Very nice. Did you find a place to fabricate the whole circuit or did have to solder it yourself? I started trying to create a GERBER file for a PCB lightboard for some old Rivarrossi passenger cars. Not looking forward to soldering all those surface mounted LEDs
There is a reason my resistors are not SMD . I have to build the boards myself. My automation board is the same, but that one still isn’t ready, I am still working on a software issue. I have updated this board to give better mounting options, and changed the faceplate to have DC/DCC on one side and PROG/MAIN on the other so it can be used as a program track switch as well. Those boards should be here in a couple weeks.
I'm painting a Virginian and Ohio GP40, as I'm using a Scalecoat rattle can of D&H blue as a pretty close match (it looks lighter under the lamp here), and the can is running low. No replacement for a good while, so I may as well paint what I can! I can't complain so far, but I'll be trying out one of those paint adhesion promotor sprays on the handrails...hopefully it all goes well! I always thought these looked sharp, so I'll be glad to have one on my roster.
My copy of Spaulding Tower. Not precise, but close enough... From a $5 3d-printed kit. I grew up 2 miles from the tower's original location and my son loves seeing it, now at IRM. Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk
That's neat! I'd forgotten that Spaulding has been saved at the Illinois Railway Museum. I shot this picture of it 02/26/1977.
For the past few weeks, I have been working on a small downtown area. It's just a couple of DPM buildings on a removable base made of fiberglass reinforced plastic sheet. The finished scene will include streetlights, mailbox, people, and other details. I model Nevada so of course there has to be at least one casino. That building is nearing completion. I hope to light and detail the interior of the first floor.
Very nice buildings Brad! Being in Reno I can appreciate the casino and they look like they would fit right in at Virginia City as well. Glad to see it is labeled CASINO, with that graphic it could be mistaken for another Nevada "business"!
Installed a traction tire driver from a Key AC-4 on my Key 4-10-2 and added an oz of lead. Went from pulling 10 cars to 75 cars on my layout with 2% grades. It will likely pull up to 100 cars on the level now.
Had another idea for a pipe load so I collected some swizzle sticks (not THAT way unfortunately) and tried this. I wasn't too neat with the glue so it looks like I DID get the swizzle sticks through previous use!
Well my workbench just got busy. I am going to make a dedicated kid's layout to replace my T-Trak module "Thomas Layout" It will be 30" x 48" so only slightly longer than the existing layout with T-Trak modules but it will be it's own setup. I plan on making light weight construction using some 1/2 ply and foam. I am going to have a warble in the tracks to give a little bit of running interest over just an oval that was the layout before. Kids have been asking to run some of the larger trains that we have on the Thomas layout, but we usually decline letting them. This time I will have the ability to slow the full size trains down by limiting the power into the throttle. So keep an eye out for that one on my New Layouts thread. Next up was a T-Trak module, a single for a new prospect club member. He was really interested in making something so I told him I would build him a module at cost, if he wanted and he said yes. I got to work, and now he actually has 2 modules. Then the workbench got back to work on the LifeLike SW8 locomotive I started on a few weeks ago. I didn't realize the motor was shorting to the frame on the bottom. It ran perfectly on DC, and when I looked at it after the motor was in, and the decoder was in, but before I returned the shell and fuel tank, it all looked good and there was plenty of space. Well I was wrong, the shell made everything much closer and the fuel tank caused the frame to short the motor. This didn't matter in DC as it was the same side the motor was tied to with the tabs off the brush housing. Well that burnt up the decoder so I needed to get another one, The installation took only a few minutes and now the loco works perfectly. Yes I did make it so the shorting will never happen again. A bit of milling and some Kapton tape and we are good to go. Lastly I helped a friend move some non standard modules that kinda resemble N-Trak modules. They were the same size all and all but only 2 main tracks and no mountain line. It was a good looking layout, it presented a better scenery to track ratio if you ask me and then he showed me a few other modules he was in possession of. These were from a failed group called OMNI-RAIL. Actually it didn't really fail, it got morphed into a loosely followed T-Trak, then into T-Trak and then it failed. But we have about 2/3 of a layout with his modules and it wouldn't be much to build enough more to make a layout that we can travel with. We have been thinking of starting a new "standard" at least for us that could be used independently or tie it into N-Trak like ONe-Trak does. So yea... Having ADD doesn't help things like this I have too many projects going on and wouldn't you know it, my brain is happy making all this stuff work at the same time. I will keep you informed of what I am doing of course. Sorry no pics tonight, I had too many other things going on.
That looks good. What did you use to go around the pipes and what glue are you using? I made some recently with the same type of black straws and the super glue vapors left a frosting on the black plastic
Thanks BNSF... I used Duro Super Glue and just couldn't reduce the flow enough that it wouldn't show. The wood "frames" are made from some old Northeastern Scale Lumber material I've had for some time. It is actually HO scale 1"x4". I tried a few times to cut to exact lengths but my 10 thumbs said "I don't think so..." so I cut the bottom and side pieces too long, fit the top pieces as close as possible, then carefully filed everything down to size. The 3 foot rule is my friend!
OK........ Another 'Proof of Concept' update.... Some of us have found that using super glue on these 'straw pipes' leaves a haze on the pipes. I went to ACE Hardware and picked up this low watt dual temp hobby hot glue gun for $14.00 !!! I used the hot glue gun to do a quick pipe load on my NEW TTX car... The hobby hot glue gun has a smaller nozzle then most other hot glue guns.It doesn't leave BIG globs of glue ! I suggest using it on the lower temp setting. The only thing hot glue does is leaves a hundred tiny 'spider web' trails of glue ! You can easily pick the spider webs off with a pair of tweezers...so no problem there I am just waiting now for my delivery of my yellow 'strapping thread'. Should be here tomorrow or Thursday. .
3 Books from Atlas DC tracks. 3 books and 2 CDs about DCC. I'll study them when I can get new glasses.
