My local shop finally stocked LocoBuffers so I picked one up on Friday. I spent most of the evening and then part of Saturday making adjustments to the decoders that I had already installed and made backups of all the decoder settings through DecoderPro. I found one decoder installation that just wouldn't get the loco to move. The headlight worked and the direction control switched the headlight direction, but moving the throttle position didn't move the engine. Since I could see the commands going over the Loconet in another JMRI window, I'm guessing that it's just not making a proper connection to the motor wires.
Tax-holiday weekend in Texas, which means no tax is paid on certain items that are normally tagged with a sales tax (up to 100 dollars), which meant the stores were full. Since I have two sons still in school (and starting back next week), and I work weekends on the graveyard shift, very little got done except to spread a little more ballast- Catzilla (a/k/a Smittens, our orange kitten) got on top of the layout & trashed the loose scenery, so I've been redoing things- this may mean I scrap the weedy look on the tracks, I;m still not sure yet. As for Smittens, he got acquainted with a squirt bottle filled with water- amazing how fast cats can run........ Come mid-week, if it's still raining (which it's supposed to here in Tejas), I've got more work to do. Oh yeah, the tax-free weekend? Our wallets are a little lighter, but the boys are good to go. Too bad they can't extend this to hobby shop purchases................
I (finally) broke down and acquired the pair of MP15DC's for the yard. I'm 10 locos short of my "ideal" roster for the fantasy line (at least in things that are or have been made to this point, leaving me at about 1/2 the planned roster). Then I can start collecting what I need to get the interchange lines.
JKD - nice to see you on another board! My progress has been to change the wheels and couplers on a SFRD 50' reefer that was sent my way - I'm broke until Friday, and that's when I'm ordering benchwork to start on my layout.
I built the big display case last week and the smaller one today. One more to go and all my stuff will be out of boxes, drawers, and corners. Brian
