Floating Shelf Budget Model Railway Challenge - Part 3 - The Chinese Fat Controllers Arrive

The continuing escapades of building a model railway which fits on a 60cm floating shelf.

Once the track was laid the urge to play with the layout was strong, but I needed power and control.

As is the Budget Model Railway way this comes in the shape of a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) motor controller from eBay.  I found a bevy of them on AliExpress for a mere £2 each.  They come with a potentiometer to control the speed of the loco and a 3 way rocker switch to control the loco's direction (forward - off - back).

Everything is prewired and you just need to screw the wires into the terminal blocks.  This is where the fun begins as there were no instructions on whihc wire goes where.  The circuit board has some gobledigook on it both in Chinese characters and electronic symbols (which might as well have been Chinese).  Fortunately just a brief googleing brings up a photo of a very similar circuit which explains where all the wires go.

Power from a 12v DC phone charger wallwart (or similar) is screwed into the Positive and Negative terminals at the top of the board.  The connection to the track is screwed into M1 / M2.  The four wires from the rocker switch connect to the terminal block on the left and finally the potentiometer is plugged into the white JST connector.  Easy peasy.

First Running

The initial runs on the track were a whole lot of troubleshooting as usual.  I wired my track feed to the middle "mainline" which meant I had a dead section of track with the topmost fiddle line when the points were switched to the top siding.  This was rectified by adding a second set of power lines.  The routing for this is a little bit sketchy and snakes out of the layout and off the front of the shelf.  This is most unacceptable for a display layout and I will resolve this later.  

Having played with the layout for some hours, I also want to add in a couple of on/off isolating switches, this will mean that if I want to I can isolate a loco on either of the fiddle lines and bring another loco out unimpeded.  This will create a go around.  Currently the loco can only pick up on the left and move to the right, a second loco which operates from right to left will dramatically improve operational potential and allow me to stage rakes on the fiddle yard.

YouTube Shorts

Around this time I also discovered the joys of unedited YouTube shorts.  This has enabled me to make lots of videos of both this layout and my Coffee Table Layout Upper Carrom.  Frankly this has been quite addictive and I should probably check myself into the Betty Ford Clinic.

Obligatory Running Video

 

Floating Shelf Budget Model Railway Challenge - Part 2 - A trip to Sompting Model Railway Exhibition

This weekend saw my Dad and I visiting the Sompting and District Model Railway Exhibition.

This was a fantatic little day out for the pair of us and it is about 35 years since I have last been to a model show of any kind.  

If I remember rightly it was the Model Engineers show at Olympia where I got to see the anamatronic ABC Warrior and the Landrover Mega City 1 Taxi which were going to feature in the upcoming Judge Dredd movie with Sylvester Stallone.  The team from Robot Wars were also there recruiting robot builders for their new TV Show which was still in the pre-production phase.  Yes, it was that long ago.

Sompting Exhibition Layouts

Many thanks to all the members who brought their exhibition layouts and for taking the time to chat with us.  Everyone was extremely welcoming and we both had a great time chatting and looking at the wonderful layouts.  Big shout out to Mike Potter from Budget Model Railways for publicising the event on his YouTube channel and bringing his Japanese shunting layout which was quite stunning.

Barraton - 00 Scale Layout

A charming scratchbuilt Era 1 locomotive

Thomas The Tank Engine celebrating his 80th Birthday

a 360 degree shunting layout

I could not leave without making a few purchases some of which may find their way onto my own floating shelp layout including:

Arnold 6354 / Rapido (0634) - BAUSTAZ Coaling Station - £6

When I watch my favourite YouTube channels they invariably feature industrial buildings.  Sadly I do not have many of these so I grabbed this visually interesting multi-level multi track building when I spotted it on the club stand.  Largely intact, with the exception of the coal conveyor,  this will be a great addition to my layout.  It is an impressive 22cm x 4.5cm and is intended to be flanked on each side by a track, so lots of opportunity for shunting.

Gaugemaster SS-2 Electronic Station Stop Module - £5

The club stand had a whole box of these and other Gaugemaster automation modules and I couldn't resist at that price.  See how I get on wiring this in on another layout

Lima Palethorpes Siphon-G Wagon - £8

I already have one of these for my layout and as I have a Palethorpes Sausage Factory as practically the only industry on the layout I deserve to have a small rake of these wagons. 

Obligatory Running Video

The postman delivered my haul of secondhand track so work could start on my own Budget Model Railway Floating Shelf Challenge layout.  As you can see the Coaling Station is already installed on the layout and pretty much dictates the theme for this layout.

Floating Shelf Model Railway Challenge - Part 1 - Baseboards and Layout planning

If you follow the explouts of YouTubers Mike and Doug at Budget Model Railways you will have heard about the Floating Shelf Layout Challenge.

I got really excited about this and so popped down to my local Home Bargains to snag three of the cheap shelves.

Why Buy 3 Floating Shelves?

I could go into a long essay about prime numbers or the religious significance of the number three, but it's because I am building 3 sections.  1 for me (an inglenook), 1 for my dad (a shunting layout), and the third will be a shared fiddle yard sitting between the two layouts.

Dad's scratchbuilt model of Padstow Station in N Gauge

The challenge specifies that the fiddle yard can only have 2 tracks, but in my case I am going to have 4 in total but trains from one layout will not be able to cross between the two tracks.  This should provide some excellent expansion but honestly the layouts should operate independently of each other.

Mike has alluded to a modular challenge in the future so I will have to factor this into the design without really knowing what the dimensional specs are going to be.  I am banking on a single line going directly through the middle of the short edge on each board as the easiest way to do this.  

Perhaps all that hard work designing Geomorphs for my other hobby (Role Playing Games) will finally pay off? 

The Budget So Far

This is an exercise in budget model railway building so keeping the cost to a minimum is key.  I think it is only fair to represent what it would take to build a layout from scratch so I am only going to consider things I can or have purchased from eBay or AliExpress.  Whilst Mike does espouse the recycling of old layouts for track, if you are new to the hobby you will not have an old layout to scavenge.  This will obviously push the costs higher, but I think it is in the spirit of the original question that provoled this challenge. 

I will not be including the cost of acquiring tools as I feel that this challenge assumes that you have basic tools such as a craft knife, steel ruler, hammer, drill, sanding paper, rotary tool, 3D Printer (only joking)

I have some items on order in anticipation of the challenge and whilst they have not arrived yet I will include their costs in the running total.  I have included the cost of 1 KATO 11-109 powered chassis for each layout as I have just purchased those for my own layout.

Whilst I have several 3D Printers and I will probably print some things for my own layout, I will include nominal costs as if you were ordering these items from a print farm rather than the cost to make them myself.  For example each loco body could realistically be bought from Etsy eBay or other small manufacturers for £10. 

Running Total

ITEM	Layout 1 (mine)	Layout 2 (Dads)	Fiddle Yard
Baseboards	£6	£6	£6
PWM Controllers	£2	£2	-
Kato 11-109 Chassis (1 per layout)	£23	£23	-
SUBTOTAL	£31	£31	£6

We will be attending the Sompting & District Model Railway Exhibition on May 10th, so I hope I can pick up some cheap rolling stock and track to build the actual layout.  

Board Dimensions and Layout Design

The Home Bargains Loft Floating Shelves are are (L) 800mm x (W) 235mm x (H) 38mm which means a single length of PECO flexi track will run straight across the board with plenty to spare.  It is far too  early in the design process to be detailing which track sections need to be purchased but I imagine it will look something like this: