2014 January 24 through to 29

2014_01_29

Busy few days that started Friday last with a trip to Bendigo. Stayed the night and visited Geoff at PCB hobbies where I was relieved of a few hundred dollars for buildings :)
Early Saturday morning Tony and I drove to Corio and attended their Exhibition. Met too many people to name but if you were into Model Railways in Victoria, you were probably there and we would have said Hello.
Austrains released 135 G Class diesels so that some of us were lucky enough to get one to play with.

On the way home from Bendigo I found a great little steam railway operating along side the railway line at Elmore and I will write this up later as it should interest many :)

Now thatis what I call a Walker! Wonder if he had to pay more than $300 for it? ;)

Back to the Ho Ho Ho size ;)

So I was fortunate enough(?) to grab hold of one of the 90 FA G Classes landed for Corio :D

However our stupid Chinese friends set us all up for a problem. These nicely detailed G Class bogies need to be part stripped to get the screws out securing the body to the chassis. In this photo you can just see the screw head situated directly above where the middle brake cylinder should sit. I tried to use a small screwdriver over the brake cylinder, however it simply broke it away. I then removed all 4 cylinders which caused the piping to fall away as well.
What is with these Chinese pricks? Do they have to make everything more difficult than it need be? What was wrong with placing these securing screws at one end of the bogie allowing you to turn it aside to remove the screws. I have no idea how I am going to get the screws back in once I install the sound :(
Which reminds me We have been fitting Powerline shells to new mechs for 30 years and in 90% of the cases using screws to mount the bodies! What were the R&D guys doing to let this happen?

The new factory is using the Auscision A Class type boards. Unfortunately I bought an ATLAS type replacement board which would have allowed me to do the normal Austrains Tsunami install. Now I will have to strip out the old board and solder in the new one.
I note that the board has to be removed anyway to access the two speaker enclosures over the tail shafts.

The offending screws and the removed brake cylinders :(

So the light board is unplugged and removed.

The top of the speaker box is lifted clear revealing the speaker mount.
It appears to be designed for a smaller speaker such as this one...

     50331     Loudspeaker 20mm, round, 4 Ohms, 1~2W, with sound chamber

 Loksound 4 ohm speaker

Well I seem to have packed away my speakers. Till I find them I cannot continue. But I have decided to cut away the lid that I am holding in the last picture, that is if the body does not do a good enough job in separating the front from the rear of the speaker. But if I decide to fit the Loksound sound chamber I will still be able to have a mount to the side to hold the new board away from the motor. However I have just watched this video, and it has taught me a few things :D
Watch it and let me know if this turns your speaker ideas upside down :)

Cheers
Rod Young