I grew up on a small farm with 11 brothers. So, such toys were impossible. Our 'tree house' was ours and neighbors barns. The trains did not appear until after the army and the divorce. Started with O. Then N, then HO and now N.
Working on a farm we share in common. Eleven brothers. That must of been interesting. During the summer months back when they let kids work. I ended up harvesting apricots, pears, lollaberries, grapes, hay, alfalfa. Did I leave anything out. Also learned to drive tractors and back up a trailer. Fun stuff. Otherwise making a nuisance of myself. I learned a lot and will hang onto those memories. At 14, the owner of the Mortuary Dad worked for hired me on as an Ambulance Attendant and a newbie Funeral Directors Assistant. Mainly a Janitor and Gardner assisting with First Calls and Ambulance Runs. Interesting enough work. As for trains. I started out with three rail O scale, moved to S scale, dropped down to HO and finally N scale. Always looking for curves that resembled the real deal. Found it. Curves have been my basic pet peeve of the hobby ever since my first train set. I never did like the tight radius curves. There again I didn't have the room for the curves I wanted. Until someone introduced me to N scale. Pointing at my HO layout and saying, "Take the HO track off and replace it with N scale" "Then see what you have?". Now that I liked. Preaching about it ever since. My soap box. Betting that nobody here knew that or even cares. Got chores to do and wiring. This isn't going to be fun as I have two sets of two holes, in a row to pull the wires through. I'd rather pull wire through an attic. Hope to get that done today. Eyes are giving me fits....... again. The left eye is starting to fog up. I'm extremely light sensitive. Need to find a way to darken the room. The white background here on TB gives me trouble from time to time. Just the way things are. Back later.
It's Sunday and do you know what that means? Just another boring day in this household. My biggest hurdle right now is getting the wires reconnected or better said back together. The hurry up and wait game hangs on my getting these Heat Shrink Connectors ordered. Wire wise, here's what I'm up against. Above: Lot's of cabled wires. You can see it's color-coded which is a big help. If my eyes...well...you already know that story. I have some other pictures I want to show you. Most have been posted here so perhaps it's better not to bore you with them...again! Above: Let's play Rick's favorite soap box song. My all time pet peeve just one more time! Curves! If you think I'm really happy with the curves on my layout? No, not at all. If a picture really is worth a thousand words then check it out. The ConCor, Southern Pacific Streamline Sleeper Cars (there's two of them) has way to much overhang. That does not make me happy. Coming to you from Nampa, Idaho. "Wider curves are the best curves". I'm not the one who coined that but I know how to preach it. How you react to it is not my problem, it's yours. Or something like that. The Southern Pacific, Mixed Manifest Train is coming down through the Coal District. I had it working at one time. Pictures courtesy of me. Taken when the H&P was in the Train Shed, in Big Bear Country. Got to find those other wiring pictures. And here we go. Above you can see the cut ends. Below the other side. Gringe! The helixi's are loaded with an assortment of track blocks. From each Track Block,Two wires each go back to a DPDT Toggle Switch. Cab A or Cab B. Your choice. Once you get the hang of it. Depening on how well you know your railroad. It's nothing but fun. The wiring isn't fun but the rewards are amazing!! .
Per wikipedia: 1000 circular mils = 1 MCM or 1 kcmil, and is (approximately) equal to: 0.5067 mm2, so 2 kcmil ≈ 1 mm2 (a 1.3% error) The MCM wire size unit, like mm2, makes infinitely more practical sense than AWG, unless you have to make your own wire with only primitive tools (like after the nuclear winter thaws out.)
Don't push this MM or MCM stuff on me. I just learned to use fractions. I said with a dead stare. Well, dead might be pushing it. Now in American, please translate.
All I read was...&^%^ 1000 *^%#%%=1^*((*( or 1 *((*&(*& and is (approximately) equal to: %^%&&)(*_, so 2 ^%*& ≈ 1 ^%$^% (a 1.3% error)
Well, older GE U boats and -7's used 600 MCM rubberized 2000V insulated main cables. The EMD -2's used 500 MCM with 2000 V Exane insulated cables, those are very heavy and stiff!! The pre -2's had rubberized stuff that was somewhat easier to install. Big and heavy stuff! Fun too!!
Cross sectional area (the area of a perpendicularly cut face of a wire) is a factor in the resistance per unit length of a wire. Cross sectional area is also used to calculate the safe current capacity of a conductor (the maximum current the conductor can handle without overheating, and is used to calculate voltage drop per unit wire length for a given current. MCM (1000 circular mils) and mm2 (square millimeter) are measurements of area, and of cross sectional area in this case. A mil is 1/1000 inch. A circular mil is the area of a 1 mil diameter circle. It just so happens that 2 MCM is very close to 1 mm2 (within 1.3%.) MCM is imperial, and mm2 is metric.
I bet I know what happened. The funeral director started his sentence, "Rick, you look like you could use a good stiff..."and he was going to say, "drink" but you cut him off with, "I sure do." and thus, began your career. Doug
Wow now!! My computer screen has been baptized with Diet Dr. Pepper. That's funny, I don't care what anyone else says. Wasn't a real cool stiff, by the way. Doug, Good one and well played.
Water is the universal solvent and can clean most anything. Ask a professional cleaner aka janitor. I did that with my granddad in Phoenix, AZ for a summer. Also department head for a hospital spanning 5 years. More fun then being a mortician. On another note: I hardly remember the hard drives and flippy flops. How about those PC's? All that space they took up. Aiiyiiyii !! Dude, I got a Dell. Connectors? Waiting to see if money cleared and then it will be order time. Keeping fingers crossed. Okay, maybe not. That hurt's now days. Sigh!! Update: Order is in. Here by Friday. I hope!