Mini-Layout 2

in preparation of the 2010 expo, Modelspoormagazine holds a mini-layout-contest. I decided to participate by building a small portion of "Marche-en-Bières" separately. On this page, the evolution of the project can be followed.
At the end of june, I decided to postpone this project to 2012. It was impossible to finish it in time.

The part of Marche-en-Bières I'm building is the fancy fair in front on the city hall square. In order to be allowed at the contest, the layout should contain a working railroad part, with a purpose. This part of the rules made be place a rollercoaster on the fair. Furthermore, I would like to build some more attractions, situated in the late 50's, like a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a catterpilar, ... As for the city hall, I'ld like to build a model of the one in Borgerhout, near Antwerp.
It will depend on several circumstances if I make it to the "finish". The story of this project started in May '09, and is told here:

The actual bulding of the city hall en the different fair attractions can be found through the links at the bottom of this page. This page shows the overal construction: supports, upper part, lighting, background, electricity and landscaping.

The mini-mayout is situated on top of the large access hatch behind the Boulroie station. This hatch has an irregular shape, its largest diameter is 133cm, and the back part has a slight slope up. This was however a bit to deep to allow for transportation: it couldn't get through my door! In order to allow a safe horizontal transportation, I reduced the depth to 62cm.

The "roof" of the mini-layout doesn't safe merely as decoration, but holds the lighting of the display, too. I wanted to conceil the lights as much as possible, and chose to split the ceiling in three parallel parts. High-efficiency leds (small but powerful) are hidden behind the ceiling segments
The "public" shall look at it from the right hand side of the drawing. The blue part of the scetch is the upper part of the background sheet.

Just like the base part, the "hood" has an irregular six-sided shape. I copied the dimensions from the base plate to make a lightweight, but solid wooden frame. De ceiling of the hood is made from pieces of clear plastic, remainings of the background sheet I used for my big layout.
Round the wooden frame, I attached a 12cm high hardboard side part. This required some advanced measuring and fitting.

Quite a step further, the background is built (using clear plastic sheet again, stiffened with MDF). It is held in place by 7 M8-wire bars and glue. The firts picture shows a stage where I painted the outside black. Next the inside got a white primary layer. Streaks of blue paint, getting lighter towards the "horizon" give the expressionbn of a sunny sky.

Clouds and a green "landscape" complete painting the inside of the background. The frontside of the hood gets the mini-layout's name, and an extra layer of varnish protects the outside of the display.

Time for the lighting, which is steered by a microcontroller (AtMega8) and 5 power outputs. Each output controls a circuit of 10 ultrabright Leds, one for each colour: warm-white, blue, yellow, green and red. With this configuration, it is possible to simulate day and night transitions, as well as "bad wheather".

With the hood ready, I took it off and put it temporarily aside. The main power supply is built and fixed to the bottom. This underframe needs some reinforcements, as well as holders for the supporting legs. These are recycled from my first mini-layout, but will need to be more sturdy. After all, the fragile fancy-fair attractions won't allow for any vibrations.

With the hood removed and the first electrical components in place, I can add the pavement. With two types of foam-cardboard, I made the streets and city square. They all have cobblestones, and I'm glad I made a little tool to press these in the foam. About a halve square meter of cobblestones was pressed in no-time.

As a friend of mine needed sewer covers, I etched some for me as well.
The left hand side picture shows the situation in june 2010. The city hall hardly finished, the rollercoaster about half-way, the catterpilar almost ready, but the most important thing to notice is the amount of empty space. It was obvious this project couldn't get finished in time for the october show, so I had to postpone the "première".

Nevertheless I continued, albeit for a next exposition. The city-hall was built first, and was almost fnished in august '10. Under the mini-layout, I needed some extra electric power supply voltages, so I home-made these.

The first attractions are placed : a catterpilar and a mini-miniature train for the park near the cit-hall. The rollercoaster should be next to complete.

A mirror/dance tent was something I wanted, too. This means music, and a small mixing device to let people hear the other fancy-fair sounds

The parkje for the mini-miniature train was finished, It was time to home-build a static grass applier to help me ...

See: Mini-layout 1 - bumper cars - rollercoaster - catterpilar