Model Railroading > Semaphore Selfie

I've been working on a snub circuit for the blades to mimic the air buffers on the semaphore mechanisms after Boilingman posted a few videos of Fubar Flats, you can do a search for these and pics of this industrial switching layout. After working on the real thing, these buffers came in all conditions of worn out. some blades simply hit the stop without any buff, even though the needle valve was screwed all the way in. Others would run up against the air in the cylinder and float to the stop. So, after adding an additional timer circuit into the stop circuit with the relay adjusted to pick up after about 3 seconds from the time the home relay drops, I get the "snub" effect in the blade. How this works is when the Home or Distant relay on a particular signal circuit drops, the stop voltage of 4 volts is applied to the Tortoise machine. After the snub timer picks up, 2.6 volts is applied. This give the effect of the buffer slowing the blade. Clearing voltage is 3 volts. Slow but effective.

Note--no idea why the video is sideways, didn't start that way and was shot landscape not porterate.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/18 00:11 by SP4360.

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Pic 1 New snub circuits on the upper right.
Pic 2. Voltage regulators for signal, switches and panel indicators.
Pic 3. New centralized power supplies. I eliminated several wall warts and individual power supplies with these.

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Interesting . Very nice style B semaphores. Could we see them in stronger light ?

That is really fantastic. Movement could not be more realistic. Love the semaphores. I have them on my layout but they move via armstrong power.

Tom

You must be an electrical engineer.What beautiful and neat
wiring.It boggles my mind.

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

retcsxcfm Wrote:
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> You must be an electrical engineer.What beautiful
> and neat
> wiring.It boggles my mind.
>
> Uncle Joe
> Seffner,Fl.

Just a retired signal maintainer putting 38 years to some 1:87 use. It's fun figuring out how to convert mechanical workings of a semaphore with nothing but time relays.
Thanks for the compliment.

retcsxcfm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You must be an electrical engineer.What beautiful
> and neat
> wiring.It boggles my mind.
>
> Uncle Joe
> Seffner,Fl.

That wiring is a work of art!

Nathan

Hey PD- this video looks far better here than the text version you sent me.
That’s both very cool and hilarious! Nice job.
SR

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Hey PD- this video looks far better here than the
> text version you sent me.
> That’s both very cool and hilarious! Nice job.
>
> SR

Still don't know why TO's software decided to turn it sideways, it looks fine on the home screen.

I think TO has software that  (wrongly, and not very well)  tries to correct lower quadrants.
SR

Just a guess.

What brand are the voltage regulators?
Thanks - Mark
 

Casselton Wrote:
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> What brand are the voltage regulators?
> Thanks - Mark
>  

They are unbranded Model LM2596 DC-DC converters from China on that auction site.

That's super cool.