This week I have been rethinking the operation of the signals on the Kensington Hill side of Illavearf. My original design was to operate them independently of the points directly from the control panel. With the current financial restrictions in place on spending a rethink was necessary in order to conserve minipanel inputs to control the whole of Illavearf when the Bray MPD side comes on line. Now that the MRC decoders issue has been sorted out, using these only uses one minipanel input command line per accessory decoder. This leaves three free to use. So this week I have decided to operate the signals via the point controls with a form of interlocking used. If I wanted to override the mini-panel controlled aspects (green or red) I can directly control the signal via the ACCY button on the handset. An example would be if a signal is interlocked as red and I know that the road ahead is clear (say only one train running) I can directly set the signal to green via the ACCY button. So this free's up four mini-panel inputs. I will have to remove the control panel switch and just provide a label of each signal's accessory number for reference. As for the street and platform lighting, I will do something similar whereby these will be controlled directly from the handset rather than from control panel switches in order to conserve mini-panel input slots. Just the accessory numbers will be referenced on the control panel. The thinking behind this decision was that I probably won't be turning on the lighting that often.
Now that I have sorted this out I can redo the control panel. I wonder if I will have time this week?
I had a week off from work this week so the family had a few days up at Noosaville Monday to Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I spent finally putting up my garden shed. Thank God that's done! Sunday afternoon was spent moving things from the Big Shed back into the garden shed. I now have easy access around the layouts and hopefully can get back into modelling. Saturday was the piece de resistance for the week. I made the trip over to the southside of town to attend a Cassino running session at Mr Mackie's. A great afternoon playing (oops running!!) trains to a prototypical timetable, communicating with the controller and yard master via radio (CBs) and having smokos. I met some very nice blokes who are serious modellers and great company.
In the time I was there I drove two trains. The first, Train 1 Down Container to Acacia Ridge from Grafton was a good run with some hiccups along the way. The second train was Number 9 Down Banana from Grafton to Murwillumbah. This train had some extra movements along the way whereby a number of wagons were dropped off at Old Cassino (I think) and again at Lismore. These extra movements/shunts made it a lot more interesting. We stopped the fastclock when I was just recoupling to the main train so as to have smoko. Unfortunately the group got distracted and I had to go at 4pm so I wasn't able to continue driving #9 to the Murwillumbah terminus. Thanks Craig and hopefully I will be allowed out to play with you boys in August or September at your next running session!
Apart from that nothing done this week on Illavearf. However I did spend some quality time with Lachlan on Wednesday afternoon putting static grass down on another section of Beaver Springs. The lake got another coat of clear coating and we did some more ballasting.
I am heading back to work this week and I am fully expecting to be knee deep in work for the next few weeks as the project I am working on is reaching a critical phase. Time will tell whether I get to do any modelling. Things on the To Do List include sorting out the control panel resistors and wiring, connect up the rest of the point microswitches, wire up the street/platform lighting to the MRC decoder, make a signal or two and wire into the MRC decoder, make the signal box and install the lighting and wire into the MRC decoder, etc etc (the list goes on!)
Well another week of virtually no modelling however I did have a small victory. Tuesday night I was rereading the user instructions for the MRC decoder trying to work out what was not happening when the penny finally dropped! I have been misunderstanding a key section about programming the operating mode and the actual operation of the decoder. I thought it was one and the same procedures but it wasn't. Programming the operating mode of the subdecoders is just that. You set how you want each of the subdecoders to operate by programming their respective CV numbers. THEN you just use ACCY on the controller handset to either turn ON or OFF (Normal or Reverse) to activate the various subdecoders. This was the bit that I had misinterpreted. I ran out of time Tuesday night to test my theory however I was working from home on Wednesday awaiting deliveries when I had some time before logging on to go to the shed, program the decoder and activate each of the subdecoders via the ACCY button on the Powercab. It worked. I had a test signal arrangement setup as well and it tested ok as well (Green and Red correspond to either On or Off) I have a small flickering LED problem on one of the connected subdecoders but I am pretty sure it is to do with the resistor. I don't think I have replaced it with the 300 Ohm variety yet. Now that I have sorted out this nagging issue I can go and redo the control panel with the correct resistors.
One thing that I have confirmed is that the MRC decoder does NOT have a memory of the last settings before a power shutoff. Not really a major problem though. I will either configure a 'layout reset' set of commands in the mini-panel (as an experiment that it can be done ) or just manually set them at the start of a layout power on. The 'layout reset' mentioned would be using valuable minipanel real estate if I decide not to expand via a booster so I would only trial the commands to see of it does work for future reference and then remove the commands for the INPUTS once I have connected the additional point motor accessory decoders.
I had intended to go the the club monthly meeting on Saturday but got caught at a family function longer than I had intended so I had to phone through my apologies. Similarly the club's buy and sell was today (Sunday) but due to a distinct lack of spare dosh and getting ready to go away for a couple of days R&R I missed out on that one as well.
This upcoming Saturday is a running day at Mr Mackie's place (http://ca55ino.blogspot.com/) and I am definately going unless something comes up to stop it!
This week has been as absolute mongrel! Busy most nights with various things (P&F, etc) or just plain buggered from the day's work, so no chance to look at the electronics' problems on the layout. I was however able to upload the How-To on my static grass applicator (see previous post). Tonight I had an email from Ray Pilgrim of Bylong fame querying the design as mine looks very similar to his that he made a number of years ago. Hand on heart I hadn't seen his. Great minds as they say! At least someone has noticed it.
On a tangent away from the trains the rest of the weekend went from bad to worst. To bring everybody into the picture over Easter I managed to jacknife a trailer with my new garden shed pieces into the back of the car, basically writing off the boot lid. The car goes into the panel beaters this week. To make room in our garage for the in-laws car that we are borrowing the missus moved a bit of stuff into the Big Shed where the layouts are. With the stuff from the old garden shed which was pulled down over Easter and the garage stuff there isn't much room left! I have to get the garden shed up ASAP. So Saturday I spent getting the old slab ready and doing some maintenance (sorting out rust, silicone up some screw holes. etc) on the Big Shed that wasn't apparent as the old garden shed was right up against it previously. Late in the arvo the missus comes out with bad news. The clothes washer had packed it in. Bugger! Sunday was spent shopping around for a replacement.
So just as a depleted uranium artillery shell can go through armour, so quite a bit of bad luck can deplete the spare dollars for spending on the layout and trains. It is shaping up to be a very lean year in this respect!
Lord knows what this week will bring! Hopefully some good news with the electronics if I can get into the shed!
Club arvo this Saturday which I look forward to. Also unless something happens in the meantime I will be going to one of Mr Mackie's running sessions on the 21st.
The much anticipated How-To on making my Grass-O-Matic static grass applicator and cone spout has now been uploaded to the "Articles that I have written" page. A link to this page is on the right hand sidebar. Hopefully this is helpful to someone?
Another long weekend but this time we had trains! The AMRA Brisbane Model Train Show was on over the weekend and fortunately I was able to go to it on Saturday afternoon with my eldest son. We had a couple of hours wandering around before spending some time with the club (RMCQ) HO layout "Brendale". I had seen quite a few of the exhibited layouts before but one by the BRMA was the one that caught my attention the most. It was a new OO layout called "Two Up Two Down". It was a pretty good layout. A lot of trains moving around. A took some photos and videos. Our club layout also looked very good with the new river module in place. The N scalers had "Pine Rivers" in attendance and the Structure Building crew was doing their thing. I unfortunately didn't see anything worth buying at the stores for my limited budget at the moment. Saving the dollars for other things.
Today I was able to do some more electronic investigations. I replaced some of the resistors on the control panel with 300 ohm types. I then reconnected the panel up to the mini-panel and the MRC accessort decoder. Also Point 1's microswitch was wired in. Some mini-panel programming followed before showtime! Powercab was then connected to the PTP and bingo! The microswitch powering Point 1's control panel LEDs worked. Hurray! Signal 1 and Light 1's LEDs though not working via the MRC panel. Damn. I disconnected the control panel inputs from the switchs and did some programming via the Powercab. One of the Signal 1 control panel LEDs on. I also connected a LED to one of the other outputs and sent the ON command. It turned on. But for both trying to turn the LED OFF doesn't work. Some more research on this as I followed the MRC instructions but obviously a gotcha somewhere.
So the lesson here seams to be that SPDT switches don't work I would have to probably use a momentary type. The other thing I noticed after power cycling the system was that the MRC doesn't have a memory of the last commands it received. This is no good as you would need to reset everytime. I either need to find a device that has feedback memory or not worry about controlling the signals and lights via DCC which isn't what I had intended. Also the issue with the mini-panel inputs needs further pondering as under the existing Powercab powered system I can only use one mini-panel which I probably need for the point motor controls. I might not have the luxury of using the mini-panel to control other accessories.
Finally I also helped Lachlan do some ballasting and grassing on his layout.
Well this extra long weekend (thanks to Easter and Anzac Day converging) has been spent on a number of things but none of which includes trains. Thursday I received a phone call that my new garden shed had arrived at the hardware store. I would pick it up Saturday. So Friday was spent pulling the old one down and taking it to the tip. The reason for the new shed was that the base had rusted out in the old shed. Saturday was my youngest's second birthday so a family BBQ was the order of the day! Sunday was a day trip up around the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Monday was spent mowing and sorting out some house repairs. So that leaves Tuesday. Not sure what this will bring but definately not putting up a new shed as a lot of repair and preparation work needs to be done before that will occur.
However I did get some time earlier in the week to investigate the control panel LED problem. Might be the resistors are to high in value. I was fortunate enough late Saturday afternoon after the family BBQ to be able to duck into Jaycar and pick up some 300 ohm resistors to try out. Hopefully I will get time this week to test this theory out.
Coming up this weekend is the Brisbane Model Train Show so hopefully I will be able to get to it on Saturday.
I also read that Mr Mackie was able to sort out the spycam date/time issue we were having by applying a fix found by our mate PK. I will have to try this out sometime when I get a chance!
