Sunday, January 15, 2017

New header for our modules' standard

Happy New Year everybody!!! This is my first post of 2017

We are ready to publish the revision 3 of our modular norms. Remember in the top horizontal menu, under "Modules" option, you will find always all the posts and the last version of the norms once approved.

A big change in this new version refers to the header construction and shape. Our adopted header was the same from the EuroN norm:

EuroN header (ClubNCaldes v.1)

Everybody told us that the squared hole (the one on the right side) was never used. In the original EuroN norms that hole is to pass two hidden tracks to cross under the modules. But if even having the tracks in sight sometimes is difficult to adjust them, having them hidden looks like it can cause many headaches and train derailments in a zone that you cannot see and has difficult accessibility. So we decided to get rid of it and center and enlarge the existing rounded hole that we use to pass the wires and connect one module to the other, and as a handle to move the module.

At the same time one of the club members had the idea to make a reversible module, so you can flip it and interchange North and South sides with no problems. Another friend wanted to make a staging yard of 6 tracks, but having a kind of norm or guide for it and to place the tracks. In this way any staging yard module (with 6 tracks) can be joined to the one from any other club member as everything has been constructed under the same norm.

These are the reasons to design a new header, fully compatible with EuroN and our previous header norm, but having the holes to place the metallic gauge in three different positions. The two outside positions allow to place 4 tracks so that the module is symmetric and North and Sound sides are interchangeable. A center position of the gauge allows to place two extra tracks centered in the module.


ClubNCaldes header v.3 (compatible EuroN)

I will upload the last norm version soon, as it contains more detailed information and step-by-step instructions to build the different Loconet modules using Arduino.