Coffee Shop 15

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

03-09-2009

Good Morning ! from TIPTON IN

 

[Cjcrescent]

Gang,
After a lot of cursing and grumbling. I finally got the new motor installed in the Spectrum 2-8-0 that fried last week. ...

Karl, Sorry you had the trouble with the 2-8-0.

For me, all the Spectrums are easy to work on. Five years ago, our clubs prez had his Spectrum J start acting up. It had a sound system and everything in it. It was used to pull his 14 brass car set of the Powhattan Arrow. It started getting slower and slower. He asked me to see what I could do for it. After disassembling it, I saw that the motor was shot and had to be replaced. Not having a Bachmann motor on hand, I looked for a replacement.

What I found was a Kato motor that was an almost drop-in replacement. The only visible difference in the tw motors was that the Kato motor had a much larger bearing located on the end of the motor away from the flywheel. A little "machining" with a dremel steel cutter and the engine was back together in less than 30 minutes. It still runs magnificently to this day.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good morning! Flo, gimme something tall n' strong (coffee, not the other stuff ) I HATE daylight savings time!!!

I finished the painting of the Merchants Row this weekend, now I need to figure out how to make up some decal signs for inside the front windows.

Karl, bummer about that connie, at least you got her running again.

...
Ken, I've been to that grade grossing before!!!
...

Probably - it's within a 30-minute drive from where you live!

CJ good to see ya, been awhile!

BOC Have you checked your steel mill question thread across the street? You've got quite a few answers to it...

Uh-oh it's 20 minutes later than I thought it was , hafta RUN! C-ya

 

[blownoutcylinder]

We got wind boy--up to 80kmh---and we had some gusts top out at 100kmh this am. We have a poplar that got uprooted by the bigger gusts this morning resting on a neighbours garage as well as debris all over the place--6C right now and that is where we'll sit today---and still more rain

We also got told of a new issue--would you believe "Crumbling" roads?Yes--we got enough rain that not only are roads flooded but we somehow have entire sections of roads being broken apart--forget potholes. Oh--and one road just out of town got washed out---runoff and barrels of rain did that--a creek overflowed and took part of a bridge abutment with it---

Ken Well we certainly got the information Audrey was looking for--now the only thing we need is to get the kit/bits together for her to do the thing!!

ChrisSaw your post/thread--everyone enjoyed themselves by the look of things---who puts the festival on down your way?

Flo--can I get a jug of raw caffeine please? Even with all that excitement--of the WRONG SORT I still need the caffeine--hmm

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning.

It's 66 and mostly cloudy. The high today should be around 80 and it will be partly cloudy.

I have an appointment for a physical this morning then I have to mow my sisters yard later. Somethings busted on her mower. Yesterday I constructed the salvaged cargo (wood boxcar) doors and lower rails for the MoW observation car. I need to install the top rails and guards to the bottom of the roof line. I could have done that yesterday except I couldn't find my drill bits. I'll have to drop by Lowe's today and pick up a new set. The main project yesterday was to rebuild an old Athearn caboose. The body was OK but the rest was a total loss. I trimmed the body a little and fitted it to a Bachmann wide vision caboose frame. Problem with that was the Bachmann ladders were no good for the new body. I fitted a couple of metal Athearn ladders and the rebuild was almost done. I need to install a chimney pipe but I have to drill out the old one first.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 3/9/2009

Wind Chill: 66°F
Humidity: 94%
Dew Point: 64°F

So Far Today
High: 67°F
Low: 64°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 8mph SSW

Today High: 82 Mostly cloudy early in the morning then becoming partly cloudy. Patchy fog early in the morning. Highs in the lower 80s. South winds 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight Low: 68 Partly cloudy. Patchy fog after midnight. Lows in the upper 60s. South winds 10 to 15 mph.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm18/forum-2/DSCN0629.jpg

 

[tompm]

Good morning folks

It was 47 F as I headed out this dark morning and first day of work with Daylight savings Time. High today will be 56 F with showers. We are also under a Wind Advisory for this afternoon and we could get gusts up to 45 MPH.

Work is going downhill already. One of our projects that has to be advertised on Thursday isn’t going to happen because another unit is not cooperating and is late getting data to us and in one case refusing to give us the data. This issue is getting kicked up the chain of command. The other project may make it but it is fighting us all the way. We have a ton of data to enter into our computer system and of course they upgraded the system two weeks ago and we are finding every bug and broken command.

This was a busy weekend. I did not make it to work on Saturday. The building maintenance folks decided to do an upgrade to the electrical service in the building. This meant that our computer network would be offline all day Saturday. Without the computers I could not do what I needed to do. Both kids had basketball games this weekend. Next weekend starts playoffs and then we go into baseball and softball season. I also did the biweekly grocery store shopping.

Sunday we spent do some running around since my wife worked all day on Saturday. She proctored a part of the Delaware Science Olympiad that was held at Delaware State University. She worked from 8 AM to 5 PM and since Dover is about a two hour drive she did not mkae it home until 7 PM.

I never got any modeling done.

I hope everybody has a good day.

 

[Nathan Hall]

Good Morning All,
It is right now 11 AM and a wonderful 70 degrees. Great difference from a few days ago when it was in the 40's and sonw at this time. Today's high will be around 82 degrees and sunny Hopefully the UP's on K892 will be in Fulton when I get home so I can chase them up Hermintage Hill and get some nice sunny day shots of them. Also got my fifth accepted picture on Railpictures.net overnight, which is always nice.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=275012

From a sunny day to a school day...Nathan Hall wishing everybody a fun and safe day.

 

[leghome]

Phillip I did not see anything in the photos that would help me figure out where to hook the wires to. It would probably be best to have someone with a lot more electrical experience than me look at it. I have rewired my whole house but that was pretty much a straight forward deal for me. That black thing in the 2nd photo looked almost like a breaker, relay or something similar. There is usually a box of some sort for the wires to go into before they go to the control panel. If you do not figure it out I would be willing to take a look at it.

 

[pcarrell]

Phillip I did not see anything in the photos that would help me figure out where to hook the wires to. It would probably be best to have someone with a lot more electrical experience than me look at it. I have rewired my whole house but that was pretty much a straight forward deal for me. That black thing in the 2nd photo looked almost like a breaker, relay or something similar. There is usually a box of some sort for the wires to go into before they go to the control panel. If you do not figure it out I would be willing to take a look at it.

Thanks Larry, I may take you up on that!

BTW, who's old maroon chevy pickup is that up at the hardware store? It's pretty awesome!

 

[RexHea]

Holy Cow! I depended on you guys to baby-sit Chris for a few days and I come back to find my humble bank account empty. I realize that it was a challenge for you, but you could have at least restricted him to the cookie jar. (I still can't figure out where the leftover pizza and beer cans came from that are under my layout )

Man O' man, we had a good time camping. The weather was perfect other than windy during the mid-day. We did a lot of walking with the Goldens and just enjoyed the beauty of it all. Fortunately, Ralph and Archie did very well on their leashes. We let them go a few times and it didn't take much more than a second before they were in the lake swimming and splashing. Lots of activity in the park with picnics, canoe races Saturday morning, mountain bike races on some of the many trails, and as usual, we met a lot of nice people from all over the country.

Glad to be back, but always ready to go again.

 

[RexHea]

Philip:
Using both L1 and L2 would be for your 240 (220) volt hook up and "N" is your neutral WHITE wire, GREEN is ground.

I can't accurately advise you on where to put the BLACK wire (hot wire) as I don't know the 120 volt wiring configuration for that unit and if jumpers are suppose to be added or wires moved. I will go out and take my cover off and see what it has on it. My control box looks similar to yours.

Is there not a electrical print stuck to the inside of the panel cover? Do you know what the previous owner used...120 or 240?

I would like to add that you would be better off operating with 240 (220) than 120. First it will heat up faster and second it is least expensive to operate. I know this probably isn't convenient since you will need a 240 volt run, breaker, etc. from your breaker box, but think about it for the future.

BTW: Where you plug into for power: is the breaker large enough to handle it? Not sure about 120 operation, but a 240 usually requires a 60amp breaker/circuit.

I will get back to you soon.

 

[pcarrell]

Rex, I had the 60 amp 240 service run out to the back of the house where the tub will eventually reside, but this equipment was originally set up to run 120 (so the wires that ARE connected now should be right for that). The heater and control unit can do either, but I don't know about the pumps. They just plug into the panel, so maybe there's a step down transformer in there, or maybe the pumps could handle the juice, I don't know. I figured I'll probably replace all of this stuf in a couple of years and do it right, but finances are not there right now. I'm just trying to work with whet I've got. There's no prints or instructions of any kind (C'mon, that'd be TOO easy!) I'll take what you said though, and combined with what others are saying, I'm getting a better picture of where to go with this.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[RexHea]

Well Phooey!
Philip, I checked my unit and it is a 240 only.
If your unit was on 120 before, then all the jumpers for the motors, etc, should already be made for you. (The motors have different windings for different voltages and they are selected by the wiring on the terminals; no need for a transformer.)

See if you can determine where he connected the black wire by the screw still being loose or scratch marks on L1 or L2. I am leaning to L1 by the photo and I don't think you will hurt anything if you connect it wrong; if it doesn't work one way, connect to other. Just make sure you connect the WHITE to the "N" (neutral) and the GREEN to ground (should be a terminal on the chassis possibly with other green wire or wires.)

Can you take a photo of the whole control unit?

 

[vato loco]

Holy Cow! I depended on you guys to baby-sit Chris for a few days and I come back to find my humble bank account empty. I realize that it was a challenge for you, but you could have at least restricted him to the cookie jar. (I still can't figure out where the leftover pizza and beer cans came from that is under my layout )

Hey, at least I left ya some pizza! Oh' thanks for the truck, one day I'll give ya ride in it and my son said he'll think about letting you touch the corvette! Hell he won't let me drive it I knew when I had your check book out I should have bought both vette

 

[pcarrell]

The first pic shows the unit. I can open it up for a pic, but I'll tell ya, it just looks like a rats nest of wires to me. I'll shoot a pic in a couple of hours when I'm home.

I was looking for scratch marks and such so I could get a clue. I was leaning towards L1 too, but thats about all I could tell.

 

[vato loco]

Chris[/B]Saw your post/thread--everyone enjoyed themselves by the look of things---who puts the festival on down your way?

Yes, we had to much fun andwe ate so much I almost bursted I ate so many strawberrys I'm turning in to one(I dang near ate the whole flat myself The Festival is put on by Plant City Florida Strawberry Growers I believe I think it's one of the better county fairs going!

 

[RexHea]

The first pic shows the unit. I can open it up for a pic, but I'll tell ya, it just looks like a rats nest of wires to me. I'll shoot a pic in a couple of hours when I'm home.

I was looking for scratch marks and such so I could get a clue. I was leaning towards L1 too, but thats about all I could tell.

For dual voltage motors, L1 and N are the terminals for the low voltage (120). I would have to believe that they kept the order correct at the terminal strip even though the strip distributes the power to other devices.

 

[vato loco]

BTW: Rex, I saved ya a strawberry, you have to come down here to clam it before I eat it!

 

[RexHea]

Oh man! I will be down in a jif. You did mean one BOX/CRATE of strawberries...right?
Jeeze those things look delicious.

 

[vato loco]

Oh man! I will be down in a jif. You did mean one BOX/CRATE of strawberries...right?
Jeeze those things look delicious.

Those berrys are sweet as sugar and smell wonderful. The box is all but gone only a handful remain...........

Next year Rex we'll go to this thing on Jim's check book!