Points - the achilles heel

[dkightley]

At the GCR show yesterday, I was shown a trial T gauge custom point that had been created by a member of the Nottingham Model Railway Society as an exercise in trackwork:

Img_2041_red.jpg (95.48 KiB) Viewed 5431 times

The switch changes the electical connections to the various areas of the pointwork...and changes the points!

I'll make sure there are updates if there's any progress.

[mattinair]

Wow!.....Given that there are dummies like me who would be willing to pay hundreds of dollars (pounds etc.) for this....Always hopeful....

[Reith01]

A beautiful piece of trackwork.....and an absolute dread that I may have to do some work down the line. I'm having trouble with Eishindo points but then I'm a beginner, have a bit of investigation to do. A succession of points to provide sidings isn't a nice prospect!

[Nutter]

Isolating the diverging tracks on points for passing loops and siding can be accomplished by simply removing the plate underneath and taking the springs out.
OK you then have to work out the wiring for the inner two rails but it saves cutting the rail and buying the isolating tracks if using the set track pieces.

[Reith01]

That's a great idea! Wow, thanks. That solves the problem of isolating in a stroke! I've soldered leads to every piece of flexitrack so far so powering isn't a problem.
Some automation will come later and I didn't want to have to drill holes through the base once the scenic work starts. I'm not yet sure how many sections the thing will be divided into so I can adapt the wiring accordingly.

Cheers,
Reith.

[servewouters]

Any news on this?
I'm going to try it myself this way (see attachment).
Once I have a fully functional point, I can start making a lay-out

[dkightley]

The guy who did this never contacted me again. I may try and re-establish contact.

I see you've used pcb...and I assume CNC milled the material away to give sleepers, and etched the copper back.

I do have the track geometry sorted so I can 3D print sleepers with a built-in trackbed sufficient to allow rail to be threaded in from one end. I've just never had the time to do anything with it.....

[servewouters]

Today I tried to solder the rails on the pcb, but I think that the curve is a bit too tight, because it wont hold unfortunately
Doug, the point you use on the bridge seems a good alternative. Very functional, not the best realistic looking, but I don't care about that, the trains need to run flawlessly, as I need a lot of points... Are you maybe willing to share your .dxf file from that point? Then I can adjust it into a right and a lefthand point

[spturner]

Has anyone contacted the folks over at Fast Tracks? Seems like they have turnout assembly fixtures in just about every gauge except T. They even have Zm at 4.5 mm! It looks like all of their fixtures are built to order anyway, so if enough of us requested it maybe they'd make a #6 or #8 turnout guide for us T gauge folks.

[dkightley]

I emailed them in February to enquire if they had or would consider producing jigs, etc for T gauge. their reply:

Hello Doug,

After checking with Tim he said it would be almost impossible to create an assembly fixture for T scale due to the limited clearances required. The Zm gauge is the smallest that we have been able to create with our existing equipment.


Cheers!

Terry Firth
Fast Tracks Hobbyworks Inc.