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Say Jeff, cordless tools sure are a lot handier than being restrainged by a electric cord. I tell you, ever since I got the cordless Dremel tool I found it so-oo very handy to use it's a world of difference from having to worry about what a cord might knock down or running out of length to reach something.
That soldering iron does sound very handy. Who makes it and about what did it cost?
Thanks for posting, I have all the old Ungar soldering irons and corded naturally.
Jeffrey, and anyone else soldering,
Radio Shack also sells a small butane powered soldering iron for about 19 bucks. Perfect for under the layout work. Also the side exhaust ports are great for making shrink wrap snuggle down real quick, and here's the best part. No batteries!! Even comes with a flint wheel (like the top of a butane lighter) built into the cover. With a temp range of barely enough to melt solder up to 2200 degrees, you can solder darn near anything, including brass sheet with the included blowtorch tip! A small aerosol butane container (available at any drug store, about 3 bucks) it seems to go on and on and on!
Probably one of the few things at RS that isn't either overpriced, oversized, or otherwise useless to us!!
I haven't seen the gas soldering tool at Radio Shack. The one I saw at Lowe's looked a bit big for what I needed and it was the better part of a $50 bill.
I haven't seen the gas soldering tool at Radio Shack. The one I saw at Lowe's looked a bit big for what I needed and it was the better part of a $50 bill.
I got a regular type Bachmann decoder into the decoder into the BL2. I wired it the same as the F9's I did previously before I remembered that Life-Like wired the BL's backward for whatever reason. So naturally it took off backward with the Zephyr set to forward. No matter. I set CV 29 to 2 and everything's good. I still have two more decoders. A Bachmann light board type and a Digitrax DZ125. The Bachmann decoder is going into the new Atlas FP7 that's coming. It's a toss-up on the DZ125. I may put it in the Model Power GP9 or I could put an 8-pin plug on it and drop it into the Atlas H24-66, Trainmaster for those who don't know their Fairbanks Morse locos. I haven't really decided yet. Back to watching more NCIS.
It's a cool, cloudy day in the upper Midwest. Though I love warm sunny days, the cold, gloomy days help us sell more fall clothing. At this point I would take about ten crappy days in a row!
After doing a little scenery work around Mankato I have a dead section of track. I think it's a turnout that isn't passing through the power, but I'm not sure. The funny thing is I have a power feed just past the turnout that hasn't been connected yet. I think I may need to connect that this weekend so I'm not relying on a fickle turnouts ability to continue power to this section of track. What do people say about doing things right the first time? I'll never learn. I have tomorrow off so we'll see what I can get done. Of course, my wife has the day off as well so maybe nothing at all!
Good morning. It's 67° and mostly cloudy. The high will be 89° and it will be mostly cloudy.
To recap yesterday I removed the decoders from four locos I no longer run. With the and a couple of others I already had on hand I converted some locos I rebuilt to DCC. An Atlas FP7, two Stewart F9's and a Proto 2000 BL2. I now have two decoders left. One Bachmann light board decoder and one Digitrax DZ125. The Bachmann decoder is reserved for the new Atlas FP7 I have coming. That leaves the DZ125. It could go into a Model Power GP9 I have coming or it could go into an Atlas H24-66 I have in my display rack. At this point I haven't decided with one it will be.
Today I'll be cleaning up the layout. It's pretty cluttered from all the work I've been doing. I'll also vacuum the dust out of my heater and test it. It should work OK but you never know.
Yesterday we had a chance to take swimming lessons in the house. One of the hoses to the washing machine busted and flooded the wash room and bathroom. The water flowed down into the floor vents and was filling up the air ducts. The ducts were not made to take that kind of weight and tghe bottom of them came apart in a few places. My dad said the ducts needed to be cleaned anyway. The AC/heat unit is above floor level so was not damaged. The hose was replaced yesterday and me and dad are going to fix the ducts today. So much for my plans for the day.
While checking out my heater I discovered it had a broken switch. It's a simple plastic light-up rocker switch that has a very small and thin metal contact in it. It's job is to turn on/off the low heat element. There are two heating elements. Both are 700 watts each and put out 2,300 Btu's each. There are three switches. Main power, first element (700 watts), second element (1400 watts). When the heater is on low the first element switch is on and only the first element is energized. When the second element switch is turned on the second element is energized and the two elements together are putting out 4,600 Btu's of heat. Now for the second element to work the first element must be on. The second element can't be used on it's own. Turn the first element switch off and both elements turn off. Guess which element switch was broken. You got it, the one for the first element. Without it the second switch doesn't get power. Since the first element can be turned on and off with the main switch the first element switch is redundant. Therefore I was able to remove it and use the metal tab that was in the switch to join the wires together thus completing the circuit and energizing the element. It's as if the switch is always on. Turning the main power switch on and off turns both elements on and off so I still have control. I let the heater run for a while to see if the connection would get hot and it never did. I had to check it with a lab thermometer since I can feel only high heat with my hands. It warmed up a little but never anywhere near to what could be considered dangerous. While all this was going on there was a dangerous situation taking place with my $30 Chinese made Task Force six volt flashlight. After about twenty minutes of constant use the cheap little switch in the flash light melted. Boy, talk about chinsy. If you can't trust a well-made high quality Chinese product what can you trust?
Jeffrey
We had a 1/16 scale model tank on a 7.2v battery pack, while turned off the circuit board heated up to such an extent it caught fire in the house without warning, lucky we were in or the house would have gone. Made in china
Secondly, i won a brand new radio in a raffle and within seconds of plugging it in in started to pump out black smoke. Made in china
Good late morning to all,
The weather is starting to cool of very nicely out here too. It was in in the mid 50's earlier and is now about 72*.
Jeffery: Sorry about over looking/not recalling the price as I did remember seeing it, just too many thoughts with all that's been going on.
David: Good you and your Dad caught the situation when you did, sounds like it was quite a mess anyway. Hope you had a wet/dry vaccum to suck up most of the water.
Steve: That was very fortunate you were home so that no real damage occured!
Well, I need to rebuild the well pump house so I best better get started on doing that
before too long.
I'm really getting itchy to get back to doing more work on the layout too but need to get a couple of other things done first.
Jeffrey
We had a 1/16 scale model tank on a 7.2v battery pack, while turned off the circuit board heated up to such an extent it caught fire in the house without warning, lucky we were in or the house would have gone. Made in china
Secondly, i won a brand new radio in a raffle and within seconds of plugging it in in started to pump out black smoke. Made in china
Good thing those were standard nicd/nihm battery packs! if it were Li-Po or Lithium Ion packs in there! Your tank would look like it took a direct missile hit! on that thought kinda surprised your not using Li-Ions! Less space taken up by batteries=more room for adding a cooling fan for the electronics! food for thought!
Monday is D-Day for me! The soon to be Ex and I go before the judge. Her and I agree on the stuff who gets what and parenting plan. so should only take 30 minutes. Also I got the State to stop taking from the second job! So life is good again!
At last! I finally got a shipping confirmation that my new Model Power GP9 has been shipped. I ordered it on the 12th and now it's on it's way on the 17th. Only a delay of five days.
I'll never learn. I have tomorrow off so we'll see what I can get done. Of course, my wife has the day off as well so maybe nothing at all!
