I’m looking for advice on how to make home made signals. I would like them to be a prototypical modern day looking signal like the BLMA signals that are out on the market. Actually im going to use the BLMA heads so i just need to learn how to build the masts from scratch. If anyone could give me material ideas and some instruction on how to build these that would be great. The first signal that i need to make will be a back to back singal headed on each side. The scale is ho and like i said modern is the look that im shooting for.
Thank, pictures of your signals would be nice too!
I built all of my signals so I know where you are coming from. Early on I was buying the signal heads from NJI but they didn’t keep up with sales and got very hard to get. I really liked the NJI heads so I decided to try making them myself. It turned out to be quite easy and I ended up making over forty heads.
I did a post on my blog on the construction of my signal system if you care to look at.
To make the targets, I drilled a series of 3mm or 1/8" holes in the lid of a margarine container at even spaces cut them into about 11mm or 7/16" squares with the holes in the centre and screwed a lot of them (about 30 or so) on a screw thread tightened by a nut.
I then turned them on a lathe to get the 9mm disc shape. You will lose a few on the outer ends due to fraying and tearing etc but you should get between 20 and 25 heads for about 10 minutes work and the cost, practically zilch.
My own lathe is out of action at the moment because we have just moved house but should you need some, I can pop some in an envelope and send them gratis but you may know someone who owns a lathe anyway… PM me!
I really like the way you laid out your signal concept. Many years ago I found some manufactured styrene or plastic signal heads hard to work with, single target searchlight and three color vertical. I didn’t do well working with plastic, after many attempts I gave up. I’m good with my soldering irons so I went with NJI brass heads but availability was poor at best.
I bought an Oregon Rail signal kit (brass/styrene) and used it for a go-by. The post on my blog is rather old and I hadn’t updated it since 2014. I updated it this morning with the info and picture below. I found some #6S brass washers at Home Depot that are very close to HO scale and eliminated the need to make my own.
I used the Oregon Rail signal base or cabinet to make a mold and duplicated them with a brass tube signal mast and a Mel made Resin base.
Thanks for the feedback and glad you think it worthy!
For the lights I use an AC input governed in one direction by a diode in forward for Green and another in reverse for Red. The third feed bypasses the two diodes and feeds AC to the LED and it becomes Yellow. It does not show quite as well as I would like but it is definitely discernible as yellow.
Here in Australia, the AC frequency is 50 Hz whereas in North America it is 60 Hz so the yellow should (in theory anyway) be a bit clearer.
I could have used a 555 timer but IC circuitry is not among my better knowledge fields but I believe it is possible to get the frequency higher than 5-6Khz and the "yellower it should appear. If you need a circuit diagram, let me know!
My costs would also have been around the $3-4 mark including the switches, although you could say I cheated a little … my brother located me some English made ladders that he made a gift for me but with a few other things, including the recent move, I have not had a chance to think about fitting them.
My original signals (2001) used 2mm red/green bicolor LEDs and worked great. They have changed the way that they are manufactured because all of the newer LEDs have the red and green too far apart internally. They have a hot spot of red and green for yellow. I bought around a dozen from different manufactures (I think) and all of them looked nearly the same, all have hot spots. I tried common anode, common cathode and bicolor. The bicolor LEDs made 20 years ago didn’t have hot spots.
The hot spots just didn’t do it for me so I attempted to fix it using a separate yellow micro LED at the rear of a three lead red/green LED. I filed one corner of the rear of the 2mm LED at about a 45° angle and attached the micro LED using CA.
