*Warning* Stupid newbie model assembly question time! When you (all) assemble the a model building's walls together, what do you use to get/keep the corners square while gluing, so you don't end up with a parallelogram instead of a rectangle? I'm thinking about one of those metal trays with square sides and magnetic squares to hold the model walls in place, square to each other & to the floor. In woodworking, I measure the diagonals of a box, etc., and adjust the clamps if necessary to make them match. That doesn't seem like it would scale down to N that well... What say you all?
@BigJake: In the rare event that there isn't a foundation to keep the walls where they need to be when gluing I use welding magnets and very small rare earth magnets (~1/8" discs) to hold walls in place and in square while drying. In the case of my current project there is a foundation with tabs already so no need for squaring this time.
I lifted a handful of Lego blocks from the kids toys we keep handy for the grand kids. I made a 3"x2" 'L' 4 blocks high.. I can break it down to one Lego block each side if need be. If nothing else....Lego's are absolutely square or rectangular. Generally speaking whatever 'glue' used sets pretty quick. I use super glue most times. I can hold the sides of a project flat against 2 sides for a short time and remove the Lego 'L' and everything stays put. Just my cheapskate way of doing it.
I saw a kitbashing video on YouTube once (can’t recall the name of video or poster) and the guy used Lego bricks-glued them in corners inside structures to keep them square, and used them as bracing and supports for the structures wall and sides as well. So they were permanently attached. It seemed expensive to me, but the guy said he bought them used and cheap-not actual Lego kits but bags of blocks. So you could do that, too, if you’re not worried about detailing an interior or if the corner in question is sufficiently hidden. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have one of these. Well worth the price. Have built many car kits and structures using it. I have added a couple of different sized button/rare earth magnets groups to the original issues. Those which come with the tray have proven to be very strong when attached, and can hinder a bit with their size in smaller projects.
This idea intrigues my inner over-thinker! If you have Lego blocks glued into the corners, you could secure matching Lego blocks into the layout surface so that the building can be reliably detached/reattached from the layout for transport, cleaning, etc.
Been working on a couple other projects the last few days... One is a track cleaning loco .... I'll use it mainly to remove dust but from the pads you can see it is doing more than that. I'm hoping to do the No-Ox treatment but miight work on a car with a liquid cleaning pad to pull behind the loco. Would like to do that with the second pad on the loco but haven't come up with a practical way to do that and need to get back to laying track on the layout so that I need a cleaning solution. Also putting a ESU sound decoder into a Kato E9. Got the pocket milled yesterday for the speaker/enclosure but also wanted to have a keep-alive installed. Came up with the following.... .... and will do another one slightly different today after laying awake from 2 to 4 thinking about it, More on both projects down the line, Sumner
very interesting self powered cleaning rig.. good thinking on that. I use one loco to push a cleaning car ahead of it for dust and pull another behind it as it rolls along before i fire up the rest of the fleet. i have found thats been my best way to clean dust so far. I like the self powered cleaning loco but how do you keep the dust off the front trucks or rear trucks depending on witch way it goes??
Not going to so they are going to have to be cleaned at times. I have a cleaning rig that I can do that on quickly. I was also looking for something that I could run in and out of short sidings easily. Do you have a link to the cars you are using? I'd like to see them for ideas as I would like some options to run ahead and behind also. I've been looking at any that I can find. Sumner
Getting close to done with my cafe. Detail-wise the kit is about as good as it gets with a modeled interior. The kit fits together pretty well but I had to mod a few things to get it there so a little wood working skill on a micro scale is helpful. Some of the instructions part number references are wrong but if you test fit everything first you'll catch it. The Fascia alignment tabs were too tall and had to be trimmed to fit into the wall. Trick was figuring out whether to trim the top or bottom half of the tabs as the receiving holes were only half the height of the fascia tabs. Stickers don't stick that great. Had to fortify with micro scale liquid tape in several places such as the roofing, and brick detail to get them to stay put. The other thing is the sticky backed pieces which are quite gummy. Problem is once you stick them you better get them aligned right to start or they will fight you trying to get them properly aligned if you get them slightly off. Looking at the pics I took I am bothered by a few details that are off kilter a bit. One of the main reasons I am building my structures before the layout is doing it in the reverse order fires up my "hurry up and get there" instinct where I'm less likely to give attention to details like lighting only to regret it later. When I built my coffee table layout in the late 90's chip LEDs were not known to me and not being a fan of grain of wheat lights I went with minimal lighting. About 3 years ago I retrofitted light accessories on the layout and boy was that a PITA. I don't want to do that again. I'd mentioned before I had a Miller Engineering animated cafe sign but due to it's design it won't mount to the building in a manner that is satisfying to what I want the end result to look like. But it really bothers me that the flagpole sign which is on a wood block isn't lighted. So, with some acrylic/lexan scraps I've got and some chip LEDs I'm going to attempt an interior lit sign duplicating the one that is shown in the pics. Whether I create something that is passable remains to be seen but I'm going to give it a shot. This is the lighting I have installed thus far. Projection lights for the side signs were done with 0603 cool white SMD LEDs.
Are there two separate PCB strips running underneath the cap, each soldered to opposite end cap terminations? Generally speaking, large, surface mount capacitors are best soldered to pads on a single PCB (like ISE's Run-N-Smooth PowerKeeper), so they endure as little mechanical stress as possible. Their electrical connection to the capacitive material is not very robust or compliant, and while perhaps unlikely to break off, the terminations are subject to breaking electrical contact with the capacitive material in the cap. I did not see any data from the manufacturer on recommended soldering processes. Some large SMT caps specify reflow-only soldering for this reason, since reflow minimizes differential temperatures and resulting stresses. Soldering with an iron (unless a tweezer) creates large temperature differentials across the package. I would recommend the J-lead package version of this part for hand soldering with an iron, but I don't know if the same capacitance device will fit. The undertab package was developed specifically for its smaller packaging.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4128804 this is the one i use most , but i made a square pare with a kinda round bottom and glue a track rag on it. I also cut a small block of wood to put in it. That works pretty well for shiny tracks. i have dust monkeys as well on a few cars. i have found that i could put just a smidge of no-ox on the pad and drag it around the track a few times and that seems to work pretty good.
Thanks for the input and I wondered myself how to solder these. Didn't really know anything about 'reflow'. Looked it up last night and see that some people are using heat guns and toaster ovens. Doubt I'll try either of those. I do know that a number of decoder installers (some of them have done lots of installs) use these because of the packaging issue (need something really small and compact). I'll have to see if I can find out what they did in regards to soldering. What I did is shown above. I put a small amount of flux on the contacts. Then with a drop of solder on the iron flowed that on. Then tinned the 30awg wire and attached it with another drop of solder to each cap. Was on the cap maybe 1/2 second doing that for each connection. The image above is larger than the real thing if one is viewing this on a computer display. The wires were then soldered to the flexible PCB. I've tested the package and it seems to work taking a charge and holding it on a test (not in the loco). Probably wouldn't pass any commercial tests but considering I probably won't run this loco over maybe a few hours while I own it and I'll be there I guess I'll see what happens . I'm running this with 12v supply that drops to about 11 at the track. Anyone else that wants to follow this should research and decided if they are comfortable with it or not. I would not use these caps on anything over a 12v supply although Iowa Scaled Engineering says they can be used at voltages above that with the protection circuit that is also part of the overall circuit. It is designed to limit the voltage to the caps to 13.25 volts if I understand the circuit. Lots of info on building keep-alive's out there and you can buy the one from Iowa Scaled Engineering for $19 and I have about $8.50 in these so going this route is not a big savings but I like to do things myself if I can. Sumner
Here is some progress on my flagpole sign for the cafe. First off I was able to find a perfect aluminum pipe/pedestal that is maybe just a itty bit smaller than the wood post that came with the kit. It came from/leftover from a 1/24 model car distributor detail up kit. Glad I never chuck things like this. I used PCB drill bits to get the holes in the sides to run the wires. The sign itself is made from a sandwich of 3 lexan layers with the center pane being .040" thick which is just wide enough for 0603 SMD LEDs. I cut into and drilled channels to run the wires for the LEDs so they don't protrude into the perimeter and risk getting shorted by the aluminum frame then scuffed up the lexan sides for better light diffusion and finally glued .010" lexan panels on each side. When that all dried I installed the LEDs so they project up or down through the lexan, UV glued them in place and finally cut up and beveled aluminum strips to go around the outside. The one issue is the LEDs also project intense light from their sides which creates bright spots with the decals so to diffuse/reduce the light at those areas I covered with adhesive mylar used for chrome on model cars. Since the surfaces of the sign aren't perfectly even to get the stickers on nice flat and smooth I cut up some clear packaging to fab panels for the stickers to go on each side which have been attached to the sign but the canopy glue is taking forever to dry as there was a bit of a void to fill so may be a day or so before I can get the stickers on and get it installed on the building. It's a lot of work for such a simple detail but mostly it allowed me to explore possibilities for other lighting projects as I continue to assemble buildings.
Innovative solution to the problem! I don't know if you have any desoldering (or other) copper braid, or stranded wire that would fit on those pads, but they would offer less induction that cancels some of the capacitance at best, and oscillates (rings) at worst. Once upon a time, I saw a guy back-drill through the circuit board and pad, so he could apply a narrow, tapered soldering iron tip to the joint from the back side of the board. Preheating the component and board in an oven would help too. Of course I've also seen lots of hobbyists reflow solder SMT components in toaster ovens. Or just spend the extra $10.50 on the assembled module from ISE.
