Well, they say it’s not over ‘till its over! And as of opening day, it still wasn’t over.
It didn’t take long before we realized that the new minit market was one of the most recognized buildings on the layout. Of course, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that it was right inside the entrance and was one of the first things you would see. Even little kids were saying, “Look, it’s a Turkey Hill”. Now that was cool. It made all the hours and hard work worth it.
We had planned a media blitz with Turkey Hill Dairy and Turkey Hill Minit Market about the newest minit market in town! We hired a PR person to write a press release and she and my daughter, Kristi, came up with the idea for a “Family Fun Day”, getting the dairy people and the minit Markey people involved. In the course of the planning and all the correspondence, I said I said that I still wanted to make a gas price sign. Well, as anybody around here can attest to, I usually take a simple idea and make it into a big production and the gas price sign was no exception. I happened to mention that I thought I could make the sign so that I could change the gas prices as they fluctuated, thereby staying current. So I found an electronics geek bulletin board (This is said very tongue-in-check because by me being on the BB, that makes me a geek, too!) at www.nutsvolts.com which is the website for Nuts and Volts Magazine. I joined the Bulletin Board and posted a question about how to interface a PC with a numeric LED display. I got a couple replies and even a couple comments about the Choo Choo Barn and found out how to easily make the numeric LED display so I could change the numerals. I ordered the parts from www.mouser.com, one of my favorite electronic sources and set to work.
In case you’re wondering, a numeric LED display is a little box that has ten pins sticking out the back and the outline of what looks like the number “8” plus a small decimal point. These are actually LEDs inside this little package. By connecting the correct pins, you can make the numbers fro 0 to 9 plus a decimal point, if needed. The picture of the sign lit up explains what it looks like. I have them all turned on to the number “8” to make sure my wires were all connected. Anyway, using 32 gauge wire (that’s really small wire) I soldered leads to 9 pins on the first digit and 8 pins on the next two digits. I did this for three prices; Regular, Premium and Diesel. The first digit is comprised of 7 segments, one decimal point plus one wire for ground. The next two digits don’t need the decimal point so that’s why there is one less wire. So, one gas price has 25 individual wires soldered to the pins. Since the sign is double sided, I just ran a jumper wire to the other set on displays that correspond to the same gas price. That’s 75 wires that have to go down under the display to some type on circuit board. Once each of the three individual LED displays was wired, I glued them together to make a dollars and cents price. That’ six sets of individual prices.
Once the LEDs were wired and working, I started construction of the sign itself. I drove to my local Turkey Hill and took a picture of the gas price sign I wanted to recreate. Here it is:
The main part of the sign is made of basswood. The top part where the Turkey Hill logo is is actually two pieces of Plexiglas with basswood glued to the inside edge. I used thin wood so it would not get in the way of any light that I was going to use to illuminate it from inside. I made the proper size for the logo using Microsoft Publisher and printed it on self-stick paper. I used the same method on the sign as the other one, except this one ultimately had a light bulb inside and it was double sided. Before I started all of this, I made the exact sign that I wanted using Publisher. My reasoning comes later!
The next part was the actual sign itself. Again, I grabbed some basswood. I didn’t want to make the sign too thick but I had all those wires and the numeric LED units to contend with. I figured the least amount of space I could work with was 1 inch. That meant the sign would have to be 4 feet in real life, bigger than actuality, but livable. I cut the two side pieces and rounded the top part on my disk sander. Using the sign from Publisher as my plan, I made the main part of the sign. The piece that’s across the bottom is only temporary; it’s just holding the sign together until I’m finished.
Once this was done, my next project was stuffing 10 pounds of wires until a 5 pound sack! I laid the sign on my workbench and glued my number board in with Super Jet. I flipped the sign over, checked all my wires, re-soldered 5 of them, and pushed everything together. Here’s a photo of it all, being held together with clamps.
Once this was done, I added some other pieces of wood and painted the whole thing black.
I added a flourette bulb in the skinny section above the numeric displays and snaked the wires inside the sign. I went back to Publisher and made a new sign that was oversized, except for the graphics. In other words, I extended the black all the way around.
Once my lights were all inside the sign and all my wires wire run and the numeric LEDs tested for the 1000th time, I printed this new oversized sign on self-stick paper, cut it out, cut the center section out to reveal the numeric displays and put it over the two sides of the sign. Once I trimmed the paper, I glued the top logo on. Here’s a couple pics of the finished sign on the finished scene. Our big unveiling was scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd. I actually had this all finished by the Wednesday before! Saturday morning, I checked gas prices at our local Turkey Hill, changed a few DIP switches, and VOILA!, up to date gas prices!
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