The diary (2011)

Or: testing, repairing and swearing...

No single project works without a fuss: here's my ‘diary' of failures, retrying, ... In short: the setbacks and how I coped with them.
This is, too, an essential part of building "Marche-en-Bières", a part the reader of this website is entitled to know. Who knows, it might be useful for you, or merely as a comfort for your own setbacks with your own projects.

January '11: This whole month, and propably the rest of the winter, is dedicated to the rollercoaster. The trains are almost ready, the track still needs to grow about 3 feet at the end of the month. While testing the track, I made a little movie.
The last piece of track is the part where the train is elevated towards the starting point. This will be a task for next month. Quite stressful, because only after finishing that I'll know if the ride will actualy move. Designing this lifting section is done, its parts are etched, but the result depends on several - some unknown - parameters...

February '11: The last descendingi part of the rollercoaster was finished early this month. To get the cars to roll smoothly down, some fine-tuning will be needed. Now the climbing part needs constructing. The first part - it took me about two days - is shown in the upper-right picture. Half-way february the "rollercoaster rails circle", measuring more then 5 yards, is ready. I don't know if pulling the cars up the track will go well, so this big question is quite stressing. I found a way by gluing parts of foam to a chain, and this chain could rotate, although several transitions need some smoothing.

March '11: The rollercoaster "almost" works. The foam rubber on the chain was a bit too thin, and is repaced. The first motor driving the chain (the same I used for driving my turnouts) wasn't powerful enough. A second one, home-made-combining engine and gears, was way too noisy. I ordered a geared motor from an online shop, and this was much better: Powerful, but not too noisy. A liitle movie shows it works quite well with my test-car, although the foam rubber loosened. It was glued but the glue seems to break under tension. I will have to sow them, I guess.

April '11: When trying a ride with a larger rollercoaster train, I came across a very anoying problem. Due to the foam rubber and the curves, a complete train will break when pulling it up. I discussed the problem on the modelspoorforum, and got lots of inspiring solutions. As I had to wait quite long for parts, I constructed a little naughty mini-scene for the fancy-fair: two people trying to close the trunk of an old Mercedes... This little scene will be placed in a relatively hidden spot on the mini-layout.
As the spare parts still haven't arrived, I started a mirror-tent: an old-style dance tent where, in those days, lots of couples first met. The guys from the modelspoorforum try to convince me to let people dance across the floor. This wasn't my first intention, but is worth considering. I ordered some other parts and, who knows, next month ...

May '11: The mirror-tent gets built a bit further: at the end of the month the first mirrors are made and put in place. Getting movement in the tent could work, as a trial seems hopeful. About 80 figures are hand-painted, and I added some ways to allow people to see inside the tent. The rollercoaster gets some omprovements: the couplings between the cars are remade, and some tests prove this is the way to go. I made box springs from 0.1 mm thin steel wire, and it's absolutely nescessary to dimension them precisely. There's still a lot of work to do on this project: ambient and flashy lights, a second train, automation, ...

June '11: The dance/mirror-tent evolves slowly, due to a very busy scedule at work and some parts waiting delivery. I started building the entrance, and I must say it looks quite convincing. I also started building some trees to model the park where the mini-miniature railroad resides. The mini-layout's hood had to be removed to allow finishing this part, and to improve lighting. This cap will be replaced when the park is finished, the rollercoaster completed and put in place, and when the catterpilar gets repaired.

July '11: Almost the whole month I continued work on the dance-tent. The interior got silk curtains, I put lights and conceiled their wiring, further detailed the interior, ... before placing the exterior styrene "cloth" and side panels. I started building the drive mechanism and the electronics, as well as programming its chip to control the movement and lights for this eye-catcher.

August '11: At the beginning of this month, the mirror/dance-tent is built, and the electronics are tested - though they will need some adjustments. The microcontroller "interfaces" with some buttons people can push, and with the lights and music that's played inside. This 50's music is pre-mixed, together with some signals, in several mp3-files, and will sound through a set of PC-speakers using a home-made mixing unit underneath the mini-layout. This unit will place all sounds in the stereoscopic "field", so the city hall's bells sound from the right angle.
I fnished the trees for the park, so I could take some pictures to illustrate an article for Modelspoormagazine on my mini-miniature railroad
September '11:
The code for the dance-tent microcontroller isn't entirely finished, but I am confident. Testing is time-consuming, as I need to ait after each song to see if the dancers change their style, and if the light-mood changes. I wanted to continue the rollercoaster and get the catterpilar ride to work, but I really wanted to have another go at the the bumper-cars. I learned a lot from a second prototype, and redesigned about everything for a third attempt...

October '11: No elastic bands, but real gears for the bumper-cars. I found very tiny gears (modulo 0,2) in Switzerland, etched new parts and started making the "arena" where the about 15 cars should ride. Halfway this month, I made a new prototype. It will stay a prototype, as some of the gears aren't running smoothly yet. Again, I've learned from this attempt and did some slight adjustments, so I etched new parts at the end of the month.
The gears are running rather smooth now, as you can see in this little movie Some details should be improved, but this can be done while building.

November '11: After some anoying experiences, I finaly decided to get another provider for this website. Trying to get the first one to work properly, I lost a lot of time.
Concerning the modeling projec t, it's all about the bumper-cars. I continued building the prototye car, including front- and tail lights. The tent was built further to do some real testing. This meant constructing an electrified net above the "arena", where the cars can get their power from. A wooden walk-around and some etched steps make it look rather pretty.
The testride wasn't succesful yet, however. The car was too light, and didn't make enough contact with the floor. The ceiling contact caused too much presure and needed replacing, too. I first wanted to cast the cars' hoods in resin, but because of the weight I decided to make another hood prototype, suitable for casting metal.

December '11: The bumper-cars' hood is ready and its mould cast, ready for casting metal copies. I used electroplating to thicken the gear and wheel axes a bit, and to solder them a bit easier. I want 15 cars to run on the attraction's floor, and started the small-series production: About 12 x 15 parts were etched, bent and fixed to shape, and at the end of the month all the fixed parts were mounted, including working head- and taillights.
The mini-layout contest is due for another 10 months, but I'll certainly need the time: Some repairs to the mirror-tent, the catterpilar ride and the little park train, finishing the rollercoaster and the sound modules, placing the naughty scène, painting lots of figures and adding some smaller static attractions.

See: diary 2010 - photo's 2011 - diary 2012