Programming the mini-panel and the signal box started

The small amount of time I had this week was spent dicking around with the NCE Mini-panel's programming. I had programmed the point activation but it was time to add the signalling features in now. One night through the week I went and did this based on a signalling interlocking matrix I had developed. Seemed to work some of the time and at other times some of the required features did unexpected things. Maybe the logic was wrong. Further thought required. A couple of days later I was revisiting the logic and found a few missing things. To put in the required features I would need to do some Linking. I developed another set of commands and had some time Saturday afternoon to program these in. Not all the Linked commands were working as expected. Hmmmm. More thought needed this week.

Friday night I started to put together the Wills Ground Signal Box kit. I have to add some things like a LED before the floor is glued in to place, as well as pait the signal levers inside the box, so some delays completing this kit while I attend to these modifications. Whether I submit the end result to the Club Xmas modelling competition will depend on when I can finish it.

Today was a write-off modelling-wise as we are now into the silly season with pre-Xmas catchups, and this evenings school Christmas Carols.

So this week will be spent thinking more about the mini-panel programming and the kit.

Kensington Hill signalled up

This week I was able to wire up KH-2 (two aspect on goods yard siding) to the MRC decoder. Then on Saturday I was able to wire up KH-1 (two aspect with feather at station turnout) to the MRC. I then tested them. KH-2 started to flash alternately, which was the immediate sign that I must have programmed the decoder output some time ago to do this, so I was then able to program on the Main the appropriate CV to change it to latching mode. This worked but then whole decoder board then reset/power cycled and then all connections turned off. Odd. Not sure if this is how it is supposed to be or not, but nothing that I can't live with for the moment.

On the lighting side of things, I still have to wire up the station and street lights. Then once I have made the signal box, I will put a LED in it as well. The goods yard lights will then follow.

I had an email last night from MB Klein (www.modeltrainstuff.com) to write a review of the MRC 4 output decoder. As I am now in full swing using these little beauties, I thought why not. So you can see this at http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/MRC-HO-1628-DCC-Accessory-Decoder-4-Outputs-p/mrc-1628.htm

Nothing happened on Sunday as it was spent at a playgroup Christmas Party which went on for most of the day.

This week I am hoping that I can wire up the station and street lights. If not these, maybe start building the signal box. I might even think of entering this in the club Christmas Modelling Competition if I think it is worthy (cue Wayne's World 'We're not worthy' skit!).

I also ordered from Amazon a book "Airbrushing for Railway Modellers" by George Dent as I am interested in learning more about this side of the hobby and I think George does some fine work from what I have seen. If you are interested, a sampler can be found at http://www.crowood.com/details.asp?isbn=9781847972651&t=Airbrushing-for-Railway-Modellers but a better price was found at Amazon.

Let's see what happens this week modelling-wise. I might be able to take a small video of the signals if I get a chance and upload next weekend.

Modelling all round!

During the week I was able to paint the 'concrete' around Lachlan's shop.

Saturday morning came and the missus wanted to go a do a bit of shopping but I was lucky to be able to stay at home and look after the boys. Lucky because I could go to the shed and supervise them mucking about in the yard while I mucked about with Illavearf. All I have to do is put up one of the tilt-a-doors of the shed to let the breeze in and I can see most of the back yard.

So I was able to wire in the signal KH-4 which is two aspect with a junction feather. So two MRC sub-decoders required, one for the aspects and one for the feather. Worked perfectly and looks good. So I took the opportunity to install the other two signals, KH-1 (two aspect junction feather) and KH-2 (two aspect only), but I didn't get to wire them in.

Saturday arvo was club monthly meeting which I chaired as VP as the President had to go to a wedding. This was sprung on me as I arrived. Nice!

When I got home, Lachlan wanted to do some work on his layout so I gave him a few choices and he chose to do some grassing around where the shop was going. We did this and let it dry overnight.

Sunday was equally good. The missus wanted to go off on her bike, and Lachlan went with her. That left me to entertain Matthew. He started with his duplo blocks (big lego), but after five minutes got up and said "shed'. That's my boy! So off we went to the shed to vacuum up the spillover from yesterday's grassing. By then the bike riders had returned. I had to go off to do some chores by then. After a arvo nap I got up and Lachlan was the only one up so we went off to the shed to do more on his layout. We did some gravel work around one of the sidings. That is where we left it for the day.

So maybe this week I can get out to the shed one night to wire up the other signals and the 12V bulb street lamps, and station LED? Let's not get to ahead of ourselves!

Xmas is rapidly approaching so might have to start looking around for gift ideas or buy things for others to give me as gifts!

Signal KH-3 operational

This weekend I focused my spare time in getting one of the installed signals operational. I decided to do the simpler of the two KH-3. So using the same setup as my test LEDs I soldered extension leads from the signal wires to the MRC 4-way accessory decoder Acc # 16. I then turned on the system and activated Acc 16 to ON which should have turned the Green aspect on. No go. Huh? Select 16 and turn OFF which should turn on the Red aspect. No go. Double huh! A bit of head scratching then happened. It was then time to go inside, so that was it for Saturday.

Further thinking during the evening came up with possible problems like "had I inadvertently reprogrammed the MRC decoder?", "had I buggered up the LEDs?", "is there an issue with the supplied LEDs in the Eckon kit (1000ohm) versus the supplied resistors with the MRC decoder (300ohm)?", "was it a soldering problem?", etc. Too much thinking over a few glasses of red in the evening meant no answers were forthcoming!

Sunday morning arrived and with some spare time after breakfast and before waking the neighbours up with the whipper snipper and mower, I went the shed to see if I could answer some of the above. I progressed through the list and ruled out most. What was going on? I reread the Eckon wiring instructions and the MRC manual. Nothing was obvious. I put my test LEDs on to the decoder outputs and they tested OK. Hummmm. Time to think a bit more while taming the lawn.

I had intended to go to the RMCQ (my club) Buy and Sell but a small family emergency entailed after the yard work and just before lunch. Son number One had misplaced a Lego Man he was going to use in a class project. This character was in a powerpoint presentation and thus couldn't easily be replaced. We searched all over the house for nearly an hour. Everywhere was given at least two searches by myself and the missus on separate occasions in case one of us missed it. We were on the verge of conceding defeat when Son number Two all of a sudden whilst in Son number One's bedroom found the lego man. What! So an indepth chat with a 2.5 year old entailed as to where did he find it. He finally pointed out a lego liferaft model with one of its sides down and it was apparently in there. We thanked young Matt with curious looks. Lachlan was adamant he hadn't placed it in there. I strongly suspect Matt had put it in there earlier this morning. So by the time we had done this, had lunch, and tried putting Matt down for a nap (and succeeding in putting myself to snoozeland as well!), I had missed the opportunity in getting down to the club. By all accounts it went quite well.

However the nap must have reinvigorated the brain cells as I quickly commandeered the laptop the missus was pottering around on to check something on LEDs on Wikipedia. Mainly the electronic symbol and usual orientation of the positive and negative terminals. Making a note of this, and following a coffee, I went to the shed again to check the documentation. EUREKA! I thought something was wrong. The MRC's common is positive whereas as per the Eckon wiring instructions I had the common as negative and resisted. The polarity on the Eckon LEDs was reversed and thus potentially not working. So I rewired to how MRC likes them presented, turned on the system, selected Acc 16 ON and bingo, Green came on.

Oh wow, what a lesson to note. Lord knows why the Eckon LEDs are wired like this. But now that I know, I can wire the remaining signals the same way.

Here is a small video of KH-3.

Not sure what this week will bring. I know I have to paint Lachlan's shop pavement before we can place it on his layout. Maybe the other signal which has a junction feather. Let's see.

SB3a finally arrives, but no USB ;-(

The week was sans modelling. Busy with other stuff. I called Austral on Friday arvo for the weekly check on the SB3a's arrival and was pleasantly surprised when Ray said it had arrived but the USB card was still on back order. Hoorah!
So when planning Saturday's activities I was able to splice in a trip to the southside to pick up the SB3a. I will have to sort the USB out when it arrives.
Sunday was also very busy but I was able to get to the shed just after 4pm to connect up the SB3a. No problems, strange that the Cab number initially shown on power up was '09' when it only allows 02 to 05?? I changed it to '05' as '03' is reserved for the mini-panel, and I have reserved the USB to use '02'. This leaves '04' spare.
Lachlan wanted to do some more work on his layout so we decided where the shop was going and I showed him how to scrape the grass flock away ready for positioning. I will have to paint the pavement gray sometime this week.
Matthew was running Toby on Lachlan's layout while we were busy with the above.

Unfortunately I missed the Ipswich model train show at The Workshops this weekend.

Hopefully some opportunities this week at night to do some work.

The running day photos as promised

Craig (at the back) sporting his headset as North Coast Control (the Bearded Controller!), Darryl and PK (at the front)

The Bearded Controller though the decks



View through Kyogle heading towards Fairy Hill (CPH railmotor in the siding)



Darryl sporting his 'radio' headset

When you gotta go, you gotta go!

Maintenance crew hard at it

I don't know why PK is sniffing his iPhone though? Must be one of those 'iSmell' apps ;-)
(Pardon the time stamp on the video, it should be 23/10/11 but obviously the date file is wrong!)

Trip to the southside for a running day on Cassino

The day I have been waiting for all week while I have been on leave finally arrived. Today. After a busy morning attending to a vet's appointment for the dog, I got in the car and drove the 50 minutes or so south to Mr Mackie's humble abode for the much anticipated running day (afternoon!) on his layout, Cassino (link in blog's on the right).

A good crew turned up and plenty of laughs eventuated due to the timetable going out the window and a best effort run occurring. The headsets for communicating with Control operated fairly well apart from a few hiccups easily fixed. After a few hours I had to leave the others to head back home and spend some time with the boys. I get home and the missus says "I wasn't expecting to see you until 5:30". Damn! I could have spent another 45 minutes at Craig's!

I have some photos of the afternoon that I have to convert to a lower resolution and hopefully a video off the spycam, but I will have to check these tomorrow and upload if OK.

Lachlan wanted me to do something on his layout, so off to the shed we went. I glued a lady figurine down onto the church footpath, coming out of the gate. I also cut down some styrene to glue the village shop onto so that it had some pavement out front. Then it was time to play with the boys in the yard for half an hour or so.

So thanks Craig for an entertaining afternoon, sans children!