Melbourne BG SCS Train Timetable 
Lighting a Japanese Temple
I'd decided it was time to light the temple after building the Torii for the entrance. This temple was the Tomytec Japanese Temple A (Main Building) and is still available for purchase from most Japanese online hobby retailers.
I've slapped LEDs in buildings before, but this time I also wanted to add lanterns to the front of the shop. I'd made the lanterns before, as in my previous attempts of creating the Torii, but I was to make a few changes this time as I wasn't totally impressed with the previous outcome.
Creating the lanterns
There was a slight change this time to creating the lanterns... instead of cutting them and sliding them over the LEDs, I shaved them down to fit and inserted them into the center of the tubing. This all worked well, but you must be careful when shaving down the LEDs as you can destroy them quite easily. To shave the LEDs, I held them in pliers in one hand and filed away with my pocket knife. It was pretty obvious to feel when you were no longer filing away at plastic and, unfortunately, this was usually the demise of the LED.
Mounting the lanterns
I used the same copper winding wire that I always do and bent it into a rectangular shape to fit the roof of the temple. I then started soldering the lanterns in place.
I then pulled out the trusty Selleys Aquadere and, using random aligator clips found on the bench, glued the lanterns in place.
I also put two standard 3mm white LEDs in the center of the ceiling for building lights.
The finished product
After the glue had dried, I tested all the LEDs and found that I'd broken the front-left lantern. This was 24hours after starting the project and frustrating. I quickly removed it from the temple and filed another LED down. I left it dry again, overnight, after testing, gluing and testing again.
Finally, yesterday, I was able to hook it up to my Arduino LED Controller. It worked perfectly and I took the opportunity to test my night-time photography skills.
Now to settle the landscape around it.
Creating a Shrine Torii Entrance
After checking out more of the work by tanaka_ace on the Tounosawa Blog, I've decided to add a Japanese Shrine to my layout. I've extended the upper level to allow room for a kit I bought in Japan last September and have created a path back to the main town area.
As with any Shrine in Japan, the grounds are seen as sacred and insulated from the surrounding area; usually by either high walls or thick vegetation with a Torii gate for the entrance. I'll be adding the walls in soon enough, but prior to doing so I wanted to make sure I had all of the buildings and scenery effects in place.
The first thing to create was the Torii gate entrance. Tanaka_ace on his Tounosawa Blog had created a very nice gate with LED lanterns added. This is all based off a real-life location at the Tounosawa Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway. He had also created a blog post showing what he based the model off.
My version
I've used the same gauge winding wire I'd used for my level crossing lights, streetlights and building lighting. With this I've also used 1/16" brass pole for the main frame of the gate because I wanted to emulate wood rather than a cylindrical concrete post this time. This also provided a little more room to squeeze the wires through. Each length needed to be cut down to size and then filed back. I used standard snips to cut the brass, a smaller saw would've been a better idea.
I based the size on the path that I had already created on the layout. I didn't really have a real-life prototype to work off and made a lot of it up as I went. The final size was around 50mm wide and I could fit 5 lanterns in. Below you can see the framing taking place.
I then started cutting out the holes to feed the wire through. I used my trusty pocket-knife as the brass was quite soft. I also used a wire cut off a resistor to clean out the tubes of any metal shavings. The entrances created for the wires would have sharp edges and could scrape off the insulation on the wires, so I made the holes as big as possible.
Once the holes were cut, I fed the wires through as a test. I then constructed the frame with solder. At this point I accidently overheated the wires on the left side. This caused one to ground and I then couldn't successfully light 1 of the 5 LEDs. I took more care the second time around when soldering the frame back together.
I added a quick roof to the frame as tanaka_ace had done with his second version.
Now that the frame and LEDs were in place, I could go about turning them into lanterns. This would be done by putting plastic piping around them. I had already done this with a fixed lantern on a TomyTec Japanese Shop, but this time I had no existing lanterns to work with. I therefore used the same concept as tanaka_ace.
Thanks to globalisation, I was able to acquire the exact same "Evergreen Scale Models" poly-piping that he used. I happened to purchase 3.2mm pipe instead of the 2.4mm; but this worked out well as the LEDs that I was using were a little bigger. The pipe was cut into appropriate lengths and then the edges rounded down to create the lantern shape. The individual lanterns were then sliced at the back so that I could slide them over the LEDs. I then used stock-standard Shelleys Aquadhere to fill in the ends.
Once these were holding in place, I painted the frame a nice wood-brown. Torii gates can be made of wood or stone and painted a multitude of colours. You more often than not will see them in brown wood, but bright red, and even out in the ocean, is not uncommon.
And that was it... I still think I need to place some characters on the lanterns, but I need to work out what to write on them. I also should've taken more care to get the lanterns even, but I was happy enough with the outcome and, once in place on the layout, knew it would be good enough.
Now that the entrance is in place, it's time to get the fences and shrine in. As you can see, the foundations are there already and I'm currently working on adding lanterns and lights to the shrine.
Adding LEDs to a Japanese Shop
Pictures speak louder than words, so below is a quick tutorial on how to get an off-the-shelf TomyTec Japanese Shop Building lit with LED lighting. In total, this building received 6 LEDs; lantern, side-door, top floor (x2), bottom floor (x2).
Interior Lighting + Side Door
The trickiest part of this installation was the lantern that hangs out the front. I actually sliced it in half and bored out the middle to fit an LED inside. I also trimmed down the LED with a file to get it to fit a little more easily. This was done with my pocket-knife and I stopped when I felt it grinding metal. :)
Note that I borrowed ideas from this blog and I strongly recommend you check out the work the author has done on their layout!
Front Lantern
And finally, everything is wired up. You can see the huge hole I accidently drilled in the side of the shop... luckily the lantern covers it over pretty well.
Finished Product
Cheap and easy Streetlights
I'd previously bulk purchased a large amount of LEDs from LED-Switch with the intent to light up my entire model railway. I'd already bought a few of the MAX7219 ICs, which control up to 64 LEDs each, and knew how to control these via the Arduino. My article on the IC and using it was here.
Anyway, streetlights were high on the agenda, as they exist in every town in Japan and, based on a very simple idea, weren't going to be too hard to make. Following are the steps involved with creating the street lights that have been visible in my prior articles.
Ingredients
- 0.25mm Copper winding wire (or as thin as possible.)
- 1.6mm LEDs White/Yellow (as available here)
- Metal tubing for the main pole. (I used '3/64 x .006' brass tubing)
- Soldering iron
- Paint
Construction
Firstly, cut the pole to your desired length. I have to admit here that I never once measured any of the poles and just prototyped one against a reference (in this case it was a standard Greenmax building) and then made them all the same size.
Make sure you take in to account where you will bend the pole and how much extra length will be required. Use a file to smoothen out the ends so that you don't damage the winding wire when fed through.
Once you have the poles made, simply cut the leads of the LED right down and solder one end to the pole itself. Finally, if you haven't already, feed the wire through the pole and tin one end (melt it with a little bit of solder to strip away the insulation.) Once done, trim away any excess tinned lead and then solder it to the other lead of the LED.
Note that the final version there was the best I'd made. I'd trimmed the LEDs right down after folding one leg over the top and used a very small amount of solder.
Finished Product
Better night shots of the taller version in action...
The only thing these really require now is some form of cover/compartment/housing for the bulb to live in. Currently, with a big enough blob of paint, I can get the ends to look round-ish enough to look acceptable and I'm happy with this. But any comments/suggestions for an off-the-shelf product that might have the right shape to cover the ends are welcome!
I'd also bought red, yellow and green LEDs and found that they had fit into the Greenmax Signals. I haven't gotten around to finishing them, but I will post another article once done.
Meanwhile, in my previous post, I also added both a red and blue LED to a Bachmann N-Scale Signal. I actually cut it off its usual pole/base and mounted them as shunting signals. See the pictures. I'll post a more detailed explanation along with the other signals once finished.
Latest on the Model Railway
So, something that was just meant to turn into a test layout has now become one of my greatest creations... It's not much as yet, but the scenery and electronics involved is a lot more complex than I thought I would ever create and I'm really glad as to how it's coming along.
Here's a gallery of the initial track plan I intended on using and then 3 evolutions of it. The final layout is not actually listed there. You can see that it started as a single level basic loop, with options for expansion. As I realised the time required for building just this module, I decided to do away with the extension options (although things can always change) and then added a second level. This was just to be a ridge down the middle of the board, but it now has transformed into 1/4 of the overall surface area. A town has now grown on top and a nice siding for single-car vehicles.
Underneath the board is a birds-nest of wiring for all the tricks I've tried with the Arduino (see all the previous posts...) and I'll show you this in a later post.
For now, just check out the photos and I'll get back with more information as I create it. I'm currently working on street lights for the top town and also automation of the points. I've been through around 5 iterations for the control circuit for the points and damaged quite a few TomyTec FineTrack Points in the process. Not fun.
Here's a link to the whole album.
Update: The streetlights are painted and in... I still need to work on the light end, they need some sort of cover/compartment.
Meanwhile, I also need to learn nighttime photography :)
More to come as I light up all of the houses; although one is already lit!
Kato Amtrak 13002 (Seibu E851?)
So, I was browsing eBay and saw advertised a Kato Amtrak 4+4+4 Electric Locomotive... For all I'd known Amtrak America had never had any such an engine and therefore clicked the item to investigate... In front of me appeared (what looked like) an EF81 in Amtrak livery!
It seems that, back in the day, Kato didn't want to put money in to actually designing the models for America and therefore just repainted a (very slightly) remodeled EF81. Of course, it could be an exact copy of another Japanese electric locomotive, but I haven't had the time yet to do further research.
Update:
Toni Babelony of the JNS Forum posted a message in the thread I created on this locomotive that indicated that this is much closer to a Seibu E851. Thanks for pointing this out! Here is the Kato page on the Seibu E851. You'll notice that the Seibu has port holes, and other differences, but is obviously what Kato used as a base for this Amtrak locomotive.
Meanwhile, here are some photos I've taken of EF81s in Japan:
And, of course, if this locomotive really does exist, then please comment and tell me!
Japanese Level Crossing Lights
After seeing how small surface-mount LEDs have gotten, and how cheap, I decided I'd grab a few from our local Jaycar Electronics Store and build a Japanese level crossing signal/light.
Ingredients
- Red SMD LEDs
- Metal tubing, hollow, for the main pole. I used brass from the local hobby store.
- Copper 'winding' wire. Used since it's already insulated.
- Soldering equipment.
- Thin cardboard
The process
Firstly cut a length of the metal pole and then grind a hole in it behind the area where you intend on soldering the LEDs.
You can see I've run the copper wire through to make sure there are no obstructions. Be careful when doing this as you may well remove the insulation where the wire will rub on the metal pole.
Next rotate the pole around and then solder the LEDs into place. Make sure that one LED is reverse polarity!
Also solder a wire to the base of the main pole.
Run the thing copper wire from the tabs on the LEDs into the hole and then out the bottom of the main pole. Do this after all soldering to avoid melting the insulation.
Cut some thin strips of cardboard and glue them as the cross above the lights.
Apply some paint, I was a little sloppy.
Add your favourite flasher circuit. Make sure that it swaps polarity to only have to use two wires.
And that's about it... Signals next.
Bamboo SL Sound Generator
Early this month, I was in Sydney for a weekend and it co-incided with the AMRA Annual Model Railway Exhibition. I was disappointed to not see the usual Japanese Layout by a well known Australian modeller in the Japanese N Scale realm... but found enough goodies in the 2nd-hand junk boxes to satisfy my need for Japanese stock.
An EF81 (missing one panto and other bits) was still for sale from another seller for $80 and I passed on it again as, although I'm sure it'll run fantastically, I don't want to have to spend the extra money (and time search Poppondetta) for all the missing components.
And then... the find of the day... A, and I quote ”BB サウンドシステム SLドラフトN” or translated to: "BB Sound System SL Draft N". [Note: SL stands for Steam Locomotive in Japanese, they've coined the acronym.] When I saw it, I could only guess that it made SL sounds... and should be towed behind an SL. I asked the price, was told $10 and I didn't even ask if it worked, as I just wanted to get it and test it instantly.
On the train back to the city (2 hour ride) I read the instructions... hah... read them like a picture book! I could read the Katakana.. and that hinted something at a 'Power pack' and 'SCR timing pulse'. I thought I'd just bought a lemon that required some magic to get the chuffing happening... boy was I wrong!
If anyone wants to look at this image and give me a proper translation of it then go ahead... I'll post it here. Otherwise, when I get the time, I'll attempt to type it in to Google translator and see what it spits out. I really should've studied Kanji further after Uni 
Inspecting the Kato WAMU freight car (damn heavy!) I saw that there was a reed switch and a magnet glued to the axle. Primitive technology from Japan... but considering the age of the paper the instructions are on, I'm guessing this whole thing is over 10 years old; but i'm yet to actually research it. Anyway, when rotating the axel you could hear the reed-switch clicking... meaning that it would be the 'pulse' required.
Opening it up, very gently, I found a reasonably dated PCB with quite large components.. but everything fitting nicely. There is a standard (what looked like a microphone) speaker mounted downwards and they've also added weights on the inside of the shell.
Finally, tonight, I put some voltage to the unit. I had to turn my Kato Powerpack up to notch '2' to get it hissing... and it sounds good!... I then pushed it along the tracks and the chuffing started... I realised that I could quickly get it to chuff way too fast and sound like a machine gun. After attaching my MicroAce steamer, I realised the main issue; the voltage required to start the sound was so high that the steamer was already flying. At this speed, although it sounded ok, it was still too fast to be enjoyed. When there was no loco on the tracks and the voltage was high, the sounds were great... you could even lock the reed switch open (at the sweet spot) and the chuff would continue forever... as in when an SL releases pressure at the end of a trip.
I then had a closer look at the circuit board to see if I could drop the required voltage to get the sound moving and something dawned on me... The sound worked in both directions... meaning that the circuitry had to work either way the DC voltage was supplied... this meant it had to have a bridge-rectifier in it already... DCC AC Voltage here I come!!!!
Of course, I ran out of time to test it on DCC and I also have no SLs DCC'd up. My MicroAce steamer seems to have a large enough tender... but I love that thing and don't want to hurt it. It also manages to suck power through it's driving wheels and so it'll be a task to convert it.
Videos!
This is the unit running on DCC. I don't have any steamers converted to DCC yet, so I put it in the middle of my 'Aizu Renewal' set. Apart from grotty wheels and tracks, the sound is great.
These videos haven't aged well!
Layout obtained, Trains purchased.
So much has happened over the last month that I've had zero time to get to this site... but I'm finally going to report on the latest happenings.
The new Layout
Firstly, I bought a Shinkansen Layout on eBay from Victoria and, over the space of the last three weeks, have managed to transport, reassemble and finally run it.
I hired a flatbed/cage ute and drove it down to Melbourne without dramas. The return trip was a lot harder... I initially had the choice of two seperate utes until I'd realised one was slightly bigger, of which I then fought for. This became even more crucial as when loading the layout we soon found out that the space available was near-on perfect.
Once on the road, it turned out that the tarpaulins I bought were cheap-as-crap and split/shredded/tore very quickly. I got around 250~350ks out of them (out of the ~800k trip) until they failed and flew everywhere... We then had to stop at random intervals in random locations to either purchase new taps on the way and cover portions, or untie broken straps and tidy everything up.
We then proceeded to hit a storm... but ended up chasing it slowly through to Yass. The road in front was wet; but our load stayed safe.
The layout was dumped at the parents house in pieces and then not gotten back to until a week later. Of course, the night I was to reassemble, I'd forgotten the bag of bolts to connect everything and therefore couldn't do a thing. It wasn't until a week after that when I could finally set it all up (last Wednesday.)
The first run was of my Series 0 Doctor Yellow and my newly acquired Hikari RailStar. It ends out that I could not get either of them to complete a full lap. Sure, the layout had been through an ordeal and the tracks/wheels probably had not been cleaned for a while... but this was Japanese stock and I expected at least a full lap on full speed. Time ran out quickly that night and I went home at least accomplishing a fully reconstructed layout.
Finally today (Saturday, Jan 24th 2009) I was able to have a proper day of running. See the photo album here. I started to thoroughly clean the layout and also removed bits and pieces to see how it was all constructed.
I also bought a step-down transformer (as the Kato powerpacks weren't dual voltage) and ran the track on the provided transformers... it turns out that the shinkansen reacted much better than this doing laps at very low speeds and also achieving very high speeds.
The final goal was to attempt to set up a local line, but I'd forgotten the feeder cables to the unitrack I had and also ran out of time.
Japan Auction Center
So, you want something from Japan, but it's on Yahoo Auctions Japan and most of the sellers (if not all) wont ship internationally nor speak English. This is where Japan Auction Center comes to your rescue. For a nominal fee you can use their website to deposit money (must be done before you can bid) and then utilise the owners Auction ID to bid on Japanese Auctions. It's all done real-time and can be a lot of fun bidding against the Nihonjins.
There's an interesting note of difference between Yahoo Auctions Japan and eBay. The process is very much the same (proxy bidding, etc...) but if you happen to bid in the last 5 minutes of an auction then the auction end time will be extended another 5 minutes. This then means that there can be no sniping and that the buyer who truly wants the item will get it.
Anyway, I bought quite a few items and will be back online shortly to finally get my 300 Series Shinkansen.
The loot:
In conclusion...
I'm one happy camper... a new layout and new trains. I want to get the local lines done very soon and then the buildings/rural area/city planned out. I intend on changing the main city area to a Shin-Osaka style station with yards.. but we'll see what the space can provide.
DCC “Directional” Lighting without a Decoder
So, you have a 16-Car, 12-Car, 8-Car, 6-Car or 3-Car consist and you want to get the tail/head lights functioning correctly? Of course, you've already installed the expensive decoder in the engine car of the consist and if this is anything like all of the Japanese models I've dealt with, then it's somewhere in the middle and getting the power to the headlights is not really an option.
Ok, So companies like Kato have created smaller, feature-less decoders specifically for headlight and taillights in end cars... these are still the best option... the advantage to what I'm about to show you is that the lights will switch between backwards and forwards.
Anyway, if you can't, or are morally obliged not to, install the end-car decoders then you can cheat and install an AC/DC rectifier diode to 'fix' the direction of the train (and lights).
This, of course, means that the train you are going to install this into should really be only every traveling in one direction 'prototypically'. You'll be able to swap the end cars when you want the train to travel in the opposite direction, but this could be tedious and so it is entirely recommended this method only be used for consists where you intend on running them in one direction.
Micro Ace 6-Car "あいづ" KIHA 485系
So, as you may have recently seen, I installed a decoder in my 6-Car "あいづ" KIHA 485系。 The engine car was number 3 of 6, so couldn't really get any further into the center... which is a good thing as it means it's nearly pushing as much as it has to pull.
So, I decided as I'd got it at a bargain price, that I wasn't going to fork out too much to make it DCC. I had the decoder in the engine car and wanted the lights to not 'buzz' and function correctly. I intended on having it running in one direction most of the time and could handle swapping the end cars if I wanted it to go the other way.
What this meant is that I would get an AC->DC Rectifier (0.84c at the local electronics store) to convert the AC voltage off the tracks to DC.
Once in DC voltage the polarity would be fixed... even if the car was swapped around on the rails.
Right, so I removed the old lighting circuit board and bent the pins up that connected with the power rails... I then extended the AC side of the rectifier and pushed the pins into the area where the old contacts used to touch the power rails.
I then soldered up the DC output to the circuit board and threw it on the tracks to test.
Ok, this worked well... the lights even stayed on constantly after a bit of a wheel clean. Unfortunately, you now cannot 'shutdown' the train in a siding without cutting the power. The other issue now was that the rear car would have the 'Forward Lights' on as well if wired up directly... I therefore had to reverse the wiring after the DC output. I used my 0.25mm 'winding wire' for this.
And then a test...
And that was it... the train was DCC'd and ready to roll... It worked perfectly after this as well.
Twilight Express
I then quickly slapped a Rectifier in my Twilight Express end car and disabled the lighting in the car that sits right next to the engine.
To my surprise... a 12v BULB!... This must been an older set as Martjin had previously mentioned.
...and that was a wrap... yes, it's a mighty cop-out... and those who wish to have functional/switchable head/tail lights should not do this, but it does work and I must admit, does the job for my kinda running (Full Steam Ahead!)
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