There has not been any modelling activities in December however there was an Ops Session, I met Darren from Model Railroad Techniques and we enjoyed our Xmas breakup dinner.
Ops Session at Wayne's
The final Ops Session was held at Wayne's on 9th Decenber. Alan, Darren, Des, Don, Hugh, John, Murray and I joined Wayne.
L to R John & Don
L to R Murray, Wayne, Alan & Des
L to R Darren & Hugh
Wayne watching us sooo closely...
The Steel Train...
Darren
Finally Darren and I met face to face after corresponding in the chat space for quite some time.
Darren is the host of Model Railroad Techniques which can be found on YouTube and Facebook.
We intend to catch up again soon to have an extended discussion on the hobby and other issues in common.
Xmas Dinner
Twenty of us made it this years dinner held at The Vines Golf Club - a COVID safe arrangement of 10 per table. The feedback was allo food was really good however the sticky date pudding was a bit dry!
R-L Leonie, Chris, Me, Kaye, Deidre, Andre, Mary & Peter
R-L Kaye, Deidre, Andre, Mary, Peter, Barry, Jenny, Leonie, Chris & Me
R-L Wayne, Don, Ross, Anne, Sarah, Peter S, John, Heather, Kay
Thanks must go to Des for organising the venue - the feedback was he'll get the same request next year!
There has been some modelling activities in November but a medical issue early in the month slowed me down but things picked up later. The activities included work to install the new booster, more progress on the Blue Box U28C Upgrade and Ops Sessions.
New Booster
Well preparations for installation have commenced! A number of changes are needed including upgrading the power supply, bridging the existing booster Lan from In/Out to straight through so the new Booster will be the last in line from the relocated command station.
The home for the new booster
Changing the Power Supply
The old 4Amp 19V Power supply
The new 9Amp 19V power supply
The new booster manual says 5Amp continuous maximum so a 5Amp "slow Blow" fuse put in line
The CDE connections did not come with a plug... And the Roco 10789 Booster Adaptor does not have one either.
I'm glad I purchased a set of connectors just in case...
Changes to Booster Lan
The usual connections to the Roco 10785 Booster (the one being replaced) have a booster in and booster out connection so to avoid having to rewire I have made a bridge. A new wire will be run from the booster under Loco back to the Roco 10789 booster adapter.
Outstanding
The outstanding task is to move the command station and its associated power supply cable to its new location under Hornertown.
U28C Blue Box Loco Upgrade
Work continued albeit slowly on mounting the new motor, decoder, keep alive, speaker and lighting.
Mounting new motor
I found some pieces to place under the drive train to support the new motor height wise then placed a significant amount of silicon on top of the old motor mounts then replaced the drive train and allowed it all to set.
New pick up wire soldered to trucks and heat shrink applied to secure
Decoder positioned with double sided poster tape, the motor wires attached and all secured with kapton tape. I has pre-soldered the wires for lighting prior to assemble. The keep alive (left) and sugar cube speaker (right) were wired then held in place with double sided tape.
Lighting
I am using machine pins so I can remove the hood if necessary so all assembled in a loom.
I cut two wires too short and had to extend them....
Gyralights
I installed a LED to light up the gyralights in the roof od the cab above the window insert. The LED was secured using Krystal Klear and painted black after curing. I will attache these to F5.
Number Boards
I thought I would never individually light number boards but as I had to separate the gyro lights I thought I would do a "Spacky" and give it a go.... 0402 prewired led placed in filed groove on the back of the number board and held in place with Krystal Klear. I will attach these to F6.
Headlights
Like the gyralights I installed a LED and it was secured using Krystal Klear and painted black after curing.
The rear lights will take more work as they are represented with "jewels" these need to be removed and the housing drilled out for LED's.
Marker lights
At this stage they will stay as "jewels".
Ops Session at ENGVR
We have had another enjoyable session at Peter's. I had the least challenging job and could sit down between movements after a couple of hours was worn out - the medical event obviously drained me more than I thought.
Wayne checking up on me....
Don and Des
Des at Cedar Junction
Don at Reid River
Wayne at Grass Valley
Peter J supervising....
Looking through Cedar Junction to Eureka
Me working Glenbrook
Namesake business
The "other" Glenbrook business
Glenbrook (left) Oilville (right)
My running sheet
Ops Session at Wayne's
I made it to one of the two sessions this month it was a small group and I was kept very busy. I was too tired to go to the first session after going to Peter J's a couple of days before.
It was great that Ross P joined us for the first time others attending were Des and Chris. There is only one more session to be held this year providing the temperature does not exceed 33 degrees on the scheduled date. We enjoyed refreshments afterwards and the Bee sting cake with Custard filling was lovely.
There has been some modelling activities this period the first time for some months... The last 3 months activities included clearing the Trainroom, DecoderPro updates, Tool trolleys, Motors, Blue Box U28C Upgrade, PSX settings modification and Ops Sessions.
Trainroom
This is getting much closer to normal now most of the items moved during the flood have gone now.
Looks like I will be able to do the reconfiguration for the new booster soon.
Huntington Backdrop
I asked Peter J if he would assist with repairing the water damaged backdrop. I am very pleased with his work. I asked him what he was going to do and I was told "artists just create - no plan". It reminded me of the engineering v's artist debates I used to have with BJ.
Peter at work....
Progessive images
The finished product
Well done Peter it looks great!
DecoderPro Upgrades
Don "lost" his SprogII as part of a Windows 10 update and that was the catalyst needed to also upgrade the version of DecoderPro to the current release - JMRI 4.20. This also incorporated the newer decoder definitions some of which have been fitted by members of our round robin group.
Once I did Don's I decided to update my three laptops where it was loaded and I also updated Wayne's trainroom stand alone laptop bring the way out of date Windows 10 version up to the current version (including reinstalling the SprogII drivers) along with updating Java before upgarding DecoderPro.
New Tool Trolleys
Well Super Cheap Auto has a sale which included a service trolley so I got one as I think it will serve me well.
Ikea had these - thanks Wayne for the tip off...
Motors
I have always used Mashima motors for motor upgrades and they do a great job, I saw these motors on eBay Three units cost me $AU17.88 which is far cheaper than an equivalent Mashima motor.
I will convert an old Blue Box Loco to use one of them to see how they perform.
U28C Blue Box Loco Upgrade
Somewhere between 20 and 30 years ago I bought a PRR U28C from Don. I have stripped the loco down and will rebuild with one of the new motors, a Tsunami AT-1000 FDL-12 decoder, sugar cube speakers and LED lights.
We have had a repeatable shorting problem at Waynes with the yard shunting locos and after some research we discovered how to adjust the sensitivity as his version of the PSX & PSX-AR's as his have the upgraded firmware to allow program changes.
The problem is now gone and the this was proven at the next operating session - and it did work!
Ops Session at Wayne's
There was three sessions during this update's timeframe. and I made it to two Wayne has used the time to change from USA prototyes to Australian, He has sold the majority of the locos and rolling stock we used to run and replaced most of it with Australian locomotives and rolling stock. He has put his covid spare time to good use.
24th September
The first session for 2020 and Peter J and Des joined Wayne and I for the session which lasted about 2 1/2 hours. We all had to adjust to the changed car types and Wayne's new rule of all uncoupling to be done by pick or similar - NO Five Finger uncoupling or car movements. I forgot to take some photos....
14th October
Hugh, Murray, John, Wayne and I had a good session. The scheduling clerk had a few issues as the operators followed the new job cards perfectly and we had some movements in places they should not have been. Back to the drawing board to revisit the train graph and the fixed the paperwork! Good luck with that Wayne...
Murray, Hugh and John at work
John working Lowwood Crossing
Forign roadname whilst awaiting delivery of new motive power
My first assignment
The clerk checking out the train graph to see why things weren't quite right!
