Oh yeah! My band actually played an outside gig right near there about 12 years ago. Looks like they've converted a car float to a floating shop or something. And do you see that caboose? Thanks for sharing, Chris! UPDATE: Further research confirms that we actually played on that car float (back when it was located down at pier 63)! *Insert Twilight Zone theme here*
OK, more progress. I've done some measuring and remeasuring and more remeasuring and I'll be recutting another roof segment to work with. So, with that said, I took the remaining roof sections from the RPO car and have returned them to their factory undecorated original condition. Man, I can't say enough about Simply Clean. This time it got off two layers of roof paint in less than an hour. Nothing left at all! And it leaves the plastic clean and oil-free, so ready for paint/glue/etc. TB for the win again! Need to go charge my camera batteries so I can post more pics...
Here's one of my boxcabs that I neglected to show before. This is the Sunset model of the PRR's DD-1, built in 1911 to bring passenger trains in and out of Penn Station, NY.
I have coupler pockets and couplers mounted now. They're at a height that will work with standard height N couplers, as measured by an MTL coupler height gauge. I have also hooked up the motor and power pick-ups to a decoder and tested it. Yay!
Super Clean (my bad, thought it was Simply Clean, d'oh!) is a cleaner/degreaser made for automotive parts cleaning. It's one of those natural-based purple cleaners. I found the tip here on TB and gave it a shot. AMAZING STUFF. I cleaned 30-year-old paint off of Con-Cor passenger cars and the parts look like factory new undecorated stuff. Plastic is completely unharmed (no warping, no melting, no nothing!) and very clean. I let it soak for anywhere from several hours to overnight in the stuff and use an old toothbrush to scrub off the leftovers. Definitely use rubber gloves though as this will leech the oils from your skin. In fact, I just finished stripping a couple of cabeese and a tank car. Got into every nook and cranny. You can get it at Auto Zone in a big jug for about $5, and you can reuse this many times (just run it through some coffee filters to clean out the paint gunk and leftover decal stuff).
no real progress on mine, I need some supplies, and I started College back up here recently, so time is not exactly something I have a lot of....
Anybody have any experience with fiber optics? I have, on my prototype, several small light on this thing. I am going to operate them as two functions with the lights being on either end and individually operated (the CV33=1, CV34=1, CV35=6, CV49=104, CV50=whatever trick for Digitrax). Anyway, the GUTS of the thing will have two LEDs somehow illuminating through fiber-optics the lights for its respective end. I have some fiber optic material on order. I just don't know how to use it.
Optics aren't very complicated to use. You'll need a good way to couple them to the LEDs you're using (shrink tubing works well, and good old electrical tape can work, but might slip out of alignment), then route your fibers to their destinations in as smooth a route as possible (i.e.- no 90 degree bends or kinks). I used to fake fiber optics by taking clear plastic strands from a brush I had and would slightly heat the tip to fan it out a bit (makes sort of a headlight bulb shape).
I have-heat-shrink tubing and was thinking of using it for this purpose. I didn't know if I needed to bore tiny holes into the LED to attach the fibers. The lights on the prototype look a lot like either small automobile lights like what would sit on fenders of older cars (e.g., Model T Fords) and also like the moveable spots you'd see mounted on the sides of patrol cars. I think they were likely cribbed from several sources, and were probably 6 V and not terribly bright. I may even use a flicker feature on my decoder to get them to intermittently pop out. Thanks for the input! Adam
Nope, no drilling necessary. You might want to gather up your fibers and bundle them first (heat shrink, tape or both), then take the end and use heat shrink to attach it to the LED. If you're using a Jumbo (5mm) LED, you can use layers of tubing to get the size to match and keep it well aligned. Getting your fiber bunch as close to the middle of the LED will give you the best brightness overall in your fiber ends. I dig the intermittent out feature. :tb-tongue:
Ngineering has lots of small LEDs and related electrical and detail products. Some of them are small enough that you may not have to bother with fiber optics.
They've also got some good articles on using LEDs. Great stuff, but if you don't need the individual control on a per-light basis, fiber optics is better and cheaper.
Richmond Controls apparently sells those with the wires already soldered on. I'd be afraid of melting it while just trying to get a wire on there. Also, Evan Designs has 5mm, 3mm and 1.8mm LEDs with leads, resistor, bridge rectifier, and capacitor already installed and protected with heat shrink tubing, so all you need to do is hook the wires up. That's the route I'm going.
