INTRODUCTION
You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Large Scale Central Traveling Outhouse Award! (My apologies to Rod Serling.)
BACKGROUND
I’m a country boy from the hills of West Virginia. Back when I was growing up, outhouses were everywhere. Now that we have this newfangled indoor plumbing stuff, no one seems to want the smelly old things around anymore. I miss them. The outhouse was the original man cave – a place to get away from everything. I like to build outhouses for the miniature residents that inhabit my layout. But there’s seldom one to be seen when I visit other folks’ layouts. Just where do those little people go when they have to go?
PURPOSE
This award is for you, the members of LSC. It will visit many LSC layouts in the near future. Get ready … it may be coming your way next. The traveling outhouse will be the envy of all your little people. I will take it with me to the next layout I visit and present it to the layout’s owner. That recipient will then present the outhouse award to the owner of the next layout he or she visits. And so on … until we run out of layouts or it disintegrates from the rigors of constant travel. But if it ever breaks or quits working (or fills up), just send it back to me and I’ll repair or rebuild it and get it back on the road again.
Here’s the only caveat. The traveling outhouse award can only be presented to an active LSC member who has invited others to visit his or her layout. It does not have to be a formal operations session; a roundy-round or simple point-to-point is good enough. Scale doesn’t matter. Just have some track down and have something up and running for others to see and you may be the next recipient of this distinguished award. There is a log book included with the award. When you receive it, please enter your name, city and state, and the date received. That way we can track the number of layouts visited and the miles traveled.
MODEL DESCRIPTION
The outhouse is a scratch-built 1:20.3 scale model, with an operating door, an illuminated lantern, a hidden speaker, and full sound effects. It represents one of the outhouses that the Choctaw Coal and Railroad Company (CC&R) built for its workers, circa 1939.
The outhouse is mounted atop a black plastic base which contains the electrical and mechanical components. There is an internal rechargeable battery. A potentiometer knob on the side of the base controls a servo which opens and closes the outhouse door. A toggle switch allows the sound effects to be played once or continuously.
The outhouse is built from western red cedar lumber. The interior framing is 2 x 6. The wall sheathing is individual 1 x 10 boards. The door is made from 1 x 6 boards. The floor boards are 2 x 8. Corner trim boards are 1 x 4. Various pieces of 1 x 6, 1 x 8, and 1 x 10 boards were used to make the shelf and seat box. The roof is individual cedar shakes over thin plywood sheathing.
I made the roof removable in case I ever need to access the interior to replace the lantern bulb or the speaker. It is attached at the peak of the front and rear walls with miniature wood screws. The structure is built on a thin plywood subfloor which is attached to the lid of the plastic base with screws from the underside.
The exterior wall surfaces are painted my standard CC&R depot buff color (a mixture of acrylic yellow, white, and brown.) Locals affectionately call it baby poop yellow. The door and trim are painted mineral brown (acrylic raw umber.) Interior surfaces are unpainted but received a light weathering with a brown India ink/alcohol wash. The shake roof is weathered with a black India ink/alcohol wash and a green enamel stain. The floor boards were heavily weathered with real ashes and a black India ink/alcohol wash.
Since this is a men’s outhouse, the interior is decorated appropriately. I downloaded various late ‘30s movie posters, calendars, pinups, and other images from the Internet. I drew the “Railroad Men Only” and “Choctaw Route” signs with Microsoft PowerPoint. I scaled all the images to proper size and printed them on an inkjet printer. Exterior walls were coated with acrylic matte medium after the paper items were added. The toilet paper is made from thin paper, cut to 5mm width (4 scale inches), and rolled on a piece of wire.
A scale person is sitting on the throne. The figure is a seated 1:20.3 Scale Human from Richard Kapuaala that I modified with a hobby knife and acrylic modeling paste into a “pants-down” pose. I painted the figure with acrylics.
The brass door hinges are from Micro-mark. They are attached with GO2 adhesive and miniature brass nails. The mechanical linkage between the door and the servo is fabricated from bits and pieces of steel rod, brass tubing, and brass bar stock. The ash bucket, broom, and door handle are white metal castings from Ozark Miniatures.
ITEM LOCATIONS
The following items are located on the side of the base:
- Sound CONTINUOUS/OFF/ONE TIME toggle switch, SPDT, ON-OFF-(ON). In the CONTINUOUS position, the digitized sound track plays continuously and loops every 45 seconds. In the OFF position no sound is played. If the sound track was playing when the switch was placed in the OFF position, it will continue to play until the end of the track. In the ONE TIME position (spring loaded, momentary), the sound track plays once (about 45 seconds long.)
- DOOR OPEN/CLOSE potentiometer knob. This potentiometer allows the outhouse door to be fully closed, fully opened, or stopped at any position in between.
- Master ON/OFF/CHARGE toggle switch, DPDT CTR OFF. In the ON position, the battery is connected to the +5 VDC and +12 VDC regulators. The servo is on, the lantern is on, and the sound effects card is ready to accept switch inputs. In the OFF position, power is removed from all components. In the CHARGE position, the battery is connected to the Battery Charging Jack.
- CHARGING JACK. This is a 2.1 mm DC power jack for connecting a Li-ion battery smart charger to the battery. The charger is furnished with the outhouse.
The following items are located inside of the base:
- 14.8 volt, 2600 mAh Li-ion battery
- Homemade Circuit Board
- Sound Effects Card
- Servo and mechanical linkage to door
- Fuse holder with a 1 Amp fuse.
The following electrical items are located inside of the outhouse:
- Speaker – QSI Large Oval, 28.5 x 40mm, 8 Ohm, 1 Watt, high efficiency oval speaker with enclosure. It is mounted under the roof with silicone.
- Lantern – Ozark Miniatures conductor’s oil lamp, clear, drilled out with 3/32” bit to accept a grain-of-rice incandescent bulb.
ITEM DESCRIPTIONS
Homemade Circuit Board – the homemade circuit board contains the following components:
- 5VDC precision high efficiency buck voltage regulator
- 12VDC precision high efficiency buck voltage regulator
- Servo Controller - made from two NE555 integrated circuits with supporting resistors and capacitors. IC1 is configured as a 19Hz Astable Oscillator. IC2 is configured as a variable 1 msec to 2 msec Monostable Oscillator. A potentiometer is used to vary the width of the individual pulses contained in the 19 Hz pulse train. These pulses direct the servo to move left or right and subsequently open or close the door.
- Lantern Driver - made from a single NE555 IC with supporting resistors, capacitors, and diodes. IC3 is configured as a fixed frequency, fixed duty cycle oscillator. The output drives a 12 volt grain-of-rice incandescent lamp located inside the lantern. I selected resistance and capacitance values to create a shimmering kerosene lantern glow. The output is approximately 10 Hz with an 85% duty cycle.
- Two 3-pin connectors for connections to the servo and potentiometer.
- Three 2-pin connectors for connections to input power from battery, output power to sound card, and lantern
Sound Effects Card – this is a commercial sound effects card with digitized outhouse sounds.
Servo – this is a featherweight micro servo. It is 20.2 x 18.5 x 17.6 mm (0.79 x 0.33 x 0.69 in) in size. Stall torque is 0.6 kg-cm.
ELECTRICAL SCHEMATIC
Here is the link to a larger copy of the schematic. http://largescalecentral.com/filesharing/file/view/2613/outhouse-schematic-png
ELECTRICAL PARTS LIST
- C1, C7 1µF, 35V, tantalum electrolytic capacitor
- C2, C5, C6, C8 0.1µF, 25V, ceramic disc capacitor
- C3 1µF, 6.3V, radial aluminum electrolytic capacitor
- C4 0.01µF, 25V, ceramic disc capacitor
- C9 0.47µF, 12V, ceramic disc capacitor
- R1, R7 10KΩ, ⅛ W, 5%
- R2 33KΩ, ⅛ W, 5%
- R3 100KΩ, ⅛ W, 5%
- R4 8.2KΩ, ⅛W, 5%
- R5 10KΩ, ½ W, 20%, linear taper potentiometer
- R6 220KΩ, ⅛ W, 5%
- R8 56Ω, ⅛ W, 5%
- D1, D2 1N914 or 1N4148 signal diode
- IC1, IC2, IC3 NE555
- 5 VDC REG 5 Volt, 600mA step-down voltage regulator, Pololu P/N D24V6F5
- 12 VDC REG 12 Volt, 600mA step-down voltage regulator, Pololu P/N D24V6F12
- S1 Miniature toggle switch, DPDT, CTR OFF, ON-OFF-ON
- S2 Miniature toggle switch, SPDT, CTR OFF, ON-OFF-(ON)
- LAMP 12 Volt, 30 mA, incandescent grain-of-rice bulb
- SERVO Featherweight Micro Servo, PowerHD P/N: HD1370A
- SOUND CARD ITT Products, P/N GL2001
- SPEAKER SI (TDS) Large Oval Speaker with Enclosure, 8Ω, 1 W, Tony’s Train Exchange
- FUSE 1A
- BASE Black ABS Plastic Project Box, size: 4.7” x 4.7” x 2.2”, Hammond P/N 1591USBK
- CHARGING JACK 2.1mm DC power jack, generic
- BATTERY Tenergy Li-Ion 14.8V 2600mAh Battery Pack w/ PCB, Item Number 31022
- CHARGER Tenergy TLP-4000 Universal 1A Smart Charger, Item Number 01281. I replaced the alligator clips with a 2.1mm power plug.
CONCLUSION
This was a fun little project that allowed me to play around with both my modeling and electronics tinkering interests. I hope that all of you will now have a greater appreciation for outhouses and maybe even motivated to build a few of your own. I encourage you to invite others over to see your layout … you never know, one of those attending may present you with this major award.
Until the next project strikes,
Bob
