No customer service from Auscision!

Auscision duly replied to my email advising that I should of returned the unit to the place of purchase for a replacement, as was their policy. Pretty silly when you think about it. Mike at DCC Sound found the factory fault and fixed it for me for no cost. Under Auscision's policy, I should of advised Mike to stop work. Pack it up. I pay for postage to South Australia back to Orient Express Models, then have them check to see if it was a factory fault. And then, if it was and if they had another one of the same model in stock send that one back to Mike for continuance with the decoder install. If they didn't have the same model in stock, they would have had to get one in from Auscision, who would have had to pay postage to Orient. Does this sound logical? I don't.

I can't fault the customer service of Mike at DCC Sound. Similarly Orient Express have been good to me in the past. But Auscision's customer service has a lot to be desired!

So the railmotor arrived last week. I have only been able to test it briefly on the programming track as I have stuff all over one side of my layout in temporary storage. I might be able to shift some of it around and get it operating over the Xmas break. I could only hear one of the speakers working, so not sure if the other one has a problem, kicks in at higher speeds, or something else. Anyway the more important thing was that the decoder didn't blow!

Well that's it for this week. 

I wish all my blog readers a very Merry Christmas and safe 2014.

VR Walker Railmotor story

Since the last post Mike Walters at DCC Sound advised me that ESU (Loksound) had advised that it was the sound amp on the chip that blew. He suggested a number of possibilities but the best thing would be to send the model and decoder back to him and he would look into what had caused the problem to start with. No point getting the replacement if it was to blow again due to a factory problem with the model's wiring. I thought the postage to Victoria would be a small price to pay to get someone who knew about decoder installs into this model to make sure everything was OK. So I mailed the model and decoder. A few days later Mike was in touch. He advised he found a short in the speaker wire circuitry from the moor board. It looks like the wire insulation had melted a bit more due to a possible factory resolder which caused two wires to touch when the body shell was on. He said he would fix this, as well as give me a second speaker for 2nd class for my troubles. The decoder couldn't be replaced under warranty but under repair. He still gives me a new decoder but I had to pay $42 for the repair, which he sends back to Germany and gets fixed and returned to his stock. I thought a great deal all up. He also suggested advising Auscision of this situation to see if they will come to the party to recompense me for the repair postage. I've duly sent an email to Auscision and wait their reply.

Apart from this no modelling on other stuff.

At the Club Modelling Comp weekend just gone I didn't win anything this year but Lachlan got the President's Award again for his Alaska Rail Road diorama entry.

Until next time.

VR Walker railmotor -- VERY NICE!

The day after the last post the Loksound decoder arrived from dccsound. I had to wait until the weekend before I could go anywhere near the shed. Saturday arrived as did some constant rain. Perfect weather for shed time if only the missus hadn't gone out for the morning for a hairdresser appointment (I think it is a devilish plan to have some child free time!). Anyway the boys kept me busy keeping them entertained. By midmorning it was time to take them somewhere. So off we went to the local games arcade down at the shops. We spent about an hour and a half of quality Dad time on the computer games, pin ball machines, and other distractions. And it only cost me $20!

The afternoon arrived and so did the missus. So having spent quality time with the boys in the morning, it was now my turn to have 'me' time. As it was still showery, the grass was too wet to cut, so the shed and my recent purchases beckoned. I put the railmotor on Lachlan's DC layout for a couple of hours of running in between some other things like lunch and a nanna nap! It did look good. Now it was time to put the decoder in. This model certainly was designed better than the 73, as plenty of pre-positioning for DCC. The 21 pin drop in decoder had no problems. The speaker install was the most time consuming. Now for a test of the sound. Sounded great. As all this was done on the central motor carriage it was time to attach the end carriages. This done, I turned the power back on then the decoder. The speaker started sounding a bleeping sound. Then I detected the faint wiff of doom....I mean fried electronics. That wasn't good. I looked a bit further and couldn't find the problem. The 'alarm' might have been a short circuit alarm, but I couldn't see anything obvious. I turned the power back on watching the decoder at the same time. FLASH and POP a microsecond  later and the decoder looked stuffed. Oh no, not again!

Well I made contact with dccsound and Mike was very accomodating. I have sent a photo of the decoder and he will check it out. A warranty replacement could be coming my way. Time will tell.

I also soldered up the replacement sugar cube speaker to the 73 and cranked it up. No crackling. Hooray! Now I just have to finish the conversion!

This afternoon I went around to one of Lachlan's friend's house as he was over for a birthday party. The dad of the friend is also into modelling but I hadn't seen his layout for about 12 months. He warned me not much had happened landscape wise as he had decided to convert to DCC and re-position some track. He has purchased an ESU ECos system which is very nice. Everything in the one little unit, including wireless to smartphone! Pretty much like JMRI and others all in the one unit. Perfect for a lone modeller. He also showed me his replacement DCC turntable (Walthers Cornerstone 90') operating. Very nice and smooth operation compared to the old analogue models. 

Well that is about it for this week. 

Progress with Zimo and early Xmas pressie

It has been a tad crazy of late and time of modelling has been a low priority unfortunately! Re the Zimo decoder, I haven't got anywhere near wiring up the LEDs. About a week after the last post I was pottering around with the speaker and found a crack in the case. Maybe that was the cause of the crackling noise. So I removed the area around the crack and glued back on a piece of 0.5mm styrene to firm up the sound box. Nope - the crackling was still there. So possibly my other suspicion is the cause, namely initially when I went to solder the speaker leads on I hadn't restrained the speaker onto something that wouldn't move and as such the speaker's magnetic was firmly attracted to the soldering iron. So it stayed for longer than it should of soaking up heat while I busily searched for a pair of pliers or tweezers to remove it.

I decided to purchase another speaker to see. While on the phone to Orient Express on Friday I noticed on their webpage they were stocking Auscision VR Walker railmotors, so I had one of those put on the order as well as an early Chrissie present to myself. I then promptly went over to www.dccsound.com (an Aussie company) to order a Loksound decoder with the VR walker sound file on it.

So I was very surprised yesterday (Monday) to have received the order from Orient Express. The railmotor looks very nice.

So sometime this week I will have to go out to the shed and at least wire up the new speaker and maybe run in the railmotor on Lachlan's DC layout while waiting on the decoder to come in.

On the subject of Lachlan, I found some time on the weekend to help him finish his diorama for the Club modelling competition in December. He also wanted to do something on his layout so I showed him how to make graves and headstones for his churchyard.

Until next post. Happy modelling.

Zimo decoder and 73 Class update

The only thing I got around to over the weekend was finally doing something about the replacement Zimo decoder that arrived two weeks beforehand!

After Club Saturday, I had some spare time in the afternoon. So I decided to open up the shed and test out the decoder. So I wired it up just to two of the pickups and the motor wires. And then I applied power. At this point with the first Zimo decoder, things went up in smoke! However on this occasion, we had movement with smoke from the decoder. Hoorah! However the dodgy factory wiring on the 73 was such that it went the opposite way to what I had assumed should have been the correct wiring. No big problem, just reverse the gray and orange wires from the decoder. I was happy with things at that point and left it at that for the day.

Sunday morning a thought transpired of why not wire up the little speaker to see how the thing sounds. The only time I got to do that was Sunday night between storms. After selecting the diesel option CV I applied the Sound On button (F8). And she cranked up. The speaker had some static going through it so I will have to investigate that. Could be a dodgy solder joint, or volume adjustment, or something else. But we have sound. Next step those LEDs!

Absence of posts

I must apologise for the lack of posts lately as I've been on holidays for two weeks. Not much happened in the week before going on leave, and as for the two weeks on leave, nothing modelling related has occurred. Once we started putting the hobby room/study stuff into storage I've kind of been busy with other reno type stuff. Quotes, tradies, etc over the hols. So the missus then tells me this evening she wants the hobby/study room painted before the carpet is laid, I said by whom? A painter she says. So I said that's OK. After having the pagola repaired this week I started the painting of the raw timber and reacquainted myself as to why I detest painting! So not sure when modelling will start up again.

While on hols, I received two deliveries, one from MERG for some pocket money projects for PK, Mr Mackie and myself, and the other was the replacement Zimo decoder. So I might have to clear some space in the shed to act as a hobby table so that I can progress with the NSWGR 73 conversion.

As for the shed, I finally decided to buy something I've been wanting to do for years. This year while up the coast for hols, we went to the Eumundi Markets. A wood carver who does signs was still there, so I placed an order. The result was the following:

The other thing I've been contemplating is the purchase of a VR Walker Railmotor from Auscision. I found out that dccsound.com does sound decoders for this model as well. So even though off my prototypes of interest, it is a fine looking model. Might look good cruising around the Club layout when it becomes operational. So I might just purchase this before Xmas.

So if I want to do modelling, it will have to be through the week at night as my weekends are starting to fill up with either house renos, early Christmas catchups, or usual domestic bliss ;-)

Sorry for the delayed post but.....

Not much modelling happened again last week however I was able to finalise the updates for the Pi HowTo and submit it to PK for publishing in the club newsletter "The Semaphore . It was released the other day and looks good. I might have to pass it by the editor of MERG's journal.

The reason for the delayed post was a nasty surprise on Monday evening when the missus pointed out an ant problem in the study/hobby room cupboard. As I hunted for a possible nest behind all the books in the cupboard I discovered a rather large break in the bottom of the wall in the cupboard (built ins). The timber looked like it had rotted away by dry rot. Initially I thought it might have been the base/floor plate of the wall framing. As I wasn't sure if this was structural or not, I had to organise a carpenter/builder to come and tell me the bad news or not. I didn't sleep much that night worried about the dosh needed for a repair. As the room is lined with old style fibro sheeting (ie asbestos!) I say "Cha-Ching!" signs before my eyes! The next problem was getting a tradie to actually come out. Eventually I had a guy come out and he gave me the best news for the day. Its not structural and can be fixed very easily. The timber that had rotted was the old boxing they had used when the concrete slab had been poured, but never removed as it was too difficult to do so. "Just clean out the rotted timber and bog it back up with Silaflex sealant". Fantastic news.

Unfortunately as we have now cleaned out the cupboard and had made a significant dent in cleaning out the room in anticipation of a major repair job, the missus then says "Well we may as well clean out the rest of the room and re-carpet it!" As the current carpet is threadbare I couldn't argue with logic like that!

So now that the hobby room is now a work in progress and most of the hobby stuff is packed up, I'll just have to see what I can manage hobby-wise. It might be more around the Pi, or if I can work out which box the missus packed things up in, I might be able to get back to the 73 conversion once the replacement decoder comes in from Europe. No word on that yet! Ot maybe even learn a bit more around the configuration of JMRI. I'm sure I can sort something out!

Not much mojo this week

This week I've done naff all! I briefly had a look at one of the light board shields and discovered that I had to pare away some of the styrene ridge that pressed against the light board PCB as this was the board that I had to interconnect the white marker lights one and the wire was located where one of the shield ridges would be located. And that is where I left it this week. Either busy with other things or just plain knackered from my day job!
This week I might look into the colour wiring on the light boards. 

Zimo decoder and 73 lightboards

This week the hoped for exchange decoder did not arrive as I misunderstood what Orient had said. Yes they would exchange it but were waiting for the return of the suspect decoder in order to test it. Anyway they emailed saying the decoder was faulty and they would exchange it, but unfortunately the same model decoder was out of stock. They offered a number of alternatives, but none had the same small foorptint as the MX645R. I would have to wait about three weeks for the next shipment from Europe to arrive and be dispatched to me.

In the meantime I had another look at the damaged lightboard mentioned in the last post. I was able to connect the two LEDs together via a very small length of decoder wire and the marker lights worked in unison.

So now I am contemplating whether to replace all the red and black wires on the two lightboards with appropriate colour decoder single core wires as the original wires are VERY flimsy and the multicore is prone to breaking. I have to weigh up the slightly thinker single core wires' spatial impact to a very tight area against improved durability in the long term.

I then have to look at reattaching the light board shield and rejigging the one light board which I had to saw out of it's chassis housing with a suitable piece of styrene.

On a sadder note, I was voted out of the Club's VP position at the AGM by another contender. The membership has spoken. I had enjoyed the last two years in the position, so maybe I will see what happens in the next twelve months as to whether I go for another Committee position at the next AGM, or just enjoy the Club and work on the HO layout. Time will tell.

The LED Baron has landed

I didn't get a chance this week to do something different as the LEDs I've been waiting for arrived Tuesday in the mail. 300 wee SMD LEDs (0603 package size) in various colours, but mostly Signal Red and Pure White, so plenty of spares in case I stuff up the 73's lightboards! On that subject I persisted with the rejigging of these. One end tested perfectly. The other end I had trouble with one of the white marker lights not coming on with its twin. I tried turning it 180 degrees with no effect. I put it back the way I found it. I tested the LEDs individually with a 9v battery test power source directly to the LED pads. Worked fine. I persisted with this for two nights trying to think what was wrong. I tried following the traces from one side to the other to make sure everything appeared correctly. Still nothing. Then last night just before calling it quits again without an answer I was tracing the circuits with the 9v source when all of a sudden along part of the trace one of the marker lights lit. Moving a bee's d!ck in distance lit the other marker light but turned off the one just lit. Hmmm, onto something! So I flipped down the 3rd magnifier lens on the headband to an even closer resolution for a looksy. Even at this resolution it was difficult but I could just make out that there was a cut in the trace. Then I realised what the culprit was that caused this. The 'helping hands' alligator clips 'teeth' had been able to just break the surface at a particular point and cut the trace. I tried to bridge the gap with some solder but all this did was to melt some of the PCB material over the cut. The only thing I can think of is to join the two relevant ends of the marker light LEDs together with some fine decoder wire. I'll try this week to sort this out.

When I mentioned the arrival of the LEDs to Mr Mackie he was quick to ask how much as he needed some spares for similar reasons. About 10c each! So he took two Pure White and two Red. Thursday night I tested one of the Pure Whites not knowing if these equated to Warm or Cool White, and wow, note to self - remove magnifier lens before firing these little beauties up as I had spots before my eyes! Very bright Cool White. So I will have to reduce the brightness with a suitable resistor and match the original lightboard Warm White LEDs with a smear of Tamiya Clear Orange. I tested this on the working lightboard mentioned in the first paragraph and it seems to work OK. 

As for the Zimo decoder, I emailed Orient Express Model Train in South Oz explaining what happened and the use of another decoder to prove not loco related. They were happy to exchange it and I mailed off the dodgy decoder to them. So hopefully the replacement will arrive this week. Three cheers for the guys.

So this week will see me sorting out the lightboard mentioned above, and if the new decoder arrives, at least doing an initial test of motor control!

"Don't cross the streams!"

More on the post title shortly. However m'thinks I've cooked the Zimo decoder but no idea what caused it. I decided to connect up the decoder to the track pickups and the motor control for basic testing. I then placed it on the test track and connected the SB3a. Immediately the SB3a was constantly resetting itself after a short somewhere. Meanwhile the decoder began overheating so much that the heatshrink started burning off. Never seen this before! So not sure if there was a fault with the decoder, or something else. So I had a chat with Mr Mackie on Friday and he suggested a few things to test. Direct DC to the motor to check for bindings. No, the motor rotated fine as did the gearbox and wheels. Then wire in the DCC and check for DC operation. Zip. Therefore no point going back to do more DCC operations. I had a spare new NCE motor only decoder so decided to wire this in to do the same tests to see if it was the Zimo decoder or not. DCC detect of DC worked. Tick. DCC only started to work, apart from a bit of a whine from the gearbox in reverse direction (odd!). Tick. So it was looking like the Zimo decoder. However just as I was about to stop the tests, FLASH, FIRE and SMOKE came from the NCE decoder. WTF! Then I saw what had occurred. I had failed to insulate the soldered joints as this was only meant to be a temporary test. But a track pickup and one of the motor wires touched and obviously caused a bit of mayhem on the decoder. I effectively "crossed the streams" (reference to Ghostbusters movie). Damn I didn't want that to occur! So now I'm down two decoders.

So where to from here? I still want to see if I can get the 73 decodered correctly. I will check with the retailer and see if they know of any possible reason. If 'user error' do I go for another Zimo or try another brand with less functions? Not really sure but I have invested too much so far, and intend to invest more, to just throw it all away for the sake of experience!

So while I am sorting this out and waiting for the LEDs to arrive from Germany, I might do something else.

On a happier note, it was Fathers' Day today and the boys got me a few things for the layout which was very nice of them.

Raspberry Pi as an access point Howto published

Hi all, I have incorporated the suggested changes from the JMRI yahoo forum reviewers who took the time to go through the instructions, and I have now published the PDF under my 'Articles that I have written' section in the right side-panel.

Please feel free to drop me a line if you have questions.

73 plodding along

Well the LEDs from Germany didn't arrive this week unfortunately. It would have been god if they had as I had started converting the lightboards as per the AMRM instructions, however as mentioned previously I stuffed up a couple along the way. I may have also stuffed up another but I will need to investigate further. Planning ahead I looked at the placement of the speaker and the decoder. Using the existing plastic shelf that the original circuit board was one, I placed the 'sugar cube' speaker at the very end. Then cutting down a piece of 0.5mm thick styrene I made another shelf going the other way over the motor. This was held in place by the same screw/bolts that the original was bolted in. The spacing looks good and I might even have enough space between the speaker and the bolt posts to place the stay alive capacitor but I'll look at this later on.

So this week I will test the decoder firstly by wiring up the bogie pickups and the motor wiring. Just making sure the basics work first! Then when the LEDs arrive from Germany I'll finish the lightboard conversions and wire these up to test as I will have to also program the Function Outputs with the Function Key inputs. Small steps with this conversion!

Re the Pi Howto, I've replied to one of my earlier respondents asking for some information he said he was going to supply. If I don't get a reply by the end of the week, I'll just go with what I have and if I get a reply later I'll update the document there and then!

73 progress

It has been one of those crazy weeks at work so I have been rather tired each evening. However I made a start on the 73's electrics and documenting what I am doing. I swapped the bogie pickups around so that they are correct as per standard. I have also labelled each of the lightboards' wires at each end so that I can document them when attaching to the decoder. I then attempted to rotate one of the red marker lights and inadvertently dropped the LED so when I picked it up to resolder I have no idea which way it was and thus which way to reposition! So I have just resoldered it and will see once decoder in place. I also had another accident with one of the red marker LEDs this time I obviously had the soldering iron on it a moment too long and the lens popped off. Aarghhhh. Well lucky I ordered a swag of different coloured 0603 SMD LEDs from LedBaron in Germany at the start of the week and hopefully these should be here this week if I am lucky. Amongst the pack are white and red LEDs. I think I will be needing them!

We had a public holiday in Brisbane one Wednesday and my initial plan was to head on down to the club for a couple of hours, however the missus had other plans. With no kids at home for most of the day (the kids' dau off was Monday), I had to do the morning school/kindy run, sort out a couple of errands, and then go out for lunch, then do the afternoon school/kindy run, then take my eldest to footy training, and then finally get home for dinner. So no chance of getting to the club! I did however take about 30 minutes just before heading out to lunch to prepare and prime the two whitemetal 'driver' figures I had chosen just in case I can use these in the 73.

I have also purchased one of the 30W temperature controllable soldering irons from Jaycar that Mr Mackie had suggested for the SMD LEDs. I'm yet to get it out of the packaging!

I also checked the JMRI forum for any further feedback for the Pi howto, but nothing new.

So this week I think I will proceed with the 73's wiring and documenting. If time permits I will look at the suggested amendments to the Pi Howto, but time and work's current follies will tell.

73 Class travails!

This week I finally took the plunge and dismantled the 73's chassis, top shell and deck. A quick look revealed possible space in the read below the decoder for the speaker but a bit more investigation required. This would be great as it is right next to the radiator grills. If this doesn't work out then perhaps in the cab. If I can get the speaker in the rear, this will allow me to place a driver and observer into the cab, along with a cabin light. So there is a part of the project.
Next were the lightboards. I had trouble at the cabin end board removing it. I hadn't yet tried the read board. I spoke to Mr Mackie during the week and he reckoned they just pulled out. So that night I tried the front end without success but the rear end pulled out easily. A closer inspection of the front board suggested it had been glued in at the factory for some reason! So out with the razor saw to remove the plastic shield holding the light board. Then clean out the slot of the styrene left behind by using a rotary tool to gouge out the plastic from the metal. During the process of doing this I have knocked off the lens of one of the marker light LEDs. So looks like I will have to place an order with LedBaron in Germany. I will also have to make up another shield, so I might have to buy some black styrene from one of the hobby shops. So during the upcoming week I will have to start looking at the decoder wiring.

My order from the UK also arrived during the week. This encompassed the Class 08 weathered diesel. and the quirky Sentinel Y1 vertical boiler steam loco.

Also another two NSWGR guards vans (FHG and GHG from memory) arrived from Coffs Harbour care of Mr Mackie. These were second hand but look hardly used.

The weekend just gone was the Club's annual Exhibition. I was only able to attend the Saturday session (due to family commitments on Sunday), but I had spent a few hours on Friday help setting up the show with some other members. I bought 8 packs of different Brawa decoder wire from Wuiske Models, and some whitemetal half bodies from John Guest (formerly Horizon Hobbies) to use in locos and passenger carriages. Probably the best layouts at the show was Splitters Swamp Creek which since its last viewing at our show two years ago has come along fantastically. Geoff is a master of detail. Darren and Brendon were also there helping Geoff out as well as doing some modelling themselves. The second layout was a new one based on an industrial British Steel works. It was small (end to end shunting) but full of detail. The Club members should all be very proud of themselves by helping out when needed and making the show a success, especially John Kennedy our Show Convenor who is giving it a rest next year. We hope to see a new convenor elected at the Club AGM next month.

I'll let the Pi reviewers go for another week, then if no further feedback, I'll make the necessary changes and publish the howto.

So some interesting things happening at the moment.

Pi notes under review

I'm receiving some good reviews of the howto notes I posted on the JMRI forum for comment. All very constructive. I'll leave it up for another week or so as some of the reviewers may take that long to go through them thoroughly.

I started going back over the various articles on how to put sound in the NSW 73 class. So maybe this week I might take the BIG step and start the install, but only after I am comfortable with what I'm about to undertake.

The weekend coming up is the Club's annual show so a busy weekend looming.

Pi as an Access Point document out for review

This week started out on the Pi front (how odd!) trying to sort out the previously mentioned problem. After a number of nights trolling through the online forums I couldn't lock down an obvious answer. So Thursday night I loaded the SD card with the previous distro on it to compare the configuration files with those on the latest distro version. The only thing I could find that was different was a commented out line in the earlier version of the interfaces config file which shouldn't have really mattered. But when I replicated it on the latest version, it made the Pi broadcast its IP address automatically rather than having to manually bring the interface up. Go figure!

So happy with the draft howto document, I have uploaded it to the JMRI Yahoo forum for review and comment. I already have some replies which is great to see.

To prove that it does work, I hooked it up to Illavearf this afternoon and ran some railmotors via smartphone! I even went outside of the shed to see the distance the signal would go. About 10 meters but this was through the metal of the shed. Good for my purposes.

I also ordered some OO scale locos from the UK last night. Both fairly unique therefore they interested me. A BR Sentinel steam shunter and a stock standard BR Class 08 but black with wasp stripes which was quite rare. I've been looking for some shunters for Illavearf and these will do.

So this week I'll probably look at starting the NSWGR 73 class decoder conversions, or at least plan it as I reckon it might be a tad fiddly!

Zimo decoder has arrived

Since the last post I have been progressing through the Pi build document slower than expected as I have been running into some problems which I think are possibly to do with the latest version of the Raspbian distro but I can't be 100% positive on that just yet. The basic functionality is there. JMRI installs fine. Just a problem with the program that runs the Access Point functionality. Just researching possible causes and corrective actions and trying them out each night when I have some free time. Last night I decided that I wasn't getting to far with answers, so I might go back a distro version and do some comparisons with that one.

The Zimo sound decoder and 'cube' speaker arrived on Monday so now I can progress that little project when I get a chance.

That's it for this week. More Pi to come!

NSW 73 Class decoder thoughts

This week the Pi took a backseat due to home networking problems. Hopefully this week I can progress the finalisation of the Howto document.

So with the downtime on the Pi I started researching decoder options for the Auscision 73 class. I started with Mr Mackie's instructions, then looked at a Youtube video of a Loksound install. I then stumbled on the Zimo MX645 sound decoder out of Austria. It has the ability to operate 10 output functions along with sound. The default sound project is a number of steam profiles and one diesel, based on a German V12 diesel hydraulic engine. As the 73 was a V8 DH and there is no exact recording of the Cat D379 engine, it's probably as good as you will get without being a rivet counter (which I am not). Also the mini 8x12x8mm speaker is supposedly very good for its size. With the dimensions being slightly smaller than the Loksound decoder and standard oval speaker, I am hoping I can position it without too much internal modifications. And they are reasonably priced from Orient Express models in South Oz. So I think I will go down this path and give it a go. The mods to the light boards' SMD LEDs are supposedly a right royal mongrel due to their size, but lets give it a go!

Other than the abovem I've been thinking of how I want to proceed with the rejigging of Illavearf's control. I'll keep the points DCC controlled, but have the accessories MERG controlled. But the big decision will be whether to have two small or one big mimic panel/s for standalone operation, or utilise the Pi's JMRI install and setup PanelPro on a computer terminal. Decisions, decisions!

So this week as mentioned will be hopefully documenting the Pi install, ordering the Zimo decoder and speaker, and pondering the panel issue.

Mixedbag (sorry PK) week

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag. At night usually for an hour before Le Tour coverage begins, I have been sanity checking my How to document against a new SD card install for the Pi and finding some improvements along the way as well as some troublesome issues. One of these being the Ethernet connection to the PC. I think I might have to try and see of via the laptop is any better or a problem with the Pi distro.

Monday I was walking past Aurora Trains in town during lunch not expecting them to be open on Monday, when they were. Stocktaking but also allowing sales. As I wasn't expecting to be in town most of the week, I purchased a couple of Bachmann 00 scale wagons for the sons to give me as birthday presents for me this weekend. I also couldn't go past a SDS Models HO scale 10000 gallon Tulloch (NSW) fuel tanker in Golden Fleece livery. 1960s era but looks really nice. I showed PK and he was impressed so much he purchased the Total fuel livery version on Friday!

The Auscision 73 class arrived on Monday as well. Now researching the various options for chipping it (motor only or sound, not sure as yet!)

Saturday was a running arvo at Mr Mackie's. Enjoyable but a few hiccups as usual.

Today was my birthday so I spent the majority of the day up at the In-laws for a BBQ lunch and drinkies. Damn my father-in-law and his very drinkable scotch whiskey (Glenlivet)! It was so very smooth! (I don't think the nip sizes were standard size!).

This week I hope to sort out the issue with the Pi so I can move along with this. More watching Le Tour and playing a little game I do called 'spot the train'. So far a high speed intercity, a regional passenger, and a freight train pulled by electric engine.

Sorry for the absence of an update of late

A couple of weeks ago I spent 4 days/3 nights in the hospital with my youngest son, so nothing got done that week as all my stuff was at home. Last week was a little more productive. I trudged on with my Pi Howto document and just about there. I was having a problem with it recognising the NCE SB3a and not running in 'faceless mode'. After some nights research I found the answers. Thanks to Mark Gurries' website I found out that re the SB3a, JMRI doesn't recognise it in its configuration settings, even though it is in there. Apparently you have to "lie" to JMRI and set it up as a Powercab and it works fine. As for the 'faceless mode' I had been using DecoderPro3 to set the configuration settings under this misguided notion that being '3' it must be a better version compared to just 'Pro'. If I understand the forum correctly, apparently '3' is actually a cutdown version specific for decoder settings etc, not the full shebang! So I reconfigured the settings using just DecoderPro to mainly start the WiThrottle server upon startup. Copied its configuration file to the faceless mode configuration file. Made an entry in the start up script. Disconnected the terminal. Rebooted. Waited for a couple of minutes and voila my smartphone's Engine Driver app picked up the WiThrottle address and port and was able to connect. Brilliant. So now just to update the doco and I do a run through to make sure no problems. Then I might approach one or two guys from the forums to test and provide feedback before I release to the general public. Nearly there!

I also took the plunge and ordered an Auscision NSGR 73 Class, 7309, reverse Tuscan shunter. I couldn't get the one I really wanted ('Dubbo') as it was sold out. So I will take modeller's license and say 7309 has been posted to the western line on loan from Eveleigh Yard for some reason or other!

Saturday is a running day at Mr Mackie's so that will be a good arvo.

The Tour de France has started again so that will be distracting me for the next few weeks.

What's been happening in the last two weeks?

Sorry I missed updating the blog last week. Busy with the Pi.

Yes I think I am just about ready to release my instructions. I will be attempting another run through of the instructions, and might even see if anyone on the forums is prepared to do a run through as well. I am pretty happy with what I have done so far. There is a bit of discussion on this topic on the JMRI forum, but I guess there is more than one solution to the problem, so maybe mine will be just another one to be considered?

On the weekend of the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend in Queensland (and most of Oz except for WA) my club, RMCQ, celebrated our 40th anniversary. Go along to www.rmcq.org.au and click on the 40th Anniversary link. I also took possession of some newzed (newly used) railmotors that my mate PK was wanting to offload. Both NSWGR. First there was the CPH/CTH railmotor in green and cream livery. The second was a 620/720 railmotor in reverse Tuscan red. Both with DCC, sound and weathered. Very good, hardly used, and the price was great!

While I have been concentrating on the Pi, my hobby desk had been progressively getting buried with junk that I had just thrown there for later filing, storing, etc. The long weekend had been mostly wet, so I took the opportunity to do a big clean up of the study/hobby room so now I can actually use the hobby desk to start modelling again. The Club Xmas Modelling Competition is on in December which isn't that far away in the scheme of things!

So this week I will concentrate on the Pi and JMRI setup howto run through and iron out any issues as I would like to finalise this sometime soon.

The Pi is basically ready

Well since my last written post I've been tinkering away with the Pi and getting answers from the Forums for some questions I needed sorting out. So in the last couple of weeks I've basically been able to get the Pi to a state of readiness. I had answers provided to me about the persistent device names which would come in handy for situations where more than one system may be connected to the Pi. Fairly simple once explained! Secondly I was able to get a very simple answer as to how to pass these device names to JMRI so that they would be in the drop down list in the Preferences section. And yesterday I had a afternoon pass-out from the missus and I was able to go over to Mr Mackie's for what the missus said was a 'play date'. I've been interested to see how the Pi would go connecting to a NCE 5A Command Station which by default comes with a serial interface rather than USB. Craig had a Serial to USB cable, so at least I would have connectivity but how would the Pi go with interfacing to the new device. I was thinking I might have to look for Linux drivers, etc, but as it happened, the Pi immediately recognises the connection without drivers and assigned /dev/ttyUSB0 to the device. I then fired up JMRI, re-jigged the NCE Preference to Serial connection and /dev/ttyUSB0 and voila we had layout interfacing going. I was able to control one of Craig's trains no problems. I then restarted the system with the wifi Access Point dongle connected and got JMRI's WiThrottle going. Out came the smartphone and was similarly able to connect to the layout and control an engine.

One thing I will have to investigate is with the Android Engine Driver app I had the speed up to '28' and the engine was just moving. There was another setting to do with max throttle something or other which was set to 25%. I am wondering whether this reduces the '28' setting to 25% or say '7'. Not sure so will enquire online further. One interesting thing we saw was that both the JMRI throttle and the smartphone throttle reflected each other when both were set to the same engine number. So when one's speed increased it was mirrored on the other. Amazing!

So basically the Pi is set to go if I don't want to look at further interconnectivity with say MERG. But I do, so will potter around further. However I will write up my How To, repeat the install instructions to make sure this is OK, and once satisfied will publish them. I might also offer a Pi Setup Service!

On a side not, I also installed Putty and VNC Viewer on the laptop so that I can remotely connect to the Pi and reduce the need for keyboard, mouse and monitor connectivity when in the future the Pi becomes a standalone device providing whatever interconnectivity between the various layout systems I come up with.

One of these days I'll get back to the modelling!

Pi and JMRI photos

As promised in the last post, here are some photos and a video.

My Pi in its case with the DLink modem active as the Access Point

Close up of the WiThrottle screen in JMRI with my smartphone's Engine Driver app connected

The full JMRI DecoderPro screen operating on the Pi

The Engine Driver app on my Android smartphone with 4494 connected

Pi and JMRI success!

This week has been a HUGE THUMBS UP. After re-imaging the Pi's SD card I progressively built the system up and installed JMRI on the Pi Friday night. I got to the point of starting the WiThrottle server within JMRI to see if the Pi advertised the JMRI connection specs to the outside world. And IT DID! So Sunday morning I went the next step and connected up the NCE USB to the Pi as well as the NCE SB3a. The SB3a was then connected to a length of track so that an engine could be tested. After setting up some more preferences within JMRI around the NCE system, the Pi was restarted, JMRI started up, and WiThrottle started. I then went to the Android smartphone, connected to the Pi's wifi signal, started up the Engine Driver app, and voila I connected to JMRI! After acquiring NSGW 4494 (the engine I had on hand) I played with the Android controls and the engine moved up and down the track. Oh wow! I also tested the connectivity on the Android tablet also running Engine Driver. All good. I do have a video and some photos but for some reason Youtube and Blogger are playing up. I'll try again on another day from another PC.

Back to the Pi and wifi connectivity, I was also able to establish a remote ssh connection on the Tablet to allow terminal emulation over wifi. Wow. Also I installed a VNC (virtual network connection) server on the Pi and using an Android app (AndroidVNC) was able to fire up the Pi's desktop GUI remotely on the Tablet. Double Wow! However I have to learn how to drive this. I am also thinking of installing similar apps on the laptop to allow remote connectivity if required.

This week I still have to sort out the persistent naming of the NCE and MERG USB interfaces as JMRI is currently using /dev/ttyUSB0 or 1 which is not easy to remember. Hopefully if I associate these interfaces to something more readable, JMRI will use these. Time will tell.

For those following my progress, I have been writing the steps I took to get this done. I will publish this once finalised.

Oops back to square one!

This week I persisted with the Pi up to the point of causing some sort of system issue and the spare room on the SD card was consumed to the point of only having some MBs left on an 8GB card! No idea what. So back to square one and re-image the card and start again this week. I think I am getting a better feel for the little beasty so hopefully it will not take me long to get back to where I was before the conniption!

Saturday was Club Day but no chance to run trains due to busy meetings. However Sunday was Mothers' Day so I took the boys down to the Club for an hour or so to let Mum have some quiet time! We were the only ones there. Lachlan ran his N scale train and Matthew ran his Thomas and Toby trains. I even got a chance to run a NSWGR 44 Class for the first time in months!

So hopefully a better week with the Pi.

Pi Persistence and a new link

Hi all. Sorry for no update last week as there really wasn't much to update. I have been persisting with the Pi and trying to understand the whole UDEV thing. I discovered I needed some additional 'packages' to allow certain things to be reported. Did this and ran one of the new commands 'udevadm' which was looking very hopeful when it started to hang the Pi. After much colourful language emanating from the study, I decided I needed to research this new development more. It would appear there is a known bug in the Pi whereby the output stack for this command running on the Raspbian OS fills up and then stops the Pi. Hopefully the Linux gurus can sort this out soon. Things like this happen with development boards such as the Pi. I'll keep a close eye on the Forums.

I stumbled on a new link as a result of my membership of MERG, the Guildford Model Railway Group (Sydney, NSW) who 'Wallerawang' as their current exhibition layout, but are planning their new exhibition layout (still early days) which they are hoping to possibly use MERG control for. A fellow MERG member is a club member and also a reader of this blog. http://www.gmrg.org.au/. I'll add this to my Links list.

The weekend just gone was the Brisbane Model Train Show and my club RMCQ was well represented. The lads looked very schmick in our new uniforms. Everyone was consistent. I was only able to get out on Sunday and help out.

So this week depending on the Linux gurus, I might progress with the Pi or not. As I mentioned to the above member/reader a for the Pi other people have been able to get JMRI running on it, as have I, but it is the integration of JMRI into the Pi as an access point in its own right that doesn't appear to be documented or experimented well at the moment, and that is what I am perservering with. That and the ability of the Pi to recognise some generic USB type conenctions such as the wifi dongle to be used as the access point, the NCE USB interface and the MERG USB interface that is keeping me busy trying to work it out. Hopefully the end result is some basic instructions whereby if these are connected the Pi will assign a more meaningful interface name than say /dev/ttyUSB0 to something like /dev/NCEUSB or similar. Then hopefully modellers who use other DCC manufacturers could potentially tinker with my instructions for their USB interfaces.

So if this doesn't move along at any speed I might look at starting some more modelling!

Promising Pi developments

This week I motored along with the Pi. Using the most recent Raspbian OS image, along with some additional packages I chanced upon via research, I was able to get the Dlink DWA-125 wifi adaptor to become a access point and transmit a static address. Woo hoo!
Problem was for some reason the other wifi adaptor which was configured for the Internet dropped out. Hmmm. I would like both to be working but not a big issue as the main outcome is to have the Pi transmitting IP addresses so that hopefully when JMRI's WiThrottle is turned on, it will be able to connect to smartphone/tablet throttles. Having an internet connection would be nice for operating system and application package updating but I could get around this via ethernet connectivity to a laptop or tether a mobile phone to the Pi on those infrequent times when updating might be required.

So half the battle won. Now this week I will look at UDEV rules to lock in specific devices to specific Linux interfaces. The point of this is to allow for say the DLink modem to be always assigned wlan1 say. Then in a similar fashion the NCE USB and MERG USB modules to be assigned specific interfaces.

If I get this working, I will look at installing JMRI and see if the predefined interface for the Dlink modem comes up, and then see if JMRI's WiThrottle starts and broadcasts addresses for wifi connectivity.

As for modelling, just taking  small break while I have the enthusiasm to persist with the Pi.

Pi restarted

This week I put some time into re-familiarising myself with the Raspberry Pi as it has been since December last year since I have potted around with it. I downloaded the latest Raspbian image and put it onto a separate SD card. This is the beauty of this system. The whole operating system and applications are all stored on a single SD card! You want to try a different OS, then just copy it onto another SD card, give it a go and you can always revert to an early or different version by exchanging the SD cards.

Well I tried the latest version and it still doesn't appear to be working exactly like I had hoped. I'm thinking of trying another OS version from a different mob to see if it is better or not.

No modelling this week, however today we went across to Hobbyrama for Lachlan to spend some of his birthday money. Over Easter I introduced him to aircraft modelling to do something different and to start small and easy and work up to more complicated modelling kits, hopefully with a view to railway modelling. So I bought him one of the classics, an Airfix Spitfire kit. He did pretty well with a little help from me. He started painting it this weekend. He then went a bought himself a Soviet WW2 tank over the holidays. And today he bought a Jaguar model car! Very diverse collection so far!

So while I was there, I went around to the railway modelling section and bought a Dapol Country Inn (ie pub) kit to put on the layout beside the shop.

So this upcoming week might be more Pi and start either the pub or yard sheds kits.

Some advances this week

This week I was able to finish the Dapol shop and Metcalfe platform (bus) shelter. I decided not to put a LED light into the shop due to a number of reasons, but the main one being that the light would have been reflecting off a number of features, especially the actual building interior itself. I would've had to paint the interior black to stop the light penetrating throught the plastic and I wasn't going to do that! So in the end I just glued down the cement paving Scalescenes paper to the cardboard and then the shop onto the cardboard base.

As for the shelter, it has certainly surpassed my opinions of potentially using Metcalfe kits in the future. Very easy to construct and instructions were very easy to understand.

 

I was also able to revisit the Pi. During the week I did some additional research and came across some solutions. Not all were agreeable! Looks like the little wireless dongle I bought had a number of issues. I am hoping the more recent version of Raspbian has had some additional fixes added to it. So last night I downloaded the latest version but have yet to get to the Pi with the new OS. Something to do this week.

Other things to do may be the small yard huts and continue with the Pi.

Easter and nothing happened!

Well Easter arrived and with it family commitments, BBQs, beer, wine, cheese and chocolate ;-)

As a result nothing happened on any of the Easter evenings. The week prior to Easter I continued with the little Metcalfe shelter and placed a small SMD LED with appropriate orange tinting inside before putting on the roof. So nearly finished this one. As for the Dapol shop, hopefully this week I can sort out the internal lighting and the base.

As for the Pi experimentation, I've decided I must commit myself to at least one night a week to keep this going else it will never get finished.

Let me see how this week goes?

Another building on the go

A bit late with this update. Last week I progressed with the Dapol shop and it is looking really good. I decided not to put a floor in and will need to position the lighting in another way. Also have to put the base on. All nearing completion and a photo or two will follow once done.

My mate PK also dropped off a free Metcalfe kit he received in Railway Modeller that he didn't want. It is a small platform shelter. I've never built a Metcalfe kit before but have wanted to. This is small enough to give me a feel for the quality of the kit. I have done Superquick cardboard kits previously and found them a bit on the thin and fiddly side. So on the weekend I started this little kit and it is pretty good to construct. As usual I will put a small light in side (one of those SMD LEDs I got for the signals). I intend to use this as a bus stop opposite Kensington Hill station as the brickwork will blend in. Once again once finished I will put some photos up.

Easter is coming up so maybe I will get some time at night to finish these off this week, but time will tell.

The Shop continues

So this week I was able to progress with the Dapol shop. I'm taking my time with this as I will be modifying the basic kit to accomodate the usual lighting. I also have to put in a floor to separate the upstairs and downstairs for the lighting I intend to put in. This is the first kit in about 30 years (since I was a young teenager) that I have done by painting on the sprue before putting it together as there are a few detailed features that need to be painted separately. I will also put it on a base that fits in with the general features of the nearby buildings. I will also use some curtains from a Scalescenes kit to spruce up the rather bland 'out of the box' features of the windows. I am having fun putting this rather simple structure together to make it look just right.

This week will be continuing with the Shop I think as I am just not in the right frame of mind to stuff around with the Pi and its integration with JMRI, NCE and MERG. All in good time!

Nothing this week

Hi to all my ardent followers. As mentioned in my last post Dear Ole' Dad passed away last weekend so this week has been busy sorting out the arrangements, etc so no time for modelling as it has been a pretty emotional week all round.

Perhaps I'll continue with the Dapol shop this week. Stay tuned.

A shop is started

As expected the week was a shambles modelling wise. However Saturday rocked up and it was wet. So I went rummaging around the kits drawer and dug out a Dapol General Store kit and started cleaning the flash off it and started some painting on the sprue as it would be easier to do it on the sprue rather than when installed. These were left over night to dry. These will be the project for this week if I get time.

No Pi work unfortunately.

And on a personal note, my Dad passed away unexpectedly during Saturday night, he will be missed by all who knew him. I already am;-(

Note to Self - Remember the resistor!

In between other duties I managed to put together the circuit described in the MERG journal but it didn't quite work correctly. As I did it on a breadboard instead of the stripboard as I wanted a temporary setup, possibly there was an incorrect wiring. Any way while I was mucking around with this I thought about checking the semaphore lamp after I had painted it black (as per quite a few prototype photos I found on the Net) to reduce the 'through plastic' brightness. I quickly wired up the 9V battery and the lamp glowed pretty brightly. A bit TOO brightly before dimming rapidly. What just happened I thought? Then it dawned on me, the RESISTOR! I forgot the resistor hence the extreme lighting. Damn! However it didn't completely stuff up the LED and there was a dim glow once I put a low resistor (68ohms) on the +ve wire. Not to worry as this was the experimental kit. I can always position the semaphore so that the lamp isn't seen.

Today I decided to connect the servo up to the MERG CBUS servo controller to see if it would work. Yep it did. With a bit of fine tuning with the help of the control software I think it works very well. I also connected up the lamp (with a resistor this time!) to video the movement with illumination. Below is the video.

This week not sure what I will do. Maybe get back to the Raspberry Pi as it has been nearly 3 months since I last mucked around with it (just before Christmas last year in fact!)

Semaphore done..Now to automate

This week I was only able to finalise the semaphore. This entailed mostly painting in the wires. Today I bodgied up a jig from some ply offcuts for putting the semaphore in as well as holding the servo to automate the arm.

Below are the photos promised in the last post as well as what has been done this week.

This week I will probably only be doing the automation. Instead of the MERG module to automate, I might bung up on the breadboard a servo controller articulated in the latest MERG newsletter to see how it goes. If it doesn't the MERG module will be Plan B!



LED wires superglued along the post



Wires leaving the post and into the base hole



View of the wires in the base hole.
I could have used a smaller diameter drill in hindsight.



Close up view of the 'orange' LED from the front



View from the front. Note the red ball at top



View from the rear, wires just visible

View from read side.
Sorry the original is portrait but no idea why this
isn't!

 

Semaphore in temporary jig

Straight on view of servo in jig

Elevated view of servo in jig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Semaphore kitbashing begun

This week in between other commitments I made a start on adding a working lamp to the Ratio semaphore. In hindsight and on future conversions I will do the following actions BEFORE assembling it! Retrofitting is a tad problematic.

I started by drilling out the lamp 'lens' straight through to the back end. Then taking the knife I started opening up the round drill hole into a rectangle to accept the SMD LED I had purchased from LedBaron. I was working with the magnifying glasses headband but after a while of being EXTREMELY careful with the razor sharp knife I was getting crosseyed trying to see what I was doing. There had to be another way? The next day I thought of using a rotary burr in my rotary tool. That night I checked what I had but the smallest burr I had was too big. I needed something 1mm or smaller in diameter to fit into the drilled out hole with sufficient room to carve out more material. The following day a bit of research on the Dremel page (my rotary tool isn't a Dremel but I was hoping for maybe a 'standard' amongst these tools?) and I found too bits that fitted the bill. Both were 0.8mm in diameter. One was a round burr and the other a straight sided cutter. The latter one was sounding really promising. I picked these up from Bunnings that night after one of my commitments. By the time I got home it was too late to do any modelling. The following night I was going to give it a whirl. When I got to it and went to insert the straight sided bit into the collet, the shaft was smaller than what the collet would accept. I rummaged amongst the bits tray but nothing smaller. I needed a 3/32" collet. Back to the Dremel site and they had such a beasty. I was able to pick up said collet from a hardware in the city on Friday. A quick check Friday night and the collet fitted the shaft and the bit went in perfectly. I'd had a few reds Friday evening so wasn't going to tempt fate on something so small, so I would have to wait until Saturday night. 

Saturday night came and so did a reasonably sober Greg ;-) With magnifying headband on, and the tool spinning away like a mad thing, it was time to make a start. Ever so carefully I sliced away plastic a fraction at a time and tried the LED fit bit by bit. I finally got to a point where the LED fitted into the space. A dabs of superglue and the LED was installed. I forgot to mention that earlier in the week I had applied some Tamiya Clear Orange onto the LED lens to imitate a incandescent lamp.

Tonight I temporarily wired up a 9V battery and resistor to the lamp and it worked. A bit too bright in my opinion so will need to tinker around with the resistor to really crank the brightness down to something more prototypical. I'm pretty sure that semaphore lamps were fairly dull in brightness rather than spotlight bright!

I had taken some photos to put up but just found that they were out of focus ever so slightly. I will retake this with another camera through the week and upload. Maybe I will complete the kitbash by gluing down the wires along the post, paint white and black where required, and glue the other fixtures (ladder, hoop, etc) to the post. Then it should be ready to connect to a servo and test this feature.

So that might be what the upcoming week will be about. Still no progress with the Pi and JMRI. Having too much fun with the modelling at the moment, which is the purpose of the hobby is it not?

Not much this week

This week has been busy getting over the events of last weekend, otherwise known as The Big Blow ;-)

I did purchase some tins of Humbrol paint, epoxy filler (just in case of poor fitting), and some paint brushes ready for when I glue up the Dapol kits purchased awhile back.

I posted an earlier update to my written articles page, and that was about it.

Hopefully a better week this week re modelling or getting back to the Pi.

'Articles that I have written' page updated

I have been a bit tardy re this page and only just realised that I hadn't updated with respect to the article I wrote for Continental Modeller back in 2011 on installing a Loksound Select into a Trainorama NSWGR 44 Class!

I have updated it with a copy of the article, which looks so much better than my submitted notes to the magazine!

Servo module works!

Not much this week. I was able to solder up the MERG CANACC8 module and do the necessary conversions to make it a CANSERVO8 server driver. After confirmation of a suspicion I had by a fellow MERG member here in Brisbane I had to make up the servo plug board from a piece of veroboard / stripboard. I did this today. I then connected it up to my experimental CBUS network and reprogrammed the PIC with a new driver file for the first time. I connected up a servo to the plugboard and was able to set the servo travel points. Yes I did every thing correctly and it works!

The other thing I did was raise a problem within the MERG Forum about the ability to broadcast the DCC stopping/braking bit in order to protect points/turnouts, similar to the commercial products available from www.dccbitswitch.com. It was a discussion point a number of years ago but didn't really get resolved with any standalone circuits at the time, however I have stirred up the hornets' nest! Lets see where this goes. The other option is to use JMRI to do the approriate monitoring of sensors and issue the relevant commands. Further research into this.

While I am typing this blog we here in the south east of Queensland are experiencing cyclonic winds and driving rain from ex Cyclone Oswald. Apparently going to get much worse tonight. I've spent the afternoon clearing yard drains and watching one of my trees slowly split down the middle of its trunk and have a very large branch perched precariously over my little garden shed. Hopefully it gradually gets closer to the ground and may just need a little encouragement to go the rest of the way.

STOP PRESS
As I was compiling the above blog late this afternoon (around 5:30pm) there was an ungodly crack from the back yard. I thought there goes the rest of the split trunk, but upon saying that to the missus she looked out the kitchen window and said "The whole tree has come down and hit the garden shed!" Out I went to survey the damage. What an impressive sight! Basically the centre of the tree trunk has exploded. Fortunately it fell into our yard and not into one of the neighbours' and caused damage. Unfortunately the 3x3m garden shed which I put up in 2011 will need to be replaced. Fortunately though it looks like the big shed survived without damage. Tomorrow will tell when I get out there with the bow saw and make start on the branch reduction in order to get to the door of the garden shed so as to clean it out! Hopefully the winds will have died down during the night and I can get on with it.

Earlier in the afternoon Lachlan and I put polytarps over our layouts in the big shed just in case the rain got up under the eaves.

So this week Lord knows now! Maybe I'll put together the servo mounting bracket and investigate further JMRI (semi) automation. Also the Raspberry Pi beckons but I am pretty sure I won't have time this week.