DCC - Electrical
UV cured epoxy, a little story.....
Found out something interesting today. A while ago I wanted to try UV activated epoxy. I’ve got some in my mouth and it seems to want to stay there so I figured it might be handy. I ordered the cheapest thing I could find on eBay coming from China and waited for it to arrive. When it did I tried dripping some on a part and then shining the light from the associated UV flashlight that came with the liquid epoxy. The epoxy took its time getting a skin on and I finished it off on the back porch railing.
Unusual Short on Adjacent Tracks
I have encountered a situation I have never seen before. While helping a friend isolate a track loop for installing a reversing module we discovered a short circuit. When performing a continuity test from A to B rail over all track sections on the layout, except the isolated reversing loop, the short was present. We disconnected all of the drops and started from scratch to try and determine where the short may be. We reconnected one track in a yard to the bus, placed a loco on the track and no short on that track. The loco operated as expected.
Power district reminder ...
Greetings! In light of a recent item about power districts and wiring, attached you'll see the power district "map" we did for our layout. This is something of a visiting operator guide as well as a reminder for us. Each color represents a different power district protected by a PSX Power Shield circuit breaker, and includes short circuit LED lamps in the layout fascia.
Given my aging memory, this kind of item is handy to have around.
Jeff Johnston
Steam pickup wipers for sound and general connectivity
I recently mentioned that I " ... added pickups to two more drivers and the trailing truck" in reference to a recent sound installation on a couple of our Sugar Pine Lumber Company tank locos. I've had a few inquiries about the specifics of those added electrical contact wipers. I hope these images help explain things and I apologize for the rough drawings but I think you'll get the picture.
Bachmann sound modules
Will a Bachmann On30 0-6-0 sound module plug into a Bachmann On30 Heisler being the Heisler sound module is no longer available. Easier than replacing the decoder. Thanks
HELP? Reverse Loop Questions
I posted this track plan in the opening dialogue as I felt multiple references back to it might be necessary. (sorry for the lousy quality, I don't do computer drawings)
DCC tools
I'm in the midst of upgrading several brass steam locomotives from straight DCC to full sound DCC with Keep Alive/CurrentKeeper devices. The Keep Alive parts are new to me -- I'm a bit late to get into the game and am excited about the possibilities -- so I cut out styrofoam sample pieces sized to match the Soundtraxx and TCS keep alive offerings (Photo 1). I use these when making my initial assessment of what can fit inside my often-compact logging steam locos. Very handy tools the avoid a lot of unnecessary keep alive device handling before installation begins.
New ISE sound module
New ISE product – Soundbytes! Check out the new sound module offered by Iowa Scaled Engineering. A neat little unit for playing single sounds. I plan to use some for the crossing bell for my three grade crossings. They offer a number of prototype bell sounds which you can hear on their product page and they plan to release more sounds in the future.
HO scale DCC operating CNJ steam crane (and wreck train) build. The journey.
After a lot of back and forth with myself I decided to strip the repaint the cab with the correct decals to the era I model as well as changing out the digitrax decoder for an ESU loksound micro. I then added a custom made sound set I created using their software and lokprogrammer.
Decoder wire
Is 30AWG wire okay for running from the decoder to the motor ? Seems a little small.
Chet
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