flashing crossing signals

[Philip H]

Mike Fifer has a nice youtube video of flashing crossing signals with operating bucks that he installed.
He demonstrates operation and explains installation.  Not the same signals as mentioned, but very enlightening.

Mike's video is the one that got me off my duff about this idea.

[eja]

Mike Fifer has a nice youtube video of flashing crossing signals with operating bucks that he installed.
 

link please  ...

[Philip H]

[eja]

Even better .... thanks

[rogergperkins]

Did not know if I should "steal" Mikes thunder by posting the link.
This is only one of many excellent videos Mike has posted on n-scale model railroading.
All are inspiring and motivational.  Thanks Mike!!

[randgust]

The signals on this are older than dirt; and it's a Walthers flashing circuit that dates back to HO years.  NJI masts with bulbs, yeah, probably about time to replace those with LED's.  Gates are hand-fabricated, which got me the real-vertical upright position.

The sound system is in the speaker behind the scene pointed at you.   It's actually recorded on the scene at Flag and copied from a video I got with all the funky echoes you get there.   Radio Shack digital recorder, gives you about 30 seconds of time.

Gate mechanisms are a pair of Tortise machines.   Control circuit is a simple reversing toggle on the gates as there are three bidirectional tracks, not worth the fight to automate it.    Rocker switch on the gate motor motion trips the lights.    You may have to crank up your sound a bit to hear it, it's loud enough to hear on the layout but it doesn't knock you off the chair either.

The radio shack sound chip trips with a simple momentary pushbutton, or nearly anything in the vicinity - for some reason it can even be set off with static electricity.

With a single up/down switch on the gates, and a button for sound, this has served its purpose well of giving a job to the 'under 10' visitors - crossing watchman.   That's worked so well I did the same method on the emergency light scene elsewhere - put a button on the fascia so that visitors could run it.   Kids busy with buttons don't seem to put fingers in the layout area.

[Philip H]

Randy - thanks, and nice pig train!

[Seligman Sub]

The signals on this are older than dirt; and it's a Walthers flashing circuit that dates back to HO years.  NJI masts with bulbs, yeah, probably about time to replace those with LED's.  Gates are hand-fabricated, which got me the real-vertical upright position.

The sound system is in the speaker behind the scene pointed at you.   It's actually recorded on the scene at Flag and copied from a video I got with all the funky echoes you get there.   Radio Shack digital recorder, gives you about 30 seconds of time.

Gate mechanisms are a pair of Tortise machines.   Control circuit is a simple reversing toggle on the gates as there are three bidirectional tracks, not worth the fight to automate it.    Rocker switch on the gate motor motion trips the lights.    You may have to crank up your sound a bit to hear it, it's loud enough to hear on the layout but it doesn't knock you off the chair either.

The radio shack sound chip trips with a simple momentary pushbutton, or nearly anything in the vicinity - for some reason it can even be set off with static electricity.

With a single up/down switch on the gates, and a button for sound, this has served its purpose well of giving a job to the 'under 10' visitors - crossing watchman.   That's worked so well I did the same method on the emergency light scene elsewhere - put a button on the fascia so that visitors could run it.   Kids busy with buttons don't seem to put fingers in the layout area.

Your rendition of Flag is awesome! I especially like the pax station. Do you have plans for that station or did you estimate from photos?  I have such fond memories of watching trains with my grandfather and dad in the mid 80s.  Still my favorite place to rail fan.

[mmagliaro]

I thought I would point something out about Randgust's flashing crossbucks.

Notice how they flash.  They "wink" on and off.  One ramps up to full brightness, then ramps down, but before it ramps completely off, the other one ramps on, so they overlap.

Virtually all the modern-era ones using a digital flasher circuit and LEDs do not do this.  The LEDs
just blink on alternately.  I don't know if this bothers anybody else, but I always thought it completely ruins the look and makes them look like blinking Christmas tree lights.

On the circuit that came with my Berkshire Junction flashers, I poked around on the board a bit to find the outputs to the LEDs, and connected a pair of 1000 uF electrolytic capacitors back-to-back across those outputs.  This achieves the same effect.  When the LED comes on, the circuit first has to charge up a big ol' electrolytic
and that takes a little bit of time (a fraction of a second), but it's enough to create the ramp up effect.
When that LED is switched off by the board, the LED stays on for a fraction of a second and ramps down while the electrolytic discharges.   I wired two back-to-back to make a bi-polar electrolytic because this particular board switches the polarity of the outputs to achieve the alternating flashing effect.

There are more elegant ways to do this, but since I didn't make the circuit, this was a simple quick-and-dirty way to do it.

[DKS]

The circuits from Ngineering simulate tungsten lamps in this way (ramping brightness instead of hard flashing).

[bbussey]

So does the Azatrax circuit mentioned up-thread.  They have a video on their website showing it in action, and it works with both LEDs and incandescent bulbs.

[randgust]

Your rendition of Flag is awesome! I especially like the pax station. Do you have plans for that station or did you estimate from photos?  I have such fond memories of watching trains with my grandfather and dad in the mid 80s.  Still my favorite place to rail fan.

When I did it back in 1975 I estimated it from photos - drew up my own set of plans so that the dimensions lined up; also had to shorten it by removing part of the baggage wing.   Since then the Santa Fe "Warbonnet" magazine has run a full set of plans.   If you need a good stand-in, don't diss the Danbury Mint one, it's disgustingly close.

[Seligman Sub]

Danbury Mint, the jewelry maker? I'll have to get a copy of that Warbonnet article. 

Thanks!

[randgust]

Yeah, just search Ebay for "Flagstaff Danbury" and you'll usually get half a dozen in the $20 range.

First time I saw it I was just stunned.   It isn't perfect by a long shot, but for a stand-in until you scratchbuild, it's pretty darn good.

Flag just isn't the same since they put that quiet zone in.   No fun at all.

And I never appreciated that feature on my old Walthers circuit.  Is that actually part of the circuit design or is it because I still have real bulbs on it?    If I replace the bulbs with micro-LED's and a dropping resistor, I wonder if it will still do that....

[C855B]

... Is that actually part of the circuit design or is it because I still have real bulbs on it?    If I replace the bulbs with micro-LED's and a dropping resistor, I wonder if it will still do that....

It's because they're real bulbs, which are probably being run under their rated voltage. The fade-in-fade-out is filament warm-up time, then cool-down. If you replace with LEDs, you'll get the abrupt on-off-on-off.

Getting fade-in and -out is definitely doable with LEDs. There's the Ngineering module (cheap, and I have had nothing but great results with his circuits), and then there's Max's approach with the capacitors.