Shop crew a bit surprised today!! The coupler delivery expected, arrived today! Last check, said Monday arrival! 2 days earlier than expected! Not too bad, coming from Medford, OR. Although, got NG couplers fairly quick as well, when I ordered a bunch direct from KD. Now the fun begins! Assembly and installation.
Cars and caboose changed over. Shop crew needs to figure out the best way to change locomotives now. Have an idea, but is it gonna work?? Tried to test run all 3 GP30's today. Wires from power supply, to bridge rectifier came undone!! Too much power draw of 3 USAT GP30's. Gotta find a new, higher amp power supply now! Or run 2 locomotives, instead of 3.
Shop crews did a bit of work today. Managed to install a pair of KD 787 couplers on the from of the Rio Grande unit, and one of the Burlington units. To the height gauge, it's about the thickness of a dime, or less off. So close to perfect! Two more pair, and crews can finish converting all GP30's to KD. Still need to find a power supply. Looking at the Bridgewerks MAG-15. 15AMP - 300VA power. Has 3 power outputs: 20VDC, 12VDC, 24VAC. Not sure if this would be enough to for up to 3 USAT GP30, and maybe 2 Aristo GP40. My MTH Z4000 works good, with the GP40's, can handle 2 GP30's. Adding a 3rd GP30, power supply can't handle! Tried testing yesterday, with rather surprising results! Have a 12AMP bridge rectifier to convert AC to DC power. Currently, my locomotive fleet is half Airwire/Sound. The other half, DC power. GP30's, ALCo PA and an LGB DRGW#50 need conversion. Maybe a BLW Goose #6 at some point. At least I can run something out front, whether DC or Airwire radio control. With the power supply upgrade, I also think I'm gonna have to upgrade power bus as well. Will be looking at both as I go. OK for now anyway. Comments/suggestions most welcome!
Put the Rio Grande GP40's on the coal train Saturday. A bit more appropriate power for the train, since half of the coal train are Rio Grande cars! Ran the train to the backyard, and discovered a major track issue! Found a massive kink in outer rail, by porch! Thought it had been stepped on, only to find out that was NOT the case! Turns out, a raccoon knocked a flower pot over, directly onto the track! Ended up with about a 1/2" vertical kink in rail! Just about everything derailed as it passed over the damaged section. Should be a fairly easy fix. Will have to try, sometime Sunday, before attempting to run train through backyard again! Had an enjoyable time, despite the one track issue. Now, just gotta look into the damage for Airwire, Sound and Power. Maybe photos later Sunday evening.
No. No damage encountered. Power supply circuit breaker tripped. The USA GP30's do not have electronics in them yet. Trying to find Airwire and QSI sound boards for them! The couple of places I've checked with, are pushing Phoenix sound. Current power supply works, IF I run my Aristo GP40's alone, or run 2 DC only, USA GP30's alone. Try running all 3, I can draw over 10 Amps! Looking for probably a 15 Amp power supply at some point. A bit of a challenge, but if things run smooth, they run pretty good!
Gotta love sun, heat and black locomotives! Running G Scale coal train, or was! Trailing unit decided to go into thermal shutdown! Stalled out at 91*C. Still DOA, at 63*C. Still needs to drop about 5* before it'll restart. So I sit and listen to decoder tell me what the current interior temp of locomotive is! Need to find an electrical circuit that will let me power small fans, with a relay, for when polarity is changed, when reverse loops are used. or a battery circuit that can handle 2-3 small fans, and maybe keep fan battery charged when running. Any ideas?
Actually it shouldn't be to hard to use phone batteries to power a couple small 5V computer fans. Would be fairly simple to even get it to charge from the rails when they are on. JUst need to run track feeds to and a 5v regulator then input to the batteries. Cell phone batteries have built in protection against overcharging so you just need to get them a clean 5V signal in.
Track crew got some minimal work in today! Installed a feeder wire, between lower end of loops out front. And connected one last wire to feeders connected to lower half of loops. Have 2 more feeders to wire in yet. Gave up since thunder was being heard, and rain was on the way!! Adding extra jumpers around, to help keep track power evenly spread across the railroad. Have a primary wire under tracks to back, with feeders added, to help keep power levels fairly steady all the way around. Works good, as I don't have, or notice any power loss when running front to back and return! Only time I notice slowing currently, is when running the coal train with GP40's. Although, the train weighs close to 35 POUNDS!! Each car weighs in at 2 pounds, 9.4oz. The add a slight grade and 'S' curves! Still want to see if I can find a 15 - 20 amp power supply, at 24VDC. Gotta be able to handle up to 3 USA Trains GP30 and 2 Aristoa GP40. Gotta upgrade power feeds if I do though! Current wiring probably won't handle the current for long! One of the days, I'm gonna try to shoot another video of railroad. Showing it as it is currently. Anything but done, and far from perfect!
A flyover would be interesting! Would have to figure out HOW to do that! Especially with a large tree in front, covering most of the front!! And short of climbing up on the roof, for overhead photos. My folks would have a conniption if I attempted that!! Especially in the condition I'm in currently!! Modifying a quote from the Grinch, in the animated cartoon: How The Grinch Stole Christmas: I need to get overhead shots, but how......??
Sitting here, out front. Waiting for locomotive to cool down! Decoder telling me it's still at 68*C!! Shut down at 91*C. Yet another push for getting fans installed, to cool down inside of my locomotives!! Granted, black locomotives and direct sun don't go together very well. Did some minor ballast work earlier, after getting emissions test on truck! Set up coal train for the afternoon. Was doing good, until thermal shutdown! Hopefully, the breeze blowing now, will help cool things down a bit sooner.
It is only early June. Sounds like running trains will be a PITA this summer, unless a cooling method can be created.
Gonna be near 95* tomorrow. Don't think I'm gonna work, or play! Time to start looking at mini cooling fans!
Mid 90's today. Still got a train running for a while. Got the 3 GP30's going. Turns out, they ran pretty good all afternoon! Maxed out at about 5.5 Amp at start, then slowly dropped a bit as they ran. Eventually added 2 lighted cabooses. By this time, locomotives were running pretty good. So, even with 2 cabooses added, I maxed out at maybe a 5.5 Amp on a grade. Just a bit over what my MTH Z4000 is rated at! The massive 11 Amp spike I had last time, was due to a short, caused by a minor derailment, because I didn't have trucks completely on the track! As soon as I can get a new invoice, I'm gonna finally get the Airwire/Sound equipment ordered. Just don't care for the extreme heat like today. Even in the shade, it's too much!!
The Z4000 is a 400 watt power supply. if it was putting out 20 volts, than it should be capable of 20 amps... something is funny here... Do you have a meter to read the output? Wait, it has two 180 watt outputs, so you must be running all these locos from one output? It's rated 22 volts AC, so you should get under 10 amps from it. Now your overload makes sense to me. You will have to go a bridgeworks, but I think the 15 amp unit will be too lightweight for the current you are pulling. Greg
