Hallett Cove Southern: October 2020

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to update my three laptops where it was loaded and I also updated Wayne's trainroom stand alone laptop bring the way out of date Windows 10 version up to the current version (including reinstalling the SprogII drivers) along with updating Java before upgarding DecoderPro.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.

Ralph DeBlasi has a video on his Ralph DeBlasi's Lehigh Valley - Wyoming Division facebook page that shows a method for polishing the Athearn sintered wheels for better conductivity.

Polished on left and as it comes left

Truck reassembled

PSX Changes

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.

We used the method described by Streamlined Backshop in this article.

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...