Practical Electronics for Railway Modellers: Bk. 1 - Hardcover

Amos, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 085059555X ISBN 13: 9780850595550

Publisher: Patrick Stephens, 1982

Synopsis

Here, for the first time in the UK, is a book written by a model railway enthusiast for model railway enthusiasts about electronic projects for model railways. Other books on this subject assume a prior knowledge of electronics and are directed at electronics hobbyists, but are no use to the vast majority of railway modellers who are totally unfamiliar with such technicalities as transistors, resistors, capacitors, Ohms, milliAmps and microFarads. The practical appendices at the end of this book, however, should enable any modeller, even if he has never wielded a soldering iron, to put together the projects described.

The main part of the book is a series of projects. The first five are introductory, intended as a 'first exercise' in which newcomers to electronics can familiarise themselves with the technology, while making items useful on their railways. The remaining projects present a dazzling array of gadgets which will make any model railway more realistic and more infersting to operate.

Ten projects are devoted to controllers and a variety of ancillary circuitry such as variable inertia and brake controls, overload ' cut-outs and touch-sensor control. Three projects describe methods for train detection, including the EDOTIS track circuiting system devised by the author during his research for this book and now being marketed commercially.

A long section is devoted to automatic signalling, a field in which quite simple electronic circuitry can make enormous contributions. Semaphore and colour-light signalling is described, including three- and four-aspect installations and junction signalling. Interlocks for ensuring that trains stop at red signals are also included. A simple system for improving the constancy of brightness of train headlamps and tail lamps leads into a system for constant-brightness train lighting quite independent of the controller.

Edition details

• Publisher: Patrick Stephens
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 085059555X
• ISBN 13: 9780850595550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160