2016_01_18 What next?

2016_01_18  Looking towards finishing the wall, but then I also need to clear up some of the junk to enable work to continue. So this is what I am thinking ;)  and that's dangerous, I guess.

Most of these boxes contain built up kits and trees as well as a lot of valuable materials to finish off the layout. So I guess junk it isn't.  I intend, or should I say, need to store this stuff under the layout along the finished wall.

Now notice the late afternoon sun shining on the layout. It did this for near 3 hours before this shot was taken at 7.15pm. The bricks were very hot to touch, and the plaster was cool, but was up slightly behind the glass at the top. But I am happy with that as it was 36C today, clear blue skies.

So now I have to work out how wide the Albury yard can be to accommodate the rest of the modules I want to install in here. (Remember South Grafton)

 Click on it if it is not all visible on your monitor.

I want the Albury section to be freelance like the rest. So I need to know how many SG storage roads I can fit and the maximum width I need to create this yard. I would like to fit the station and the flour mill in, if I can, so will leave the locomotive depot out, I think. This gives me three long roads at station end plus more and 4 long yards at the Sydney end plus more depending on width available.

I will have to talk with Roger as he knows how to use these confounding layout design programs!

These are some spare L Girders I have and will cut out new cross pieces when I know how wide I can go. But that sits at about the right height.

And this is how I need to store bins under, depending on the width.
These Bunnings Bins are about the right size at 560 x 380.
the baseboard is set at 410 wide, but that will change.

But I am getting ahead of my self. Need to sand down the plaster joins before I go much further

Cheers
Rod Young

Google changes the rules

A message from Google (as part of their World Domination plan of cause) Ha Ha!!


But I am told that several readers of this site and a whole lot more that follow all the other Model Railway sites are going to find themselves excluded in coming days. The answer is to open up a google account of course. I have had google e mail accounts and others for many years and can honestly say I not noticed any sad results because of my membership. In fact this blog and the ability to operate it advertisement free has been a real plus. Trust that those who want to follow these google blogs will sign up with a google account and then sign up again to continue to receive notifications



"starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.
We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.
We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers. Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer"

2016_01_16

2016_01_16  Blue Skies but a cool day to plaster a wall ;)

Got a phone call this morning, and a half hour later another. Two mates were at loose ends.. Beauty!! more walls to get up :D

First of all Al was thinking about the out rigger supports and he thought we should continue fixing blocks to counter balance the weight of the baseboards on top. So before we started on completing the wall we attached 4 blocks above the out riggers to ensure they could not loosen off.

So we cut out the foam insulation, attached blocks to the brick wall, and patched the cutouts and secured with gaffa tape. Well Done!

 At about this time Graeme arrived, and as he had not met Al, introductions were in order. They got along fine, but I have such good friends, that is no surprise. We had a coffee and Al and I,ate a roll for dinner while we planned our next move.

Then it was just a matter of cutting out the rest of the sheets,applying cornice cement and attaching the sheets to the studs with screws between the dabs of cement.

We thought we were finished for the day but Graeme found some finishing plaster and mesh bandage and so we fixed up all the joints. Need to sand them back when it dries.. The boys admiring their good work.

And here is Honeysuckle sitting approximately where she will be fixed. This first module out of 5 running back towards the camera.

Amazingly the lights are switched off and that is natural light reflecting of the ceiling. Am pretty chuffed with that, and am now confident the wall will stop radiating the high temperatures it did in the past.

Thank you very much Al and Graeme. I am sure I could not do it without you. really appreciate your help.
Cheers
Rod

2016_01_09 Ouch!

2016_01_09

Haven't heard from Al since he went home, but those sheets of plaster were just too hard to handle. And if I only did some research first, I might have made it easier.

And so yesterday...
I tried to hire a lifting machine, but found you could buy them on Ebay less than the cost of a 3 day hire. Then I discovered they were used to do ceilings and high wall areas, not transporting from the truck to the work site.
I will now see if I can aford to get someone in to fit sheets (After I complete the wall studs)
Its funny how you do what you see, thinking thats the way it works. The truck driver used the under arm method and so did my son when we moved them under cover. I never thought of trying to lift the panel as described here.
Cheers
Rod Young

2016_01_07 Plaster?

2016_01_07   Today Al came over to give me a hand to hang the plaster on the completed walls.


Well despite working two days to finish the walls, I was still putting the last noggin in when Al arrived from hs home in Corrowa.

So we had to locate the top level horisontal supports fit the insulation and haul in the plaster. Easy job, huh?

So fit the horisontal supports, remove frame from wall, cut out the insulation to fit and glue it on the frame.
Replace it all and refix it to the wall.

I'm sure Al is saying "never again"
The first part went smoothly, and I had told Al the plaster sheets were not too bad with two lifting..
Reality was that I could hardly lift my end of the sheet, and had to make a sling to even get it off the ground. So what happened?  I helped the driver lift the 6  sheets of the truck and had no trouble carrying them 35 feet and stacking them against the wall. Simply with my arm over the top and lifting and walking it.
A few days later I had to move the stuff into my garage and tried to do it on my own. I could move it, but it was too big a job. My son helped me get it into the garage before it rained. Today Al had his end up but I just could not move it without the sling. Now the sheets were as I said before 6 m long. And they were facing the wrong side. So finally we got it off the ground, marched out into the yard and turned the sheet around. We could not just turn the sheet over because one edge is thinned to allow you to tape and  join two sheets.
Now the problem was to get the 6m sheet into the room. We finally walked it past the door lifting it over the steps, poking it through the gate and past the hot water service. After a rest we bent the sheet into an S and walked one end through the door whilst lifting the other end three feet of the ground to clear the steps.

So having another breather. Al has a bad back, and this did not help it much for sure. Have no idea why I was so unaffected by the last two moves. But it sure hurt us both this time.

We now had to cut the sheets to allow for the supports. Stuffed that up as well. We did it by eye almost got 6 right, but one was really out. Nothing that bandage won't fix though Ha Ha.

I guess I thought we would have got both walls lined with plaster (as far as the frame went) But the 6m sheets are just too hard to handle. Might have to cut them down in the garage next time.

Thanks Al (Pal)  I really appreciate your help. I assure you I aim to get trains running one day ;)
Cheers
Rod
(convalescing in his recliner for at least two days, I'm thinking :)

2016_01_05 Experts gone! Let the duffers work it all out :)

2016_01_05     Gentle rain falling and humidity high.

Cant run the swampy, just using fan to make the place more comfortable..Now where was I?

Well the frame is nailed together, but it needs noggins as well as fixing it to the wall. The pier and the nogging need to be flush to support the plaster which covers both at the end.
My son would probably do it by eye, however I had to come up with this method to create a flat surface. The long level is clamped so that it overhangs the pier and then I drilled the side stud into position.

At the other end, I had to make up a couple of blocks to fix the space from wall to match the other 

end.

I then screwed the panel into position (temporarily) so I could set up the hangers to support the top level.

 

The horisontal piece will be cut to length and fixed to the side stud. A piece of wood will then be screwed into the brick in such a way as to stop the wood from drooping under the weight of the track and scenery

Now I have to attach another similar support complete with strengthening block at the other end.
I have also got to attach the noggins. The top noggin supports the join in the two plaster sheets. The bottom noggin supports the bottom level which will simply stand on legs at the front, and be screwed into the studs on the back. The support arm can be cut to length.

I will have to then remove the wall by taking out the screws, cut the insulation out around the supports and glue it in place.

Then screw it all back onto the wall, so I can cut out the slots in the plaster and fix it in place on the studs.

Sounds easy :)  Yeah right, but I keep forgetting I have two left hands :)
Cheers
Rod

2016_01_04 Happy New Year!!

2016_01_04   Visitors gone and the weather is cool, and each day I build a little more :)

Well lets see if the saw still works!  Aha Makita works every time ;)

Son came for a visit over Christmas, and showed me how to line the wall.

The wall had a power point which will need to be moved to the new plaster wall. So extra upright was required.

So now its my turn. Dale had cut up another wall section, so I started to put that one together.

So the next two sections were cut up and nailed together to get the firsr sheets of plaster on. They were delivered in 6m  lengths, so they will have to wait till Al can come give me a hand, or perhaps the Grand kids come home from Bemm River.

And so with three frames knocked together, all I need to do is work out where the layout supports need to go, so I know where the cross pieces need to go to strengthen up the frame
One cross piece will need to be at 1350 to support the plaster sheet joins. Need to work out if that will also support the upper deck which will mount on top of 70 x 35 horisontal supports fixed in two places to anchor them at a perfect level.
Then the sheets of insulation will be fitted with cut outs to get around these obstructions. The same will go for the plaster as well.

Well I have a sharp pencil, now I need to work out exactly where the supports should go. The BG track is level at 1410mm but the SG falls for about 60 feet at 1.5% This complicates the support brackets.
Cheers
Rod

2015_12_22 Beating the heat.

2015_12_22  
With Summer here and temps approaching 40 C  It was time to fix the West wall for good. Materials for the job were delivered and today we got into the shed, turned up the air conditioner and started putting up the wall.

First you need some measurements and some wood to cut up.

Then you need a chippie who happens to be your son, to show you how to do it :D

ok the sisalation foam board is on the back leaving a 5 inch air gap.
All we need to do is cut a hole for the power board and fill in the other gaps. The horisontal pieces are at 750mm and 1400mm to which the two baseboards will be fixed to after 6 m plaster sheets are fixed to the whole wall. The panels are flush with the piers and some plaster glue will fix the sheets to the bricks.
The windows are almost covered ,just leaving a little light reflecting off the ceiling. This wall used to radiate heat into the room they would would reach 50 C to the touch on a hot afternoon.
Hopefully no more ;)
Cheers
Rod

2015_12_19 Back Scenes

2015_12_19 We had to remove the back scenes.

Despite the fact that we used spray adhesive which meant the paper went on dry, over the next few weeks, the paper rippled and shrunk. We are pretty sure we could iron the bumps out and the paper would return to its original length.
However, unfortunately we could only remove about 90% of each sheet, leaving tears and rips in the rest.
I decided to cut my losses and replace the sheets.

We experimented with some 80gsm paper using white glue diluted 15 to 1 and were pleased with the results. Perhaps that is our answer.
The manufacturer discourages using wall paper paste, telling us to leave unglued gaps between the adhesive, but after seeing the shrinkage we are not happy to do that. The white glue experiment left a perfectly flat secure cover.  Perhaps we could seal it with matte liquid medium?

Cheers
Rod

2015_12_17 Nice weather :D

2015_12_17 Fitting Sound continues

Followed Mikes advice and removed the troublesome filters from the L Class light board.
 A five minute job for most, but my skills in soldering as bad as they are, meant I had to be extra careful with the iron, so as not to damage the body or the board. Ended up taking out all four components and soldering back in links. You need the L links because the motor will not turn without them in place

Mike said

"I believe it may be worth doing a modification to the motherboard in the SRM L class. Remove the dynamic brake blister.
The RFI circuit may need removal as some models don't seem to run too well; some other models are fine. I think it comes down to the particular model and layout also.
1. Remove D1 & C12. Just snip them out with some Xuron orange track cutters. See if this improves operation.
If not,
2. Remove the Inductors L1 & L2 from the mother board, after removing the decoder and pulling out the soldering iron. Only do this mod if you're confident not to melt the body. Pull the decoder up and away from the motherboard. careful to pull is straight up so as not to bend the pins.
3. Then bridge across each inductor pad as the inductor was wired in series with each motor wire. Is use a small (5mm long) piece of resistor wire so power can get through to the motor terminals."


Kind regards"

I then fitted Mikes X Class (Late version) Loksound 4 decoders to my three Auscision Series 1 - X Class. Mike will upgrade the chips for me in 2016, when he finishes off the X Class sound set.

I then ,finally reassembled the last B Class (Bugger that took a long time) :(

Now I have two 48 Class to finish and an 830.

Then 4 G Class and three 81 Class,to finish.

After that I will build two new plaster walls on the west side of the shed to insulate the afternoon sun, and start the new bench work for the NSW side of my layout.

Ordered all the material today, and hope to get it tomorrow.

Then I need to decide what to do with the back ground sheets, which is turning into a disaster.

Merry Christmas from my house to yours :D

Cheers

Rod

Thanks James for your interest and your help. I am going to install your sounds into another X37-44 series I have {in an orange box) that needs sound.as I have a spare Loksound with 8 pin plug fitted that I can use.

 Let you know how it goes :)
( Mike Walters
DCCSound team - Australia
Authorised ESU dealer

Subscribe to our Newsletter, Synchronicity

http://www.dccsound.com/  )

2015_12_16 Nice day :) 27 C ah! that's better :)

2015_12_16  Auscision X Class day!!

Have to add these to the long list of sound installs.

At least Auscision have put a lot of thought into sound in their engines. (Now all we have to do is teach them how to fit tail lights and car lighting ;) )


Here are the first pics :)

Nice one Auscision. I bet this one brings a lot of smiles in the lucky state :)
Cheers
Rod

2015_12_06 L Class days

2015_12_06  Southern Models (WAGR)  L Class day!!
Don't have to add these to the long list of sound installs...YEIIIII!!
Sound already installed.
Unfortunately I do have to make modifications to the light boards though as the pre-installed Loksound chip does not like the mandatory interference suppressors. Not sure yet how to remove the surface mounts, although Mike Walters has sent me a how to email.

Runs nicely hauls a huge load up my helix, and sounds great! Unfortunately the video was not quite right and I blurred the picture of the loco on tracks.
Thanks Rocket and Co. A nicely done job. The colour manual and exploded diagram are a nice touch too. Not letting Auscision get away with anything, eh?
Cheers
Rod

2015_11_28 B Class continues and a tidy up turns into bigger mess!

2015_11_28 So how does one keep a clean work area?

Or even how do some of you ever work on a small desk. Oh I did that once too. I built almost a hundred pink epoxy kits and painted them in an ensuit fitted out with a desk over the toilet, which never ceased to upset my poor dear wife :(

But I spent a few days trying to find some parts that I knew exactly where they were ... that is till I decided to have a clean up a month or so back.

So I searched everywhere and even cleaned up a little more. Taking individual bits and putting them with other similar bits. Going through Athearn box lids filled with tiny parts, screws, detail items, broken off bits, and putting them in one place where they could be found, particularly if I found out where they fell off.  So I started clearing off my work bench (almost finished that too) so I have somewhere to work without cluttering up the railroad.

Go back in my blog to when I cleaned up to lay back sheets?    Now look at todays work area. Yes I know finish one job, before starting another... then the B Class needs finishing and... and.....

The clean up continues and most of this stuff is needing a new home, as I work at the other end adjacent the TV putting the B Class' back together  and  testing them all out.

Talking about the B Class.
As Eugene suggested their are wiring faults with this engine, but they are peculiar faults, unlike the ones Austrains presented us with at the start of the Chinese era.

At each end of the new lighting board note that a red and a black wire extend up from the bogies?
We do not connect red wires to the decoder red wire or black wires to the decoder black wire. we in fact select the wires from the same side of the loco. Actually obvious, otherwise you would connect poitive pickup to negative pickup and create a direct short through the decoder.

I think their are two different batches, because the first B I worked on, did not have this fault. Red wires were both on top, and black wires both on bottom.  So be warned. Ignore colour of wires just make sure you join the same sides to the decoder red and black wires. Thanks again Eugene :)

The next trick is to do with the headlight wires and the marker light wires. Probably due to the original board wiring, however it slowed me down for a time.
In this picture you will note that a pair of wires are shorter and another longer?
The short wires go to the headlight, long wires to marker lights.
the headlight black wire and marker light red wire are positive and join the decoder blue wire. So then the long black wire is green or purple wire and the short red wire is headlight white or yellow.

Here I swap over the wires to correct the short that shut down this decoder.

By getting rid of the Auscision lighting board I had to add 1k resistors to the purple, green, white and yellow decoder wires to protect the LED's. You can see one shrink protected here. hmm the shrink tubing shrunk too much I see in this picture exposing the wire at one end :(
The new board lowers the decoder and prevents it contacting the roof, and overheating the plastic.

Three done and one to go.
Now I need to remember how to connect F4 and F5 so I can turn on my marker lights. Loksound keep talking about  Function 1 and Function 2 which is typical German confusion, if you use other companies decoders as well. F0 headlight, F1Engine start up or shut down, F2 Whistle, F3 coupling and air noise, F4 dynamic brake, F5 notch up, F6 notch down, F7 shunt mode or air release, F8 mute/ handbrake on and off  F9 short horn F10 air compressor, F11 front Marker Lights, F12 Rear marker lights and reed switches both ends turns on red tail light fire mans side only when required Ha Ha  That works for me!
EDIT +3 hours and the lighting is not working on any of the projects. I have identified Anode and Cathode connections and tested them, but for some reason each Loco has the same lighting fault. It can only be reversed wires. How could I do that? Need to recheck the polarities :(
Note to self. Maybe if I cannot solder nicely, I should at least photo shop it to look good?

Cheers
Rod

2015_11_25 Installing DCC continues

2015_11_25   Only got one loco done yesterday.

So its back into the B Class project :)
Yesterday I prepared all 4 B Class for sound and only needed to connect up  the wires. The easy part, so I thought..
I started on the first engine in line and connected up all the lights, then the motor and finally the bogies. When I tested the engine the sound and the lights all worked, however the Loco would not move. As I started checking wires , I found that the grey wire to the motor had a bad solder joint and was only held together with shrink tube. So I rejoined it and placed it on the track to see if it was fixed.  The sound started but as soon as the Loco tried to move, a direct short occurred. After starting to test for the short, I ran out of time and finished for the day.
A few minutes ago I was about to head out into the shed when I noticed that Eugene had posted on my blog about how the wiring was reversed on the bogies.
Thank you Eugene. You just saved me a heap of time. Now I will reverse those wires and see how it goes. I also noticed that Auscision have not used any standard wiring for their lighting circuits either.
More Later,
Cheers
Rod Young

2015_11_13 Fitting Decoders...

2015_11_13

After some domestic jobs, like washing three loads and hanging it all out. Then climbing up on the roof with a new long handled brush to wash 3 years of dirt of the solar panels. I actually got to start off the B Class Decoder job
1/ strip out the circuit boards and the wiring connectors.
2/ Cut new blank styrene boards to fit between the rubber mounts either side.
3/ Locate all the wiring and bring it to top of new board.
4/ Cut out new lids for fuel tank and cut a hole slightly smaller than speaker.
5/ wire in speakers and run wires through to top circuit board.
6/ seal top of fuel tank which now forms enclosure for speaker.
7/ Reassemble fuel tank and attach to chassis.
8/ Glue Loksound Decoder to top surface circuit board,
9/ wait for Silastic to dry

Times 4

So tomorrow will need to
1/ link black and red wires front and rear bogies to black and red wire decoder.
2/ link orange and grey wires to decoder
3/ link front marker lights to green wire via resistor decoder F5
4/ link rear marker lights to purple wire via resistor decoder F6
5/ blue wire +ve decoder to all body lights
6/white wire via resistor to headlight
7/ yellow wire via resistor to headlight
Locate body to chassis  and test movement and sounds
secure body, attach couplers and check for damage.
Run through Decoder Pro, to normalize operations, speeds etc

Cheers
Rod Young

2015_11_22 - 10 projects on go...none close to finished :(

2015_11_22   Something smells around here ....

Well I am not entirely to blame for the lull (Excuses Excuses !)
The kids pet rabbit has gone and died under the floor, and its not very nice out there in the train room.
But today it was a little better so maybe the worst of it is over.

Talking about Spray Glue?
Bunnings, Masters, Art Shops and Office Works, all hand me spray fixing adhesive, and as I found out that just does not work.
So Al and I decided to mix our own and spray it on with a hand pumped detergent bottle, and as we gradually increased the % of white glue we got it to work.
Here we test it out at approx 15 to 1, (after starting at about 30 water to 1 glue) And we are pretty happy with results I had some 80gsm paper which was about the same as the back scenes. So next job is to try it out once again on the real scenes. It did stick permanently after just smoothing it out with a damp cloth and did not curl at all. It was dry in 24 hours.

very firmly attached, and no bubbles / ripples after a week.

Took some effort to peel it off, and appears to be a permanent fix. Possibly only removable by wetting it down?

Three Way Point (Shinohara DC Code 70)

Now lets look at that three way point for Trentham throat.

Before installing it, I joined track to it at all ends, and using jumper leads, connected it to main line. I then operated a diesel in DCC mode over the points trying to locate each dead point or short. Took several hours over several days, but finally using three mono juicers (automatic electronic polarity changes for live frogs)  I got a train to run through each route without shorting or losing power.

But Lord the wiring to achieve this was unbelievable! But I do suggest that whilst these small multi strand links stay attached, I will never ever suffer dead spots here :D

Now to drill out the holes, mount it and connect it up. Going to use Tortoise Motors here.
Cheers
Rod

ps I have 4 B Class all getting Loksound Decoders with Mike Walters sound encoded in an assembly line, as well as several other sound projects that need fixing or doing :)