Since the last post on Wednesday, I have concentrated on getting a least the Experimenter's Kit modules done and if time permitted start the solenoid driver module. Well I was able to get all of them done once I started. The CANACC4 solenoid module was certainly the most time intensive module I have built to date due to the number of components on the board, but well worth it in the end. Tonight I connected it up to the CBUS test bed and the laptop runninf FlimConfig and it was a breeze to program. I had an old test point with a Peco driver underneath so with a small bit of bodgying I was able to connect the point motor connected into the module. I then configured the two pushbuttons on the CANACE8C to activate the point motor. Perfect. I then thought why not see how a couple of LEDs in the CANACC8 would go to mimic indicators on a panel. Slight problem was that the LEDs only flashed with the pushbutton activation and didn't stay on. I knew there was some way of keeping them on but for the life of me I couldn't remember. A bit later after I had disconnected I referenced the manual I finally found and I will have to try its suggestion the next time I connect the laptop to the testbed. Hopefully this will be tomorrow as the missus is taking the kids over to a playdate for a few hours in the morning which will give me some 'alone time' on my public holiday time off .
This afternoon I spent helping Lachlan and Matthew start the small diorame baseboards for their modelling competition entries for the Club comp in December. I am specifically going to mentor Lachlan so that he can enter something. Matthew is more like being a part of the process! I cut down some ply for the base and some MDF for the backboard. The boys painted the baseboards in brown to start with for the dirt and then we start moving upwards. A small project which I think will be achieveable by Lachlan before December.
This week hopefully sort out the above LED problem, maybe put some time into the Raspberry Pi and its connectivity with the Wifi / JMRI / Engine Driver, and the UDEV rules for connecting it to the layout. The last one is a big maybe.
Then it will be back to the terrace houses.
I've delayed updating this blog by a couple of days so as to have something to write about. I have finally been able to finish the rear walls which have been extremely time-consuming. Some photos below. I've elected not to put in curtains on the rear windows as you will not be able to see them on the layout.
Apart from these, nothing else has been done, because as mentioned, time was consumed with these alone last week!
Time for a change this week so I might get around to one of the MERG modules.
I've been busy this week re-installing everything on a new laptop since the old one apparently fried its motherboard (according to the tech). I was able to copy most of the files off the old hard drive to an external drive so that was fortunate. My backup/restore program encountered problems with the last backup I had done so that was a pointless exercise!
No work on the MERG modules.
I got 30 minutes last night to move the terraces houses along.
I spent most of Saturday down at the Club at a working bee in between other commitments. A handful of members turned up to help, so it was fortunate that we had hired a civil contractor to do the digging for the drainage pipe ditches and to move some dirt around to where the future trailer garage is to go. So that was worth every cent as we would have been there a month of Sunday's trying to dig the tranches as the ground was rock hard due to the dry spell we are currently in.
This week I am hoping to progress with the terraces but there is a lot of cutting out work at this stage so very tedious! if I get board with that I might start the MERg modules.
As for the Raspberry Pi, that has taken a backseat over the last couple of weeks, but I am hoping to start that back up when I can.
Only thing to report this week was I progressed with the terrace housing one night this week. Apart from that I received the MERG CANACC4 and Experimenters kits on Friday. Nothing happened with the Pi. Busy week!
So this week might be more on the terraces as I do want to enter these into the Club modelling competition in December, a bit on the Pi, and maybe solder up the MERG kits.
The main problem is that my laptop has spat the dummy for some reason and a lot of my applications are on it. So I have to get someone out to have a look at it and hopefully it isn't a fatal problem!
Ciao
This week I've been busy compiling the club newsletter / magazine 'The Semaphore' in the absence of its usual editor PK, who is off on holidays in the US. He had compiled a fair portion before he left, but I completed it with various small articles and photos from last weekends Club Show. This was distributed on Friday night.
On Wednesday night I had a spare hour so tried connecting the IR detector up to the MERG CBUS modules. It took me about a minute to work out how to do it, program what to do (turn a LED on), then test it out to perfection. Now to work out how many I need, what my intentions are for the sensor (for JMRI positioning, to do specific things, etc), and how many other modules I need. Hopefully the solenoid point motor module will arrive this week.
Other than the above, not much else occurred. The weekend was a write-off doing other things like my Father-in-Law's 75th on Saturday and Fathers' Day day trip today (Sunday).
Not sure what I want to do this week coming up. Possibly some more on the terrace houses and continue with trying to get Wifi operating on the Pi.
