Jimtown, Staging, Debugging and DCC Programming

I found a source for miniature screws etc today have a look here.

Jimtown

Fascia
The fascia has been cut and attached but is still to be painted after basic scenery work has been completed.

Scenery
BJ has fashioned some 10mm MDF ready for the application of stippled plaster to give the appearance of depth behind Jimtown and before the backdrop. It is anticipated that once completed the visual effect will be that of a small embankment leading to undulating ground with the backdrop appearing "more distant".

Industries
The industry locations have been set and will include" two small silos, freight depot, cattle loading yard, cold store and a dummy siding for the power plant (blue building in background). The power plant siding (not actually visible in photo) will extend to the backdrop, will not be physically connected to operating tracks, but have a couple of "static cars" to complete the scene at the plant.

Staging
Following on from the base board and track modifications at Lewiston Loop time has been spent in the area leading to the section under Flinston. It has been a bit tricky to get the grades right and ensure the road base installation still allows access to and point motors which may require maintenance in the future. Following much debate between Chris, Bill2 and myself I think we have a workable solution.

Debugging
On Monday night Bob and I adjusted some of the micro switches installed on mainline turnouts in order to get a second set of voltage free contacts for signaling logic. On Tuesday morning Chris and I continued with this and fine tuning some accessory switches on upper deck turnouts.


DCC Programming
Having "run in a number of new Blueline diesel locos I researched the Broadway Manuals and JMRI Yahoo Group for DecoderPro. I had prepared myself some programming notes in order to try and not forget anything as there is quite a lot to remeber.

I commenced programming the first loco and set some CV's for the address and on-board sound levels then "locked" the decoder which worked just fine. I installed the LokPilot Version 3 DCC motor decoder (52611 same tech spec as recommended 52610 except that it has no Motorola, Selectrix or Analogue AC operation) and did the basic setup address, acceleration, deceleration and top speed. It worked fine.

Now for finer adjustments...

To my dismay there was no CV15 or CV16 to lock the motor decoder (Error 301 in decoder pro - no loco found) so all my work preparing my notes was wasted as the locking process could not be utilised. eg CV133 is the master sound and ALSO the Assignment of function outputs that are activated in status „stop-forward on the LokPilot - and there are many more.....

So any tweaking of either decoder must be done when they are not all hooked up for running.

So I had to make a dummy plug with track input and motor output connections and a motor (a load must be attached to the decoder to write CV's) in order to program the motor decoder functions which have CV conflicts with the sound decoder.

I'm hoping that when I have tweaked my sound decoder to what I want then I can lock it down so only CV1 and CV15 can be addressed the I can use DecoderPro for speed matching prior to consisting.

I'll have to write a new set of programming notes now!