. Not even a thread chaser will repair the damage I’ve done. I managed to find a replacement hot end kit on Amazon and ordered it.

Totally Irreparable Hot End

Long story short, it appears it was my attempt to install it, leaving the connector inline and not just hard wiring it into the harness is the issue now. It allows way too much electronic noise in the temperature sensing feedback circuitry for stability, causing thermal runaway shutdown. At least that’s my best guess as to what’s going on.

If you have no idea what that means, don’t worry, only tech savvy folks familiar with 3D printing and the associated electronics will. The short answer is the replacement isn’t working the way the control electronics expects it to, meaning the 3D printer is still broken.

A New Hope

Totally frustrated by the inability to 3D print anything, and for weeks now, it’s time to buy a new printer. At the very least look at what’s out there now compared to when I bought the TTP. Not sure if fortune was smiling down, but an ad for a Sunlu S9+ popped up, a Creality CCR10 knockoff. I decided to take a look. I compared it with other printers and could not find anything close to the price. It even includes a filament dryer!

I pulled the trigger and bought it! For little more than I originally paid for the TTP printer I get more print volume. Much more. Where the old TTP was barely able to print 8½”x8½”x9″, the new S9+ can print 12″x12″x15″! It doesn’t sound like much, until you can’t print your design as a single part. The design has to account for that, “breaking” it into pieces, to be assembled together later. How do those pieces get assembled? Snap together? Glue together? Doesn’t matter when you can print a single monolithic part!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Had to wait a few days for it to be shipped, but when it arrived I had to open the box at the very least. Before I can unbox it I have to collect up all the pieces of the old printer and stash them out of the way until I can get back to fiddling with it. Now there’s space for the new one and boy is it well packed! Man is this thing is sweet! It’s practically ready to print right out of the box!

Not Quite Ready To Print

Some Assembly Required

As you can see from the picture, the printer isn’t quite “turn-key”, but all that remains is to attach the Z axis portion (right) to the base (left). The base portion contains the controller, power supply, heated print bed, and touch panel display. The Z axis portion contains the dual stepper drive motors, the X axis “bridge” and stepper drive motor, and the print head with hot end and cooling fans. To connect the two, only three screws per side are required to attach them. Once those zip ties are cut that is.

Z Axis Attached

The Z axis stands nearly as tall as the wooden closet rod that holds my spools of filament, but thankfully just fits beneath it. Once I rotate it so that the sag over time is now pointing upward that is. All that remains is attaching the support rods on either side to keep the Z axis rigid and aligned. A few more screws and everything’s ready to go!

Well, after I figure out how to tell Octoprint how to talk to the new printer and configure the Cura slicer for it everything’s ready to go. Turns out since the S9+ is a CCR10 knockoff, I can just tell everything that’s what it is and it just works! Like I said, this thing is sweet!

Ready To Print!

Finding Out The Hard Way

If I give this deal any dings, it going to be the filament dryer. It’s one of their first generation models and has a “pigtail” harness connection into the side of the printer base. I should have saved myself the extra money and bought one of their next generation dryers like I already have. The paired version must be commanded on via the printer front panel, which sits in the back right corner facing to the right, and it’s difficult to get to.

The shelf is just wide enough for the printer to sit sideways, and must be placed like that because there’s not enough space with the front panel facing out for the bed to travel back and forth without hitting the wall and window frame. I knew this when I bought it. The only thing I didn’t know was the filament sensor and extruder must be fed from the side that’s facing out, not from behind.

If you look closely you’ll see a set of miniature roller bearings, one above and one below the opening for the filament, meant to guide the filament up or down depending on the height of the X axis bridge. It doesn’t do much to guide the filament fed from the side. Coupled with my decision to try out their miniature sample spool of filament, I soon discovered how light and unstable the filament dryer is, ready to throw it across the room after it falling and having to catch it for the umpteenth time! Good thing it’s tethered to the printer!

Printing Roadbed “Brick” Mold Parts

And We’re Printing

All that aside, we’re printing again! That’s all that matters now. We were on our way to casting roadbed “bricks” until the old TTP died. We’re back in business and printing them again. You can see from the picture there are three parts to the brick mold. There is a single “U” shaped channel in the middle that serves as a “well” for the track to sit in, and two sides that are mirror image ballast profiles that “cradle” the track.

These parts need fastened together into a single unit. We have an assembly jig designed and ready to print. In fact, it was the very next print job when the old TTP failed. It was the first print job once the new S9+ was ready to go. The jig is also three parts, identical, and ½” wide with the proper shape to hold the brick mold parts together for gluing on both ends and in the middle.

These brick molds are 8″ in length and roughly 5½” wide, and there are a number of reasons for these dimensions. The 5½” is easy, it’s the width of a 2×6. The 8″ dimension was mainly the limitation of the print volume of the old TTP, but that’s not the only reason. For 1:24 scale, 8″ is a scale 16′, the distance between the trestle bents for our trestles. It’s also a convenient length for making curved sections.

For example, a 10′ diameter curved section of track is approximately 32″ long, or four 8″ segments. Same for a 14′ diameter curved section of track. The only difference is the 10′ diameter track needs only 12 pieces (30° each) to complete a circle where the 14′ diameter track requires 16 (22.5° each). The 20′ diameter curved sections are just shy of 48″ long or six 8″ segments. Overall a very convenient arrangement.

Roadbed “Brick” Casting Molds

Fine Tuning

Believe it or not, this thing is already tuned as close as anything off the shelf could be. Everything is pretty much spot on! About the only thing I need to adjust is the extrusion multiplier. The default of 100.00 needed increased slightly to 102.30. Also needed to fine tune the X and Y home offsets slightly, only off by ¼” at most in the X and a miniscule amount for Y. Other than that, Z offset is spot on. PID temperature control for both the bed and hot end are spot on.

I did end up ordering a couple different flexible PEI print sheets. The “factory default” sheet is about the stickiest I’ve ever encountered. They even provide a metal putty knife to pry the prints off of it! This thing is wicked! If I ever run into a print that absolutely refuses to stick, I’ll use this thing! Otherwise, the textured PEI sheet does nicely. I have yet to print anything that won’t stick to it. And I have yet to have any print fail to release after cooling off. In fact, if the print doesn’t just slide off, I just need to flex the sheet a bit and it pops right off.

As I said before, this thing is SWEET! I couldn’t ask for better. And the price was right!