Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and you got a lot done unlike me. Let's get started. Saturday: Nope. I looked at the layouts but the day was spent at appointments and by the time we were done, the Christmas Tree Farm was closed. So much for using a dedicated day for running around. Sunday: Slept in, got ready, got tree, brought in house after a bit of moving things around. Decorated tree, Jared stopped by for a visit, finished tree and was ready to relax by working on the layout when I realized it was 10:00pm and the weekend was over. RATS! Maybe next weekend, on next year. So how about you? Did you get anything done? Let us know. We'll start the process all over again on Friday the 18th. Until then, have a great week, stay healthy, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
Well, the best of plans, but chores after a long week at work and I ran outta go. Sat down to take a break and fell asleep. Oh well. Maybe today?!
Nope , nothing done. Christmas shopping got on the way. I still have two days left of my weekend though so I hope to get at least one structure built.
Didn't get a lot done overall but in between things, one small win is I finished the roof for the tank car and truck loading platform. Also painted the sides for the grain elevator head house and started installing the windows. Hope you all have a great week!
Weekend went about as I thought. I had Christmas prep duties "as assigned", but I was able to move along 2 projects "betwixt and between" assignments. Spent time advancing the ground cover for the HW Myers project. Have to finish a certain amount of the ground cover before permanent attachment of the buildings. Then once that's done, there are certain building things like add-on sheds and equipment that go in last. But it is coming along. Also installed the first signal on the layout. This protects the East outbound track of the staging yard. I also ordered the relays and controllers from Azatrax for the block signals on the mainline.
I had a pretty good weekend with my back until last night. I was up half the night with it bothering me. I took it easy. The only thing I did was remove the old Ring doorbell camera and replace it with a new one. It was somewhat frustrating mainly since the mounting holes on the new one did not line up with the old one. I finished building all the Tropicana reefers, two Athearn blue boxes, and five Con-Cor. The last Con-Cor one was the worst of the Con-Cor kits. While the misaligned and undersized screw holes on the other four Con-Cor kits were a minor problem, this one was ten times worse. One of trucks had a hole too big and the provided screw could not hold it place. I had to steal trucks off an undecorated Atlas Trainman 50 FT boxcar. Then I had trouble getting the frame into the shell. I gave up for a time. When I returned, I was finally able to finesse it into place. Then I noticed the brake wheel was missing. No luck on finding it and I used an extra from an MDC/Roundhouse express reefer kit. At last, I was able to seal the reefers to prepare them for weathering. I also sealed six Bowser NYO&W coal hoopers, two Atlas cabooses (Chessie and Western Maryland), and an Athearn RTR Chessie Safety caboose in preparation for weathering.
I had a very productive weekend Saturday: Worked on the downtown street lights for Saticoy. (Finally wired 'em up) As well worked on the track re-alignment for Oxnard depot'. I am moving the depot out of Oxnard yard to a new location on the main. Photos soon. Sunday: Worked on the City of Oxnard's street lights - same as for Saticoy - wired 'em up. Continued work on some track re-alignment projects. As well as adding a decoder to my Granddaughter's Thomas - went with ESU Lokpilot 5 micro. Hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
My weekend went fairly well overall, didn't get everything I wanted to get done done but got enough done... New projects released into the wild: https://github.com/atanisoft/esp32olcbio -- PCB and Firmware for an ESP32 based OpenLCB (LCC) IO Board. The base board supports 14 IO pins and 2 input only pins, extension boards will support additional IO pins via I2C expanders and/or exposing I2C pins and Factory Reset/ User Button pins. https://github.com/atanisoft/esp32olcbhub -- ESP32 OpenLCB (LCC) Can/WiFi Hub. This is designed to fit into the PCB above but can be run in standalone. This acts as a bridge of sorts between the CAN and WiFi sides. JMRI can connect via WiFi and talk to the CAN devices on the bus, etc. This is an offshoot from the ESP32 CS which supports the same feature but it puts pressure on the CS that is not entirely necessary. I still need to setup the webpage for these. But if anyone is interested I do have a few of the IO PCBs (and parts) available. I'll be starting on the extension boards for the IO PCB pretty soon as well, just need to decide on what it will be (likely an RR-CirKits adapter). EDIT: PCBWay link
Hi All -- Had a decent weekend -- got some stuff done -- and even have a few pictures. IM currently in the grips of some unknown disease, so I work on the layout for a bit till I wear out then go sit down etc. -- its all good -- I'm alive and I can both model and draw, so life is good. Friday -- Got some bus wiring in place - the south end of the main bus and the first sub bus Dont know why the pic is upside down, but there it is As well as the NCE Plug Panel Saturday -- Got some track laid, and got one big switch area figured out -- Sunday --- more of the same Heres a shot some of the laid track, but Ive added to it So any way -- picture issues aside, its been a good weekend, got some stuff done -- one of my projects for this week is to build a throttle pocket of some kind so I dont keep tripping over the dogbone, and I need to figure a way to get the cord OUT of the way Have a great week, stay safe yall TIM
Not so much done due to wife's craziness over Germany's lockdown and other chores. But started ballasting at slow pace due to the glue taking forever to set in the attic (no heating there). Also noticed the ballast jar is almost empty and ordered a new one I hope to get before Xmas.
Little by little over the weekend I added insulation board and cardboard webbing to create the terrain shapes I want. Hopefully by next weekend I will be ready to start adding some plaster cloth. The PC board material I was waiting for did not show up until Sunday so I did not get started on the track laying on the lift bridge. The Ntrak group I belong to is going to have a Zoom meeting next week. So I put the Zoom ap on my ipad and after getting it going and playing around with it I realized that I would need something to hold the ipad at the correct angle and height. So I cobbled together this holder for it from stuff I had sitting around in the shop.
FYI, the 2020-2021 Thirteenth Annual International Winter Layout Party has begun in the Layout Design Discussion forum. All are welcome.
I replaced the original couplers on my brand new Scale Trains GEVo. Now she works with MTL # 1016 coupler.
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a WS Static King grass applicator. My first try looked like me about 40 years ago with a very bad case of bed hair. I did have a *lot* more hair back then... Last weekend, the latest small-scale test was a little more successful. Most of it stood more or less straight up, which was encouraging. My next go at it will be straight on the layout. Like the 1:1 scale, a model railroad is never finished.
Got some spackling done, getting closer to having a solid roadbed, ran both my picky J and my picky ACS-64, no derailing or uncoupling . Cut the second shape for the mountain base, so we now have four inches of foam contoured around the track. Ran the mountain resort spur from the small town station; it works! Looks kind of cool disappearing round the bend. Had a blast with my DC engines, running the COLA with an extra sleeper, coach and dome. Yes, that is the COLA blasting past Amtrak's Lincoln Service 300. I set the COLA at scale 90mph. The P42 ran at 76. Like I said, passenger service then and now. Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk
Grass does not always stand up straight. It can be bent or flattened by human activities, animals, weather or simply even it's own weight.
On here a day late. Took an extended break Mon. Mogul needs a drawbar redesign/adjustment. Cut parts for two cabooses yesterday. All have a good week.
