A Wickham trolley

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philipy
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:11 am

So far so good and much as I had expected, but now for the bits that I didn't quite know what to do with - the sockets, the fuse, the switch and the voltage regulator.
In my box of bits I found a small Voltage Reg module which was by chance exactly 15mm wide and fitted perfectly on top of the top frame spacer over the motor, held in place by piece of double sided tape.
The voltage regulator is essential because the battery is nominally 7.4v and the motor is only 3 volts. The original article suggested using a string of diodes to drop the voltage, but apart from being a messy waste of space, it simply doesn't seem the right way to go about it, plus of course the regulator will compensate for battery voltage dropping.
The battery balance charge plug on a short lead will wrap down the side of the gearbox frame out of the way inside the outer housing, so thats not a problem.

This leaves the main charge socket, switch and fuse needng homes. The Rx board is 35mm long and between the frame spacers under the battery pack there is a space about 53mm long, which leaves me with about 18mm spare, just enough for the socket mounted vertically. Half an hour later and I had printed an L-shaped replacement spacer with a hole in it for the socket. I had to bend the socket tags down level with it's body to leave room for the battery on top and this leaves a small gap behind the socket is just big enough for the auto reset fuse!

All that just leaves the on/off switch. Of course sometimes it's unavoidable, but I hate seeing switches visibly mounted on external frames, footplates, etc. In this case there isn't even that much luxury and I've been contemplating having to surface mount it and try to disguise it as a toolbox or something. The trouble with that is that it would have the switch mounted on the body not the underframe with all the electrics.
Then good fortune smiled on me again. In the photos, some of this early design of Trolley had a gap in the top boarding of the engine housing, just in front of the drivers seat. I'm not sure what it is for in the real thing, but there is a lever of some sort protruding up from it, gear lever perhaps? I had already left this gap when I printed the body parts and when I looked through this gap, after offering the works up underneath, low and behold there was a gap between the motor and the L-shaped spacer, which lined up almost perfectly with my top gap. Moreover, when I measured the actual space I found that a few strokes of a file could reduce the body of a slide switch slightly to fit between the frames. The switch knob was not quite lined up, but I sawed down from the top and reduced the width by about 50% so that it now slides in the gap. A little bit of work with a short piece of 4mm scale bullhead rail and a couple of 14BA nuts and bolts, gives me a 'knob extension' which allows the switch to function from above the body whilst being fixed to the works.

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by ge_rik » Fri Apr 09, 2021 2:08 pm

Marvellous bit of engineering. Can't wait to see it in action.

Rik
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:05 am

philipy wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:34 pm
invicta280 wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:13 pm I believe they were often kept in a lineside shed equiped with a miniature turntable to put them onto a siding.
Yes, the turntable was a standard fitting although I can't make out where/how they carried it.
I'm just about to start on the small body fittings etc and in looking at various photos I think I've more or less answered my own question. Most pictures are from the driver's side, but on two which are from the other side, when zoomed in I noticed that both had a couple of strange shaped wooden blocks fixed to the floor. I'm not sure exactly how it works but I strongly suspect that they somehow restrain the the pieces of the the turntable.
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:54 am

Some progress going on behind the scenes. I've managed to produce all the small bits and fittings and they are waiting to be glued on.
I've also produced a crew/PW gang, although for some reason I appear to have recruited little green men from Mars! :D
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by ge_rik » Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:07 pm

Why is one of them doing the hokey kokey?

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:22 pm

ge_rik wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:07 pm Why is one of them doing the hokey kokey?

Rik
All will be revealed! :lol:
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Sun May 16, 2021 2:12 pm

Been a much bigger delay than I was expecting but now finished apart from the sound. I'll explain the delay at the end of this.

This gives a view of the underside but before the brakes were fitted.
I had to use a bit of modellers licence because I was unable to find any detail of a narrow gauge underframe apart from a passing comment that they used an external sprung axlebox. So I pinched the axleboxes from a target trolley which appears to have the same arrangement.
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On the track
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The Head Ganger driving.
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Just for Rik - the "Hokey Cokey man" - Now you can see why! :lol:
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Just to complete the gang - the Lad.
Image

It runs quite nicely, but is still awaiting sound.
As I said earlier, I was intending to use Rik's greeting card system, however for some reason it packed up on me. I ordered a new one which in the ebay listing appeared to be identical, but when it arrived it had a different component on the board - instead of a black dome glued on the board it had a 'proper' discrete IC. It worked fine but I was unable to find the shorting connection to allow it to repeat on a loop and eventually it got hot and stopped working completely. However, before that I experimented with using a transistor switch to turn it on and off as the drive motor started and stopped. It sort of worked but was erratic and spasmodic and I know enough about electronics to know that I don't know enough about electronics to solve the problem. I then had an idea and called in the electronic big guns. SWMBO's business partner is a high powered contract electronic design engineer so I asked him how to effect the switch I wanted. Could have been a mistake :lol: :roll: We've spent almost 3 weeks going backwards and forwards with Arduino's and SD card readers and sound clips and who knows what else and now we are trying to miniaturise it all to fit under the curve of the Trolley roof. Watch this space....
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by Lonsdaler » Sun May 16, 2021 2:17 pm

That is looking really good Philip. What a difference it makes when the people's poses are correct for the location they're in too. I hope the expert assistance comes good in the end too!
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by ge_rik » Sun May 16, 2021 2:17 pm

Well worth the wait - I'm glad Hokey Kokey Man now has a place, I was getting concerned about him.

The greetings card module on my Simplex has finally given up the ghost, so I'm trying to decided whether to replace like with like or go down the Arduino route - however, as you've found, that will take up more space.

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by -steves- » Sun May 16, 2021 2:23 pm

Well Philip you have outdone yourself, that is truly spectacular in all ways. My hat off to you sir :salute:
The buck stops here .......

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by Peter Butler » Sun May 16, 2021 5:15 pm

A magnificent achievement, it looks wonderful.
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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by Andrew » Thu May 20, 2021 8:43 am

Sorry Philip, I'm very late to this party, but that really does look fantastic. Love the figures too.

I was reminded of your trolley when I came across this - https://sdjr.co.uk/events/view/wickham-wednesdays

Midsomer Norton's not far from me, I'm very tempted to pop down for a ride one Wednesday - £5 for two people for such a unique experience sounds like an absolute bargain to me!

Andrew.

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by Trevor Thompson » Fri May 21, 2021 9:37 am

I have actually been following this - but haven't had much to add.

However it does look spectacular.

It really makes a difference being able to pose the figures to fit the particular model they are going into!

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Re: A Wickham trolley

Post by philipy » Fri May 21, 2021 1:48 pm

Thanks for the nice responses guys.

There have been a couple of comments about the figure poses and since this has been a problem to me in the past, a quick rundown on how I did might be helpful.
I made the basic figures in MakeHuman and posed them in Blender as you might guess. To get them accurate I first posed them approximately in Blender and then exported the stl, which I then imported into Sketchup. I made sure the figure was "grouped" and the complete Trolley parts seperately grouped as a complete model. I then simply placed the figure in position on the Trolley so that I could see what needed tweaking back in Blender i.e bend the knee, or straighten the arm, or turn the head, etc. A few seconds playing and then export the stl again and reimport it into SU. Group it and replace the original figure, check the fit and if necessary repeat until satisfied.
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