You need help! Seriously. I know you like the meditation time, but I do hope you have some help to keep it all running for you and others to enjoy.
JP I do not need help, all of this will be going to the Sacramento Train Museum when I push up daisies. Will give them the best N Scale museum at no cost.
Kudos for the donation. My intent was to share that many of us would love to help or enjoy running on your layout project before you are pushing daisies. That said, I don't allow my capable MR friends to help me on mine.
THE WIFE and I are thinking of going back to Davids to help. BUT....he would have to break out the GOOD Bourbon this time !!
Good Bourbon is always available in my home George! You just need to come in and sit for a while......
All 30 of my Amtrak locomotives are good, no bad decoders. Here I noticed something. JRMI reads the ESU decoders faster than Digitrax or TCS. I have several sound decoder locomotives in that bunch. Next up is my largest fleet, ATSF. The only railroad that fills 2 banker boxes.
I'm assuming you have a DCC system that supports RailCom. ESU decoders support RailCom, but Digitrax does not, and some TCS decoders do not (or it may not be enabled.) RailCom is way faster than the herky-jerky motor-current pulses used to provide feedback from non-RC-enabled decoders. ESU, Zimo, and TCS command stations support Railcom, and MRC is working on a RailCom enabled CS. Such command stations will revert to motor-current pulse monitoring (along with the herky-jerky loco motion) to read back data from non-RailCom-enabled decoders, on a dedicated programming track. Note that RailCom (when enabled) does not need a dedicated programming track to read back decoder data (and verify what is programmed). RailCom allows programming on the main with full feedback, even while other locomotives are also running.
Enjoyment of good Bourbon (or Scotch Whisky) should never be rushed! And, 'round here, the phrase is "Come on in, an' sit for a spell."
Yep. In my grad school days I did a lot of milling. Of course, this was big stuff. I may take a look. Thanks for the thought! JP
One of my best investments. Put many "miles" on this contraption. It has a prominent location on my garage work bench.
Beware that most drill presses do not have positive retention of taper-mounted chucks, etc. Care must be taken to avoid cuts/cutters that may pull the cutter/chuck down into the work, since the unsecured chuck can come loose, with unsatisfactory (at best) results. Some larger drill presses may have an arbor that is hollow all the way to the top, through which a threaded drawbar can engage and positively retain the cutter or chuck in the taper socket. You can safely use down-cutting bits that eject chips to the bottom, forcing the cutter upward into the chuck and arbor. You just need to plan cuts to provide room for the chips to eject toward the bottom.
I have the ESU CAb Control system and aside from some small issues I really like it alot. I still use the LokProgrammer so I can have a backup of the programming in the event of a failure. Also you can test motion on the lokprogrammer as well. My programming track is about 2 feet long and can see how the lights work and slow motion movement. Oh, and how it sounds if it is a sound decoder.
ATSF Update: 192 locomotives 7 bad decoders - Possibly the power from the PR3 is insufficient to power sound decoders. One was a Broadway Import E6 A/B with Paragon Sound. 4 other were Atlas H16-44 units with the factory Lenz decoders 2 Kato F units Next up is BN/BNSF
Okay, the little beast arrived. Would a 4 strand coil telephone cord work for the cable for this rig, or do I need a larger diameter wire?
It is not the voltage but the current that is needed to light up the advanced circuitry of the sound decoders. In my case these are early Soundtraxx Athearn locomotives. Not as efficient as current ESU sound decoders.
These have been on my workbench for months and months but by gosh, they are about done. Just need some dull coat and that's that
Turnout building is the first step in my weekend mission and is what dominates the inside workbench. I built one after dinner, but need 5 more to complete one end of staging. Maybe one more tonight.
A trend has started: I have a bunch of Atlas locomotives with factory installed NCE decoders in them. Everyone of them failed! 26 of 26. All I can say is that NCE really means Not Credible Engineering from my perspective. I guess these are bound for the trash, meaning the decoders not the locomotives.
I had a couple of Atlas that came with factory equipped NCE decoders and neither ran on my Cab Control when I got it but still did on my original Fleischmann/Roco DCC controller. I tried upping the voltage of the ESU but no change. Seems to me this is a compatibility issue where the NCE is more exacting to the signals it receives and maybe can't deal with the extra embedded signals like railcom and such? No matter what though they didn't work and ESU is my system now so those decoders were replaced.
