2018_04_10 Waiting for parts? ok lets find those amps

2018_04_10 Talking with Marcus Ammann.

So I decided to do some more carriage lighting. And I decided whilst I was doing that, I would adjust the heights of the various carriages as I do each carriage.
I have KD close coupling couplers to fit, strip lighting, and a power supply.
I will do the Harris set with pickups and flicker free circuits, use strip leds to simulate fluoro lighting.
(waiting parts)
I will do the Auscision carriages with similar strip lights, however I will battery operate these as per the video a few days back (Waiting parts)


Thanks to Tim who sent me this good advice
 "Both the N cars and the S cars show a tare height to the top of the roof
sheet (not including the projections on the roof, that's a different
height measurement) of 3955mm. That's 45.4mm in H0.

The Auscision N cars measure about 46.2 for the roof sheet height so
they are about 0.7 to 0.8mm over height.

The (Powerline) new S car (SOP Bogie) measures a pitiful 44.0 for the
roof sheet dimension so they are 1.35 to 1.45mm under height.

Couple an N set to an S set and you have a combined difference of about
2.2mm / 7.5" in height. Now, every time I see the Shepparton train there
is a good height difference between the N cars and the BZN or BTN car
at the side sill level, but not as much as between Auscision and ( Powerline).

Raising the S cars shouldn't be overly hard, some washers, new bogie
screws, coupler box padding etc should cover most of it. I don't know
what raising them will do to the look.

Lowering the N cars will be a lot more problematic."

And thats all I am going to do. The Auscision cars look ok behind the S Class, and lifting Powerline cars to match will make me happy if the gaps over the bogies do not look ridiculous. Thanks Tim.

Now the Amp gauge was another discussion we had on FB.  Everybody knows that you can measure voltage by touching the pos and neg terminals?
And we all know amperage needs to be in line with the flow of electrons?
OK stupid old me forgot that, didn't I?
So after Marcus intervened we sorted the Rampmeter out and it now reads voltage and amps, finally.

Some pics? Why not?

It always showed 13.7 v and 0.03 a   And I counted the number of locomotives on the track. 16 powered but only three had sound switched on. Total amps available?  8 amps because I decided that running three boosters to this 8 amp, plus 5 amp, plus 5 amp was unnecessary. That is 26 amps!

 The Digitrax Powerpack can provide 25 amps at 16 volts. Digitrax seem to give you 13.9 v when switched to HO position.

Beside the Digitrax transformer (switchable from 110v AC to 230V AC) is a homemade 30 Amp transformer that outputs 16.8 volts DC and AC. Which happily ran the layout before I bought the Digi one.
The two smaller transformers supply pure 12v to run the LED strip lights and are outputting about 30amps each.

Trains dont even care that the rampmeter is in line, and everything is operating off one 8amp command station without any boosters.
Thanks Marcus for such good advice
Cheers all .....  oops I forgot about my Trainorama S Class failure :(


Ok has anybody else seen this failure?

Notice the gear at the top is just floating and completely locks up when the worm tries to turn it.
I suspect a pin has worked its way out?

I found some brass tube which press fitted through all three pieces, that is front, gear and back.

However this locked the gear and it could not turn!
I wanted to have the gear turning freely on the shaft held in place by sides, however the mech is riveted together these days, and that was not going to work.

So I found a drill slightly larger than the shaft and opened out both sides leaving the gear a firm fit.

It was still tight so before lubricating it, I spun the mech with a dremil and it loosened up in a few minutes. Applied lubrication and put it all back together again!  All good and it works ok.

This is the tube I bought to do the job ;)

Mow I can say   good night all :D