I stopped buying Digitrax years ago. Switched to TCS, Zimo and ESU, just too many locomotives with decoders to change them all out in one sweep. Also the availability of the replacements is not always around. The chip shortages from COVID have not been fully restored yet.
I'm up to reading a tutorial on those steps ...... ....... maybe if you find time at some point. At this point with just the test track and parts of the layout done I get the decoder in. Make a few laps and put it away. I'd like to learn more about adjusting for finer motor control once I'm actually running them more. Sumner
T Track Planning, new hollow core door layout But apartment living, it is what kinda fits my living space. Using Scarm Pencil and paper Kato Track Templates NMRA website for clearances And a variety of SWEAR WORDS! A hollow core door presents some unique space challenges to say the least. EveryWhereWest Model Painting
Is there a reason you want to use the HCD? I could build the same size layout with 1 X 2's (or 1 X4's) covered with 1/2" plywood and an inch of foam board for the same cost (close to anyway) and it would be a lot easier to wire and to also attach items to the bottom of and to add risers to if you want grades. Also easy to add legs to. It would be easy to build with a saber saw and a drill and you could be creative if you had a little more space to work with in a corner of the layout or anywhere else. Is it a lack of tools or a space to build the above or something else? Sumner
This morning after the brass shell came out of the vinegar overnight soak and then were rinsed with water. A section of plain brass sprue was laid in the photo to show the effect of the vinegar bath and the very slight etching. 100_0055-1 by John Moore posted Aug 12, 2023 at 3:58 PM And this afternoon after two coats of Tamiya Camel Yellow. The holes in the roofs are for the airhorn mounts and the rear one is going to be a dual service loco with a steam generator in the short hood. 100_0056-2 by John Moore posted Aug 12, 2023 at 3:58 PM Now the fun starts with prepping for the 2nd color.
Here it is: First thing when in the motor control screen of the lokprogrammer app is to figure out which speed table you are going to use. If you plan to consist the loco and there may be a need for speed matching then select "use speed curve" as this will allow you to fine tune each speed step where/if needed. Next is to figure out the slowest speed setting to get your loco to move at speed step 1. Start at 1 test and work up from there updating and testing each time till the loco starts moving. Once there you are done with that section till all the other adjustments outlined below have been made to your satisfaction then if at a setting higher than 1 I adjust back down to see if I can still get movement. Again if you are consisting this setting will likely change again so all locos in that group work the same but it is a starting point. The rest of the settings below are only accessibly if you have enabled load control which by default is on. So to start down near the bottom of the screen should be a link labeled "Use load control values from preset motor types". I will start working down the list one by one testing each time and noting the presets that give me the best result then compare those till I've found the best one. Important note here is try the default setting too and don't assume that is how things are setup to start and not try it. Most sound projects have custom settings that are not default and if you skip that then you may miss the best preset for your engine resulting in lots of wasted time. Once you've settled on a preset but still want to clean things up then we move on to the Basic Settings section. To explain these I've just copied and pasted from the manual since they explain it better than I can. Also, if consisting different types of locos like an atlas with a slow speed motor and another with a high speed that you should run the test and adjust the reference voltage as noted in the first paragraph. After this if creep is still a little jerky the first parameter to experiment with is "regulation parameter K slow" under the slow speed settings section. Before adjusting that check the setting just underneath for "largest speed step using k slow". If that is set to 0 then logically none of the other setting in that section will affect anything as they are being ignored completely. In that case just up it a few steps at least for testing. I have found at times though just setting it to 0 gives the best performance so keep that in mind as a possibility. Going back to K slow I adjust down in increments of 5 if there is noticeable surging. Sometimes though you may find yourself going up especially if your chosen preset has it down pretty far to start. The other setting in that area is "regulation influence during slow speed". That is the last setting to experiment with in that section. Again this is just experience and results vary but typically if you've adjusted way down with K slow (<50) then you likely want to start moving in the down direction here too if it is set on the high side. Another note regarding the previous paragraph - typically coreless motors including motors with no or a very minimal flywheel tend not to like a lot of slow speed regulation. Things can get finicky here and you should test both with and without a load/string of cars. Most if not all my diesels are unaffected by load conditions to the point where I can adjust solo and never even have to think about adjusting while pulling cars. Also for n scale K slow will almost always be a pretty low setting just because our motors are so small compared to the larger scales. The three other settings you may need to look at and in this order are "motor pulse frequency", "Slow speed length of measurement gap" and "Slow speed Back EMF sampling period". Again it's just experimenting by adjusting in small increments of 5 in either direction. Rarely if ever do I adjust anything here though. I have, as an example, adjusted down frequency on older 3 pole motors. I've also had non flywheeled motors benefit from adjusting those settings. Hopefully this helps.
Living in an apartment makes it tough to do some things we homeowners take for granted! An HCD is a lightweight, flat, and stable base for a layout, especially when other materials/methods are not available. I would still use a layer of foam board on top of it, to give you some depth below track level to use should you need it. That foam board also gives you a choice of whether to run wiring under the foam board (assuming 2" base foam board thickness) and on top of the HCD, or underneath the HCD.
I should also mention that, from experience, without foam-board, felt, or some sound-deadening material under the track on a hollow core door, the layout will be quite loud.
Thanks, I copied and printed that and will have it out at the layout. I'll get the LokProgrammer up on the next decoder install and try it out some. Sumner
Hi to all Just finished putting ESU sound into a Kato F7 A/B set. I used the WVD adapters and the ESU 58828 decoder. I got the speakers from SBS4DCC with the curved casing. Thinned the casing a bit to fit into the curved top of the diesel shell. I did have to trim a bit inside the top (not just the 4 pins that protrude into the decoder and speaker area). OMG- really loud!!! So, after a bit of work with the LokProgrammer, it now sounds great.
Finally finished a long and difficult decal job that involved nose and sill stripes plus paint. I first decaled the noses with black then filled in with black paint. After that I could put my yellow stripes on. Next up will be installing lead weights and then more decals. 100_0057-1 by John Moore posted Aug 13, 2023 at 8:09 PM 100_0058-2 by John Moore posted Aug 13, 2023 at 8:09 PM 100_0059-3 by John Moore posted Aug 13, 2023 at 8:09 PM
Over the weekend I added WVD adapters and ESU 58828 Next 18 decoders to a pair of Kato F7A&B engines. I used SBS4DCC "curved top" cases and speakers. A bit of sanding and fitting, and a bit of trimming inside the body shells. Seriously loud! Had to turn down the volume CVs on both engines. I picked up a bunch of speakers of different sizes from DigiKey- only about a buck each! Ole Wolff models. I am converting a Kato SD70 the same way as Freddy did (above). I managed to fit in a 9x16mm speaker in the rear area. I also converted a Kato P42 to ESU LokSound. I removed one of the rear gray plastic spacers, and cut off some of the bronze strips in the rear area, and soldered wires from the truck connecting posts over the speaker to the cut-off ends of the bronze strips. For the rear light, I ran some wires from the solder tabs on the decoder to a 3mm white LED with a 1kOhm resistor in series to reduce the light intensity a bit more. I painted the bottom of the LED with black paint to help control the light flare, and glued it with clear RTV. The front LED is also a 3mm white, with the leads connected straight to the decoder pads. I bent the LED down a bit to fit into the hole under the cab light guide. It did not need to be glued down. I may add a resistor to the front, depending on how much bleed through I get.
Installed thin lead weights in both brass shells and then tested them for tractive effort and managed a consist of 8 cars around and through my 8-5 inch radius curves. Tonight my assortment of fans arrived from Shapeways and they will go overnight in a bath of Simple Green. Also finished the decaling on one brass shell. 100_0001-1 by John Moore posted Aug 14, 2023 at 7:41 PM Still waiting for the last parts to arrive.
Looks like that little loco has a well-deserved fan club! Now that the comedy is out of the way, I'm still staring at the same pair of GP9s I haven't had time to so much as shave a grab iron off of. The one thing I HAVE done is to upgrade my workbench lamp with a 100-watt tunable LED bulb. It makes my old setup feel like modeling by candlelight!
This Bavarian electric loco from Kato/Hobbytrain just arrived. I had no intention of working on it right away but I needed to get it apart to see what was what and order parts if needed. I was hoping to get sound into this but there isn't room without removing weight which this loco needs all it can get so no sound for the moment. The online description said it was "dcc ready" but required soldering to pads on the forward PCB/light board. To get to those pads I first had to remove a capacitor that was soldered to them and then wire my decoder in it's place. The motor pads were jumped to a vertical PCB with more wires so I just removed those and went directly to the motor board from the decoder to minimize the clutter in this small space. Initial testing looks good so now onto re-assembly.
Well the newest bras shells are done and waiting to be fitted to their mechanisms. Here photographed from the front Th headlight lenses are still drying. The slanted short hood is a freight loco. The loco on the right is slated to be the power for the mail/express and has a steam generator in the short hood. 100_0005-1` by John Moore posted Aug 19, 2023 at 7:55 PM The bells and headlights are from Shapeways. The fans and the exhaust stack are also a Shapeways item. 100_0006-2 by John Moore posted Aug 19, 2023 at 7:55 PM The blotches on the roof are not there to the naked eye. Time for a new camera. 100_0008-3 by John Moore posted Aug 19, 2023 at 7:55 PM The steam generator stack is a smaller stack and also from Shapeways and the other piece is a track spike head trimmed off 100_0010-4 by John Moore posted Aug 19, 2023 at 7:55 PM
I want to patent the magnet that seems to attract everything to our desks or workbenches...even paper and plastic !!! .
