2019_04_09 (continued)

2019_04_09  Ok so whats happening at Hobsons Bay North?...

So as said, I am doing some work.

The frustrating shorts in the railway was so frustrating, I decided to leave them for later, months ago.
So I reloaded JMRI Decoder Pro and lined up all my unfinished decoder installs using WoW and  Tsunami chips and cluttered up the work bench and everything around it with necessary tools, speakers, glues scrap styrene for speaker boxes, led's wire and a soldering station.

Well that was a few months back. You see Decoder Pro will not run on my new Asus Windows 10 laptop, nor will it run on my old HP laptop, on which it ran perfectly up until Win 10 was installed a couple years back. Tried returning it to Win 7 however it suddenly upgrades to 10 when I am not looking. I guess I could do a complete hard drive clean, and load a fresh copy of 7, however asking it not to upgrade is cancelled out my next update which loads 10 back on again.

Plenty of friends are out there for me, alas still not a goer. I have sent back to Digitrax my PR3 and replacement PR4 asking them to advise me if they are testing ok.

Meantime, I have organised what I can, and moved on to ESU Loksound. Their programmer at least does work!

Here is my Y Class sound install. Not happy with sound though. I will build a styrene box and glue it to body of loco and see if that helps. (not sure wooden box gives better bass, but it does deaden sound a little.)

 Its an 8 pin plug. I will use a loksound mini V4.0 and load a Y Class sound on this.

Had to remove lighting board and weight to allow me to file down speaker housing to accept a quality phone speaker in a wooden baffle. Used pictures to remember where wires attached.

 Feed the wires back through chassis making sure red and black track pick ups go through holes provided (helps keep wires away from spinning tail shafts. Cut front headlight away from speaker box

 reattach headlight to chassis. Used spacers to allow for short thread after filing top away.

 Quick test using Loksound programmer. Sounds great with this speaker. Alas  too large for Y Class as body narrows near cab.

Using generic sounds from loksound. was ok. Need to make up new speaker box and fit this speaker in loco.

Taking a break from that, and returned to tracing shorts on track.

OK it appears my wiring problems are mainly to do with the Helix. Testing it by isolating DCC system, and applying 12v DC to track sections was interesting. I used a DC loco as a test. It went forwards very quickly and was controllable. However in reverse it back fed and several DCC locos in the Branch yard started up and I could hear normal sound. Could not control them, as AC overlaying voltage was missing?
Spent some time looking for the bad feed. Need to check if a missing insulated joiner.

As the helix was still only temporarily wired in, I decided to run three wire feeds from top to bottom beside the track, and disconnect temp droppers. I got the three feeds in place, fixing them with hot glue. Now its time to attach all feeders and test it again.

Ok about 7 hours work to get two feeds glued in. Another day to connect feeders.


In the meantime, I have a few trains running. Must be some dual gauge on the branch ??

Testing new purchases from ACT Exhibition a few weeks back.

 A couple of sound 442's arrived from Auscision. 

They were late because my card bounced 😒 ANZ Bank took over my Aussie Loan Visa card and stopped it, even though it had ample funds. Problem solved. Cancelled card and used another one. Now to get rid of the ANZ card.

 This little gopher had sound installed and runs nicely, look at the load following picture.

 R704 back from Mark, who weighted  for me. It now hauls prototypical loads.

Look at the difference in sizes :)

 The 30T just lifted all these up the grade. WoW...  not once did it slip.

All the NSW steamers hauled these up the hill.

A low frame 32 Class. I think it was discounted because of paint. Dirtied up a lot, and should look better

My last NSW engine. This should be enough to populate Albury. This 50 Class was on the special table at Canberra. It had a 'binding' mech. I got it rather cheaply.When I got it home and it failed to move, I pushed it back and forward and it took off, never to bind again.
The icing on the cake was sound was turned off. It works when I turn it on. I did not know it was a sound version. Double the fun, and rather cheap to boot!

 Thought it was an EH, but bought it anyway.

Cheers
Rod