Coffee Shop 31 Feb 12th


Status
Not open for further replies.
I got my Atlas H24-66 Trainmaster running again. I test ran it yesterday and after two full laps around the layout the motor control part of the Digitrax DZ125 decoder fried. Oh well, it was a junk box decoder anyway. In looking through my stuff I found a Bachmann decoder that's in good shape. It would give me motor control but the light functions are on/off, bright/dim only. The Digitrax decoder though fried still worked for lighting and light effects and was already set up. It's also still addressable! So I set it for the same address as the Bachmann decoder then piggybacked the Bachmann decoder on the Digitrax. What the hey, it works.I still have the lighting control of the Digitrax and the Bachmann provides motor control. Now I have an operational loco for the tourist train.
 
Congrats on the interview. Will you take the job? Missouri will be a change of scenery. Last time I was in Kansas I took a look around. Flat as a table top.
 
Time for me to call it a night. Went to McDonald's with my parents this morning for breakfast. Came back and got the Atlas Trainmaster up and running. It creeps at 0.5 on the Zephyr's throttle. Pulled out some Athearn cars and installed Kadee couplers on them. Having some problems with a Front Range 'Shorty' covered hopper. Some weight should fix it. Slapped a McHenry shelf coupler on the last car of the train just for the look of it. I wouldn't trust it to hold onto a speck of air. See y'all tomorrow.

P1010614.jpg
 
Hello to all,

I've been off the forum for about three weeks now I guess and kind of miss the place.

My hard drive crashed but fortunately my tech neighbor was able to pull most of the important files off of it, thank God.

Then I had roof repair to do and it wasn't done any too soon either as the area here suffered an extreme storm. The first night, a week ago from today Friday it came down in buckets basically all night till about 10:30 on Sat. I still had three new leaks and took advantage of the let up to once get up on the roof and do more shake/tar paper repair. I didn't measure the National Weather Service approved Rain gauge but it looked like it had at least 3 to 4" in it. I didn't get the repairs done any too soon as it began to rain which turned to pea size hail and then snow then more hail and more snow. Neither was very much but cold for sure.

On Sunday I had a chance to measure the rain gauge and we had 5.19" at that point and shortly thereafter it rained & hailed again and on Monday I found we had another .50" 's so things were a tad wet to say the least.

On Friday during the heaviest rain one of the leaks was right over the unfinished ends of the layout and dripping down right through a round ceiling light fixture where I had a plug in connector with a couple of other florescent light plugged in. It was literally running down the back of the socket. I'm surprised it didn't trip the circut breaker?


On a brighter note, I picked up a new source, ScaleFigures.com, for figures and animals in HO and larger sizes. Most of the cast metal figures are from the late 1880's to about the 1920's and have very good detail as they are the same as the old Lylter & Lylter figures which I have quite a few to compare with.

My price, for most of his, 'HO UnPainted Figures' are $.75ea which will go up to about $1.25 sug.list after a short bit. So if your interested get in touch with a list of what you want?

Hope you all have a good night and weend
 
Morning gang! Temps in the 60's and thunderstorms today, good day to stay in the basement.:D:D:D
Meanwhile, the jungle grows outside:eek:!
Thats ok, Deere #2 seems to mow fine on wet/damp ground, (unlike #1 that just sinks in it) so the little guy can come out when the rain stops. Hopefully by Monday!!!;)
Been thinking about Zoysia grass for the yard. Only needs cutting 2 or 3 times a season......leaves more modeling time!!:rolleyes:
 
Good Morning

We be dull dull dull and raining upon our'n heads today:rolleyes:..going to stop the rain part later this afternoon and just be plain ol' dull then:rolleyes:...high of 60F forecast...

Had an interesting day with my friend in hospital yesterday..turns out I've been a bad influence on him:eek::rolleyes:..he gets into trouble with the nurses a little.....gee, I wonder why:rolleyes::confused:......actually he is doing a lot better lately..he is supposedly going ot be discharged on Monday..:).



Today, since I am off from on-calls for a bit now...I will be hiding in my trainroom trying to find certain items that seem to go missing in there....:):)
 
Mornin' all! Its gonna be cloudy in the 60"s here today. Going to go truck shopping. Not may favorite thing to do but I need a different one.
 
Good morning. It's 56° and sunny. The high will be 82°.

Sunny today! I like to see that! The lake is almost back down to it's normal level. Yesterday the concrete walk around the boat house was above the water. That's about two feet above the normal level.

I was up until the wee hours this morning trouble-shooting and fixing an electrical problem on the layout. Locos were losing power coming around the 180° turn at the end of the extension. Pressing on the track restored power. Problem areas are the areas in red.

layout2.jpg


The black section between two red sections is where feeder wires connect to the track. The red areas either side of that point (to the turnout on the one side to the end of the red on the other side) were getting spotty power at best and at worst were failing entirely. Turns out that not a single rail joiner in those areas was soldered. So I spent most of my night carefully digging out the scenery at those joiners, cleaning the sides of the rails to either side of each joiner and soldering each and every joint. It took a bit but a train coming around that long curve now has steady power all the way around. That curve was put in years ago and I can't believe I missed all those joints when I went around the layout soldering joiners. Makes me wonder what else I missed.

Today I'll be going to the voting place to cast my vote in the presidential primary then go into town to the mail drop to return a a DVD to the History Channel Club. After that back home to get some rest then maybe work on the layout some more.

DSCN1863.jpg
 
Good morning from SoCal. 57 heading for a sunny/cloudy 68. Rain still showing for tomorrow. Not good for the NASCAR race! Plan today is to clean out the shed and I think the UV bulb for the turtle pond needs to be replaced.
 
Good afternoon all! Did a little housework, sorted some bills and now I'm going to relax for a spell. Cloudy and in the 60's here.
 
Well after all the work I put into fixing the track problem last night and this morning the trains now run smoothly all the way around the layout. The lap time I just checked was fifty-seven seconds covering nine inches of track each second. I don't know what scale speed that works out to but it looks believable.
 
Good morning All! Glad to see you made progress on the track Jeffrey. Any chance we could see the Crescent Moon running 57 seconds in a video? Yeah, I know. I just love the smaller steam locomotives.........
 
morning its 43* raining & not going to get much warmer:( so im gonna just hangout on ebay allll day lol;)
 
Good morning. It's 54° and clear. Wind NNE 0 mph. The high will be 82°.

Power went out for a short time early this morning (around 3 am). I woke up when the familiar noises stopped. You'd think noises would wake you up when they start, not when they stop.

I had a problem with the trains last night that was a bit of a head scratcher. I had rearrange some of the cars and from that moment on one of the locos (didn't matter which set was pulling) would derail at some point on the layout. Each loco set had it's favorite spot. With the Bachmann GP7's it was the turnout next to the east wall and only the trailing unit. The Atlas FP7's it was the curve in the north corner of the layout and only the lead unit. With the Atlas GP40's it was the north turnout next to the west wall and only the lead unit. The GP9 Frankensteins were the only ones that had no problem. Go figure. Well, since all this started after the cars were rearranged there must be something about that because I don't see that many varied track problems popping up all at once. The two cars just behind the locos are a pair of Tyco Old Dutch Cleanser covered hoppers and all I'd done with them was switch them around. Both have metal wheels and both both have body mounted Kadee #242 coupler boxes. The only difference is one has #118 shelf couplers and the other has #119 shelf couplers. It seems crazy that one car would cause the locos to have problems while the other one didn't but I decided what the hey. I changed them around again, put the lead car behind the one that had been behind it and what do you know, the problem vanished, at least with the GP7's and GP40's. I haven't tried the FP7's yet. Correction, I'm now running the FP7's and they too seem to be happy now. Stranger and stranger.

DSCN1901.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.



Back
Top