My nemesis - the 73 Class!, and what did Santa bring

Let's start with Christmas and what did Santa bring, being the Festive Season.

• a handmade ply loco carry case (made by a bloke at the Club)
• a rolling-road from DCC Concepts
• a circuit board holder from Jaycar

I also was able to attend a running session at Mr Mackie's on the Saturday after Boxing Day which I was originally tentative for but circumstances changed that allowed me to attend a very enjoyable afternoon.

Now for my nemesis, the Auscision 73 class! While on holidays this week I have been able to devote some time in trying to get this sorted out. I started with the cabin light's 'Swiss Mapping' programming of CVs to a specific function button. I followed the instructions in the manual to what I thought was correct, but nothing happened when I tested it. Then I decided to tackle a headlight to see if this default function would work. After temporarily wiring it up, I turned the headlight on and 'poof' a small cloud of smoke emanated from the headlight LED. I thought this had been protected by one of the resistors on the light board. These lightboards a shockers! So now I will have to either solder in a new SMD LED (painful) along with a resistor by the looks of it and try again. The alternative may be to redesign the light boards in some bespoke manner. I am wasting too much time on this loco, so if none of these options work, I might have to concede defeat and just put a motion only decoder in it and not use the lights at all. This loco has been a disappointment from the point of DCC conversion.

On a different note, I noticed in my travels over to Mr Mackie's that a new electronics store has opened along Sandgate Rd, Virginia (in the northern suburbs of Brisbane). It is a mob from down south called Altronics. I might be able to source electronic components from them that my current store, Jaycar, doesn't stock. For example, SMD resistors in the 0603 package style. I might have to go for a look this week.

Before going on leave last week, PK lead me to the dark side. American HO steam. But not main or branchline steam, but logging/mining in the form of a Climax loco. I have always had an interest in these type of locos, and PK said these ones were pretty good and being on special, extremely good for the price. So I decided to pull period ore wagons instead of timber, and also ordered 10 Tichy Trains kits, and a Kadee caboose kit. Looks like more things to find time to make next year.

Along with those, is the continual interest in the Raspberry Pi and developments with it. 

2015 is shaping up to be another busy year, not only with my hobbies, but life in general.

Wishing all a safe and prosperous New Year.

Club Modelling Comp 2014

Before I get inot the post title, I'll share what I have been doing since the last post. The S wagon's display track was finished. I oversaw Lachlan finishing his model of Stephenson's Rocket ready for the comp. I did go back to the 73 class and discovered one of the lightboards was having a problem. Further investigation found that the headlight was not turning on when power applied when it had tested OK before. It would appear as though somewhere along this tortuous affair one of the PCB tracks may have internal damage. So I bypassed the PCB traces altogether and soldered the headlight wire directly to the LED. Presto it now works! Now I just have to wire everything up to the decoder, shoe-horn it into place, and pray that there is enough room with all those wires to have the shell engage with the chassis.

Back to the Club Modelling Competition. Well it was a reasonable turnout, with 21 entries reducing to 17 as a result of last minute withdrawals. Some very nice work done. But the best result in my opinion was from my son Lachlan. He not only won the President's Award for a mentored model, but also won the Rollingstock Minor category that was judged by three judges. He even beat me by a convincing score! That was a really big surprise for him, and he was suitably chuffed. Now he is planning out next year's options, many of which are grandiose, so I will have to be the voice of reason (as much as any Dad is to a 10 year old!)

Well done, Lachlan from Dad.

 So now heading to the Xmas-New Year period. Whether I get to finishing that 73 before the end of the year, time will tell. I would really like to.

Models progress and other things

This week I have been busy of an evening with either kid's soccer or sorting out my new PC. So not much time for modelling or mucking around with the Pi. I was able to spray DullCote onto my model S wagon over the weekend. So only thing left now is the display stand. Lachlan is progressing with his model.
Sunday I went over to Mr Mackie's place for a running session and gave his new Pi/JMRI system a workout. all went well with the Pi. Some issues with newer track sections, but all in all OK. A fellow modeller and blogger from Coffs Harbour dropped by for a visit and it was great to meet him. I have added Ian's blog to my list (Muswellbrook and Merriwa Railway). I will also add Shelton's, Darren's and Geoff's blogs, as I have been meaning to do this for ages. I will also remove some blogs that have been idle for ages.

Models progressing

Since the last posting Lachlan and I have been getting on with our respective entries for the Club modelling competition. Lachlan's Stephenson's rocket got about three coats of yellow via airbrushing and now he is onto the hand painting of the detailed bits. Coming along very well for someone who hasn't done much kit building. My model of the NSWGR S wagon is looking pretty good now. I'll post a photo once I have finalised the dullcoating of the model and have sorted out the display for it.

As for the voice chat software I am investigating for the Pi, I have sent an email to the developer re why my newer model Samsung isn't broadcasting but only receiving voice traffic over the private WLAN. Yet to get a reply. Other software like Asterix for Pi looks a possibility but is a full blown VOIP/Unified Comms program which might be too much for what I was looking at.

Last week I took leave from work to get out of Brisbane CBD for the G20 meeting. Last Sunday I took Lachlan down to have him focus on his model painting while I ran some locos that hadn't been run for awhile. Having the Pi now on the HO layout is a godsend.
I was also able to get to the Club a couple of times during the week between sorting through some home chores that needed to be done.

Wednesday at the club I invested time on the 73 class loco's decoder. I was able to solder the wires to the pads, glue in cabin crew, and install the cabin light. Only have to now sort out the wiring between the cabin lights, lightboards and the decoder itself now. Nearly there!
Friday was also at the club for a couple of hours. I took Matt my youngest down to run a couple of NSWGR DMUs (CPH/CTH and 620/720). I found that a 720 class trailer had a jammed up axle and flat spots had been 'filed' down on both wheel treads. I have subsequently sent an email off to Eureka to see if they have any spare wheel sets for this model, or advise an alternative.

Also during the week I received my MCP23017 boards from the UK in the post, so now I can potter around with how to integrate them with the Pi and JMRI (if it is possible). If it is possible to integrate with JMRI, my intention is to see how the operate as sensor &/or output/accessory control boards.

Man Cave signage

This week I was able to finalise the hand and foot hold-ons on the S wagon using some 0.2mm nickle silver wire. Following that the brake cylinder was glued on, as were the brake handles. I then masked it up ready for the undercoat.

Lachlan's Rocket was similarly masked up last weekend. I used liquid mask on this one due to the very fine areas that needed to be done.

Saturday arvo we sprayed both in a adhoc spray booth (old toaster box) to protect it from the breeze as we did this outside.

Late Sunday arvo, we sprayed the bits that didn't get done the first time.

I've also been investigating a voice chat program for the Pi that could be used for operational sessions, but still looking in to this.

Saturday also saw the family go for a drive up to Eumundi in the Sunshine Coast hinterland to look at the markets (the missus' idea!). I stumbled on the following tin signs and had to buy them. I think PK would approve of the Man Cave Rules, especially the bacon rule!



This week hopefully more on the voice chat software and start airbrushing the models.

My Raspberry Pi Access Point and JMRI article updated again and what's been happening

Go on over to 'Articles that I have written' and click on the Raspberry Pi and JMRI document. I have recently updated it to reflect some recent changes, namely Appendix 5 - How to add a DecoderPro icon to the desktop, and Appendix 6 - Setting up Pi to Auto Login and Autostart an applicatio, e.g. DecoderPro.

The last one is specifically related to the situation whereby you have developed JMRI panels for a layout and wish to broadcast them via the WebServer. By default the Webserver cannot broadcast Panel files if JMRI is running in 'faceless' mode, only if the GUI is running. So basically you have to fire up JMRI as if there was a monitor attached, and autostart everything. My scenario is that the Pi will be connected to the layout without a monitor, keyboard and mouse unless I need to. I want it to start up, login automatically, start up the Desktop, then autostart JMRI. Within JMRI I have configured it to autostart WiThrottle at the moment. In the future once I have developed the panels, I want JMRI to also autostart the Webserver and load the panel file/s. This way I can have mimic panels broadcast to an Android tablet or similar, and do away with hard wiring them in.

The only other thing I have been doing is mentoring Lachlan with his club modelling competition entry (Dapol's Stephenson's Rocket - fingers crossed!) and starting on my entry (NSWGR S wagon). No further work on the layout.

My Raspberry Pi Access Point and JMRI article updated

Go on over to 'Articles that I have written' and click on the Raspberry Pi and JMRI document. I have recently updated it to reflect some recent changes. However Raspbian OS recently updated in September 2014, but this isn't reflected in the documentation. Just be aware of the updated Raspberry Pi OS.