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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
