So typical. Having grown up in Wisconsin - winter plays those games- Tame December and January and then BAM February gets record snow. And if that isn’t enough - You might not see 70 in Milwaukee until June. I don’t miss that weather at all. I might be heading up to Dayton in June for a vintage BMX show. So hopefully cooperative weather. I got off a sketchy exit in Dayton the other night rolling down 35 to get gas in the middle of the night. I now know where NOT to stay. lol
@Pfunk regarding the Takeda figure I believe you mentioned you purchased 3 sets. As I've looked around I see at least two different sets in n scale. Set A and B. Your pic shows B. Were you able to get an A set also and are you aware if there is a 3rd (c)?
afaik there's only the two sets. I thought the A set was a little repetitive with the colors and outfits so I bought all B sets. I see that - two interesting things about that... first is that they're cheaper than I paid somewhere else (imagine their shipping might offset that but still raised an eyebrow as mine were significantly more per set), and HS says released last May?? I wonder if that's a typo, or if they weren't available for int'l sale until just recently?
Thanks guys. I was looking at the back of the box on each set and it shows a distinct number for each figure. On the B set for instance it starts at 005A up to 107B. That's a lot of gaps so figured maybe more than an A and B set. What I've seen on ebay and other sites pretty much gets you a set starting at $60 (with shipping). Still not a bad price even compared to woodland scenics where a set of 6 figures runs $15. I tried signing up on hobby search but it appears their address input is for Japan addresses only unless I am missing something.
I know I'm a little late to this part of the conversation, but I thought I'd clarify this since I don't think anybody else did. The 1-1.5A input to the power pack is the low voltage input from the power supply, 12-15 volts, depending on which power supply you use. Even if a power pack was drawing 1.5 amps at 15 volts, that would only be 0.1875 amps at 120 volts. Actual current draw would be higher due to power supply inefficiencies, but even at 50% efficient, that's less than 0.4 amps, and that's worse case with a 15 volt supply. These power packs were designed for N and HO scale, both modern and older, so 1.5 amps isn't out of the question, but with modern N scale you're not likely to hit half an amp, and that's probably at 12 volts, so 0.05 amps at 120. even taking power supply inefficiencies into account, all eight trains running would likely be under 1 amp at 120 volts. This is also something to keep in mind if you light your layout. For example, if you use a 1 amp 12 volt supply for lighting, 120 volt current draw will be in the range of .1 amps.
+ I made the decision very early on that I was just going to suck it up and spend the extra for Just Plug lights whenever I could to avoid things like math I spent a lot of years calculating capacitive reactance and magnetron induction fields and don't miss any of it at all. I'm not an idiot by any means, but between Oncology machines and ion implanters after that, am used to high voltage, high current power racks and being gunshy is more a survival technique than anything. The WS lights tell you very plainly how much you can plug into one hub, how many expansions you can have, and when you need to start a new one, but my favorite part is in the event one does die? Instead of crawling under your benching and unsoldering, hoping you don't pull something too hard and have to fix it all over again and all that, unplug it and put a new one in. It really dumbs down things like what resistor do I need for this strand of lights, but I am good with the extra $$ to not have to worry about it tbh
Logic Rail Technologies has a controller for up to 16 WS Just Plug compatible lights, with lots of special effects. It can be configured/controlled via DCC (like a stationary decoder) or LCC, but they say the options are greater with LCC.
Gotta say, even as someone who has watched more than many people's share of anime in a lifetime, I've never really understood the itasha cars with huge anime girl stickers or adorning random vehicles with it. The trains I kind of get, because it's less personal preference and more mass identity, but for a regular car or bike? I like seeing it them, but I could never drive one myself, I'd be embarrassed to death. fun fact - the word itasha translates almost literally to "pain car". I don't know whether that's bc of the cringe factor or the cost, but even they knew it when they named the trend there's an auto group here in Ohio that all have them, have gone to a couple of their auto shows. Is like any other car show - some real head turners that owners have put a ton of money into, some that somebody has slapped a $300 Amazon decal and Plasti-dipped the wheels on their mom's old daily driver, and then there's the stuff that sits on Craigslist for years because no one in their right mind would do that to a car. Am fascinated that it's a thing, but yeah... not at all my thing.
odd question about Kato rerailer sections, meaning this guy: I guess I never really thought about it before, but I have quite a few 4-7/8" double tracks all over my track plan. Is there any benefit to running more than one of these in a loop? Won't really be switching trains around much, I have a few switches but they are all internal to the loop the individual trains are on (meaning the loco never really gets switched off of a track meant for that specific train). Am just wondering, I have to get a few more sections yet and can snag more if need be.
I think they are great for road crossings but only so so as rerailers. I would recommend using them only where you have roads crossing tracks.
Rerailer tracks are practical in/around tunnels and other hidden/hard to reach areas, in addition to actually using them as the grade-crossings for which they were designed. Unitrack rerailers can be separated into single-track pieces or ganged together for any number of side-by-side tracks. Yard tracks are another handy place for them, especially if you typically place railcars on your layout there. Of course, temporary re-railer ramps work great for that too.
The problem I have with the rerailers is that half the time they rerail the wheels and the other half they make the derailment worse.
I have to wonder if a re-railer makes a derailment worse, was it destined to get worse regardless of the re-railer? But re-railers certainly do not cure all derailments. Sometimes you just gotta bring out the wreck train.
When I have a derailment it’s because I caused it. I uncouple cars manually and sometimes knock the wheels off without noticing. I can’t remember a car derailing on its own just running around the track.
Man, I'd be tossin' salt over my shoulder and an extra Benjamin in the offering plate, after making a statement like that!
My track plan isn’t that complicated so there isn’t anything to cause a derailment other than me being clumsy. I don’t need good luck, I just need to get my track back down so I can run trains.
