The weather is too muggy to paint, so I'm left replacing all of the fans on my low-nose GP9 and figuring out how exactly I'm going to bash SP's weird GP9 side skirts that have more steps than the Empire State Building.
I tore into some stairs, safety ladders and walkway brass frets from gold medal models to add some interest to my structures. Bonus 1:1 pic. My sons and I travelled a ways out today to snap some pics of a grain elevator to give me ideas for painting the one for my layout. On the way back we stopped by a grocery store for some drinks and this was out in front:
Could you draw them out onto sheet brass or aluminum and then cut them out and then glue them straight to the frame sides?
I was thinking that or stacked styrene strips. I'll probably try both ways out. The real trick is going to be the tool box doors, I might just cut those off an SD7/9 shell and make this into a four-way kitbash.
well got my new wireless throttle finished and working GREAT. BIG THANKS to sumner for the help. we talked on phone for a few hrs almost 4 to be exact. I made a lot of mistakes in the coding. 1st was i did not use the upload after compiling on Arduino ide second was i did not put the code where it needed to be. But all is good now . im starting to enjoy this. got all the buttons doing the right thing
On my work bench are installs of Zimo decoders in my last three Fox Valley ES 44AC locomotives. With this done, my whole fleet of FVM locomotives is done. After install the programming will depend on the location within the train. Some will be lead locomotives, some will be mid-train helpers and some will be end train helpers. I have found how to make distributed power work with these decoders using Acceleration Trim and Deceleration Trim. So far, only these decoders have the Trim for forward and reverse, and Time for acceleration and deceleration. Unfortunately, Zimo does not offer any board replacement decoders like the other manufacturers.
This week has been a busy one for me. Starting with a boat... Yes another boat, this one was not mine, it belongs to a friend and I needed to give it a new engine. Sad thing is the engine that came in the boat ran beautifully but the previous owner didn't know how to winterize it and the block was cracked in multiple locations. That was a fun job... So since I finished up with that and decided to play with trains again. I got back to work on the TC4 and I made some good progress. Mode 1 is 100% written and working perfectly. All 4 stops work and all is good in the world. With Mode 2 I was still having issues with the train not wanting to reverse after hitting sensor 2. Well I figured out what was causing this and I moved a few lines of code to a different location and things started to work, at least with the temp setup, I just need to transfer this to the mode 2 code. Mode 3 is almost identical to mode 1, so it should just need a couple of pin changes to work., and since mode 4 and mode 2 are almost identical, once I finish debugging mode 2 it should transfer over to mode 4 pretty easy. The last things I need to do it integrate all these modes into one code set, and set each mode to run once the switch is set. It's almost ready to go for the official release!! Oh one thing I did notice that I think I am going to change. The voltage regulator gets really hot when powered by the PS14. I have not tried it yet with a larger amperage power supply, but I imagine it will still get hot. I am thinking of changing it from an SMD chip to a 7805. The 7805 will need 2 capacitors to make it work properly, the voltage regulator I went with didn't require them and were only recommended if the circuit was unstable. This wasn't an issue with this project. I think the issue here is the Arduino is causing the regulator to work at near capacity which is causing it to get hot. When the Arduino is powered with a USB cable the voltage regulator stays cool.
My suspicion is that the voltage regulator is at the top end of its capacity. One way thar regulators... regulate, is that they dump excess power to their heat sink. If they're hot, it's probably because it's dumping a lot of electrons as heat. Your comment that it isn't hot when using a less robust power source affirms this. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
Yea, I’m thinking the same. I checked last night and I did pick a 7805 chip but in the 220 package which doesn’t have a heat sink so… it’s supposed to output 1.5 amps which is well below what an Arduino Nano needs to operate, and the L293D chip is only using 5v (from the Arduino) for the logic, and not the motor current. I don’t have a way to calculate my exact current draw, but I am figuring around 500ma for the Arduino and 293 logic. The L293D doesn’t even get warm when running with the tram, neither does the Arduino. Just the 7805.
I have a friend who has a nice side business rebuilding engines on boats and personal watercraft. I once asked him where owners find the time and money to maintain their boats, lawn mowers, automobiles, ATVs, snowmobiles and golf carts. He answered, "They don't."
Exactly! And that is why I am able to make so much extra side cash during the summers. I fix what they screw up.
Board redesigned and sent to manufacture, parts ordered and soon I will be working on Ver 1.1. I don't think there will be any issues with the V1.0 board but I do not want to have anyone complain about burning their fingers on a hot chip. I think the new one will work out much better, it has a heat sink and will be able to attach to an external one as well. Also the V1.1 board is more compact and a better use of space.
Currently my laptop along with paper and pencil for quick idea doodling. I am at the point in the layout build where a decision must be made before the next section is built.
Not sure what the specs are on the SMD regulator you are using are but looked at some and the ones I looked at were 100ma. If that is true of the one you tried I'd think it for sure it would be hot and possibly burn out. Nice project looking forward to the final results..............boats .....................sold the 37 ft. sailboat a couple years ago and have the 26 ft. on the market now. I'll be down to one canoe and 4 kayaks and will stay there . Sumner
With a properly designed, embedded heatsink (mulitple copper-flooded layers, with thermal vias) under and around the component, some SMT power devices can exceed the thermal performance of many through-hole predecessors.
