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Regular poster 190 posts Steve Watson SteveWatson Regular poster 190 posts
Steve Watson SteveWatson

I already posted this on the April Workbench thread, but I thought I'd put a longer post here. I'm using the Model Power State Power Substation kit as the transformer yard for my paper mill (paper mills suck juice, easily enough to justify respectably large supply hardware). Model Power kits are a little...basic, but with some work they can look pretty good.

I airbrushed the frame. The base was painted concrete for the pads, then masked and sprayed with stone-texture paint to look like the gravel they use in those places. For the bus bars I set aside the brass wire that came with the kit and used music wire.

The big changes were to the fence and the switchgear. The fence was plastic, with a metal mesh to attach -- didn't look at all like chain link. I soldered together a frame of music wire. My wife then attached some fine plastic mesh (turned so it has the proper diagonal orientation!) to this with CA, then made coils of 26 awg for the barbed wire. The gates are set in brass tube soldered to the fence, so they sort of work.

Notes on soldering music wire: 1) It comes greasy, so clean it well, and 2) silver paste solder works really nicely, and is stronger than standard electrical solder (also melts hotter, so be sure to use a good iron). Dab it on one wire, place the other wire on top of the glob, apply the iron to the top wire, and within seconds the joint is made.

Here's the curse of knowing something about the prototype: I'm a EE, and while I never worked in power, I got the basic courses, and the picture on the kit made no sense to me. Basically, it was a random collection of insulators with bus bars attached -- no idea how the power gets from the supply to the transformers, and out again to the load. Worse, my dad did work in high power, and I figured if I didn't make some attempt to get it right, his disapproving ghost would haunt my layout causing no end of electrical troubles . A little searching found me some pictures of the real thing, as well as equipment manufacturers' websites. There have to be disconnect frames upstream and downstream of the transformer, as well as a circuit breaker on the supply side. I scratchbuilt the frames (easy, just a few styrene shapes to produce something "good enough").

Oh, did I mention this is in N scale? This is N scale.

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Boudreaux Regular poster 316 posts
Boudreaux

That is Shocking

Steve,

This is a great job I feel in N scale.

Was going to offer ideas I use for HO chain link fence,  Wedding veil material

Old Mardi Gras glass beads we had back in the day as insulators.

But this is really detail for "N".

Thanks,

Boudreaux,  B.C.E.  R.R.

And it may snow in the morning here in OKC.OK.   : (     am ready for spring!
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ChagaChooChoo Regular poster 220 posts
ChagaChooChoo

Nice work!

Looks great.  I agree, Model Power kits are "pretty good", but sometimes are functionally just wrong.  I built their coaling tower with a ton of modifications, results are quite decent.  This station looks ready to deliver a lot of amps to their customer!

 

Just my 1.1 cents.  (That's 2 cents, after taxes.)

Kevin
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batey_1020 Regular poster 267 posts
batey_1020

Looking good for n scale. I

Looking good for n scale.

I work in HV switchyard design for many years and now work  as an overhead line designer.

I hope you don't mind me offering some advice or justification on your arrangement. It may help others also.
Not a typical arrangement as you mentioned but its workable and believe me I've been in and seen all sorts of arrangements from odds and ends.

Often larger industry will run with two transformer arrangement,  one as spare for servicing and failure purposes. Essentially the ABS or air break switch is in the open position on one. You would hope they have separate protection and circuit breakers but often don't.

You mention not having incoming high voltage circuit breaker. We have arrangement where the use a Recloser (controlable circuit breaker) in  is in the street looking toward the customers property. This allows us access 24/7 and the customers switchyard sometimes may not have one.

You probably need to bring supply into the busbar. I did some work many years ago where space was tight in the yard to bring in an underground cable in. There was no room to work inside. Solution was a cable up to a few meters back from the fence. Run the cable up the pole and break out to a cross arm on the pole and then take each conductor down to its respective place on the bus bars below.

Very well done for N scale. Certainly has the look and feel!

Wouldn't want to be that worker there close to the HV. Some older yards have old clearnece and always make me feel un easy even though i  know I'm safe.

Multi Deck Ho Logging Railway in the North West

https://owenpass.blogspot.com/
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Steve Watson SteveWatson Regular poster 190 posts
Steve Watson SteveWatson

@batey_1020

Thanks. Who knows what prototype MP was working from?

There is actually a supply-side breaker, it's a horizontal thing on the ground between the transformer and the disconnect, hard to see in the photos. Doesn't match anything I found in pictures on the net, but oh well. And yes, the connections to the outside world would presumably be through the overhead bus bars, I haven't figured out the exact arrangement (and I notice I've lost an insulator somewhere, good thing the kit has like a dozen extras). The load side will connect to the wall of a building, local switchgear assumed to be inside an equipment room where I don't have to model any of it .
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