Only 2 weeks until the O Scale National Convention. Yikes! So much to finish!

The interior of the diner is pretty much finished, just need to drop the window "glass" into the walls. 

The gentleman reading the paper is a 3D print from MB Model, gifted by fellow O scaler Greg Amer out of Seattle. Thanks Greg!

The seated boy and the cook are from vintage 1960s Revell vehicle models.  The cook has an apron and hat made from post-it notes and super glue.  The seated guy is modified the same way with a hat.

Now to finish the roof and the wiring for the lights and signs.  Still need to build the separate walk-in cooler that goes behind the diner.

Beautiful! There's nothing quite like prototype hardware on a CTC machine. Great job.

I do like the annotations added with your Demo labeler.

The smoothness of the operation as it starts, then gently, completely returns is a sight to behold. And the sound adds so much to the action. Truely amazing. Thanks so much Bob, from all of us who call the A&O our favorite play place.

Now to finally finish the surrounding structure.

Pictures at 10.

David

Back to the mothership. The drive is sitting loose inside the rotary cabinet. I intended for it to be a tiny bit short and that was indeed the case. A bit of styrene shim brought it to the proper height. We can shim it up, but we can't shim it down.



The controller board is temporarily taped in place. From left to right are a DFPlayer MP3 player, PJRC Teensy 4.0 ARM processor, and the TMC2209 driver (with heat sink.)

After a little bit of wood trimming we got the drive hooked up to the rotary barrel.
 


After adjusting some of the torque settings we were successfully mock dumping hopper cars. This is one of the heaviest.



I'm glad to report that "sensorless homing" works great. At initial power-up, the processor turns the barrel towards home for a little while but at very reduced motor current (i.e. torque.) The stepper acts as a clutch as it skips steps. This process is completely silent.

The pushbutton, illuminated red in the photo, is the sole operator control and will be mounted on the layout fascia.

After the operator presses the button when it is illuminated green, it switches to red and the MP3 player starts a sound track of an actual Whiting Rotaside going through a full dump cycle.

Remember that picture thumbnails can be enlarged by mouse clicking on them.

The last photo shows a top view of the drive before installing the barrel.

Nice!