Weekend Update 6/26/11

[cv_acr]

Started laying ties on my HO layout last week:



Excuse the somewhat crappy photos, the room lighting is not exactly set up with a model railway shelf layout in mind.


skytop: that scenery is pretty nice.

[Day One]

Outstanding. What kind of bulb did you use for the beacon?

The beacon is a Miniatronics 1.5v 30ma orange bulb. I replaced the 680 ohm resistor on the Digitrax decoder with a 330 ohm to get it to light. (Guess how many hours I wasted before learning that this digitrax decoder had undocumented 680 ohm resistors on board!?) These bulbs are pretty sensitive to current so finding the correct resistance value is important. That said, when I can get back to the electronics store, I will be getting something closer to 370 ohms to replace the 330 ohm resistor so the flasher is not as bright and help make the bulb last longer.

Day 1, I'm guessing that all this gadgetry was facilitated by using a high hood shell... Any chance a similar install can be done in a standard cab?  Also assuming micro surface mount LED's...  Got any shell-off views?  Or are you still working on the patent?

The high hood did make this install easier but it can be done on low hood units with a bit more work. The high hood units are easier because the rooftop beacon is not located right above the number boards and the associated light tubes inside the shell. Prototypical mounting location for most beacons seems to always be on the forward point of the cab roof above and between the number boards. Atlas and other manufacturers always seem to mount horns there on the low nose models. So you have to try and stack a lot of wires, LEDs or bulbs, and Light tubes into a very tight area of the cab.

I used a warm white 0805 SM LED for the new headlights and the existing LED's on the decoder for the number boards. I basically cut off the headlight portion of the light tube separating it from the number boards, attach an LED to the headlight portion, paint it all black to keep light from bleeding from one area to another, wire it up and reassemble it.

The inside pic is not that telling but here it is.

And won't it be awesome when TCS or someone does a light board replacement that does all of this?

YES!

[wm3798]

After Chessie took over, WM units got beacons on a little bracket on the slope of the cab roof on the fireman's side.


Maybe there's hope afterall!

Lee

[sizemore]

The beacon is a Miniatronics 1.5v 30ma orange bulb. I replaced the 680 ohm resistor on the Digitrax decoder with a 330 ohm to get it to light. (Guess how many hours I wasted before learning that this digitrax decoder had undocumented 680 ohm resistors on board!?) These bulbs are pretty sensitive to current so finding the correct resistance value is important. That said, when I can get back to the electronics store, I will be getting something closer to 370 ohms to replace the 330 ohm resistor so the flasher is not as bright and help make the bulb last longer.

I used a warm white 0805 SM LED for the new headlights and the existing LED's on the decoder for the number boards. I basically cut off the headlight portion of the light tube separating it from the number boards, attach an LED to the headlight portion, paint it all black to keep light from bleeding from one area to another, wire it up and reassemble it.

So you wired in a 3.2v SMLED without needing to add a resistor? If thats the case this just made my life exponentially easier!

The S.

[jmlaboda]

Those lighting features on the MRL SD35 are great!!!  Too bad my future steam roster can't use such... lol.

S Class... those cars are great!!!  How did you do them???  Are they brass car sides, a commercial model, or what???  Really looks great with the modified E7A.

[skytop35]

those cars are great!!!  How did you do them???  Are they brass car sides, a commercial model, or what???  Really looks great with the modified E7A.

Thanks all!

Jerry, two of the cars are made from GHQ brass car sides. I wanted several coaches but didn't want to build that many kits. So I built one more as a master and made a rubber mold. Now I can turn out castings and I just have to add diaphragms, trucks, paint, decals, window glass and grab irons.  Not nearly as bad as starting from scratch. I even cast some of the underframe parts on the underframe!

[Day One]

So you wired in a 3.2v SMLED without needing to add a resistor? If thats the case this just made my life exponentially easier!

The S.

In this case yes. This DN163A0 decoder has 680 ohm resistors on the decoder function outputs already. I don't know if other decoder versions do or not. I wish Digitrax documentation didn't suck as bad as it does in relation to this fact. I wasted hours wondering why bulbs wouldn't light and LED's were dim before I found a reference to the on board resistors in a yahoo Digitrax group. There are also 3 (at least) versions of the DN163A0 decoder and 2 different PDF manuals for the decoders. In my case, I have early boards that are sometimes refered to as 'version 1' on the Digitrax sight. (tho the links that are supposed to take you to the correct version 1 documentation, don't) The SD35 has a non RoHS type. Another loco has the same board but in a lead free RoHS type. Other loco's I have use an entirely different PCB board that is still called a DN163A0. All versions have different LED's attached to them. To say there was a bit of frustration starting this project would be an under statement. The first loco I did took over a week of tinkering and web searching to figure out. The SD35 took about 5 hours. I'm hoping the next ones will be half that.

I am fortunate to have a pretty decent electronics store near me that sells surface mount resistors. I bought a variety of 0805 and 0603 SM resistors for adding these lights. The small size is ideal for adding them in line with the lights. I simply run a wire an inch or two from the pad on the decoder add the resistor and then finish running the wire to the bulb or LED. I use a very small piece of heat shrink tubing over the resistor to isolate it electrically.

I think I'll start a post about these in the near future with all these details and more.

[Bendtracker1]

After getting some decals I finished one of my pet projects last night. I'm modeling the summer of 1983 so all trains my will still have a caboose trailing behind them.  I've been wanting a NW [and also SOU bay window] crummy for any NS detour trains that might stray onto the layout from time to time.

This started out as a NS caboose since the NW versions seem to be very hard to find anymore.  I removed the lettering with a eraser and Solv-a-set.  Then applied the new decals.

Followed with a Orange fade.  Some of the rust was done with oils and the rest was powders.

One thing I wanted to play with was making the windows look "Dirty"  I never liked a nice weathered model with clean windows.  Years ago I sprayed a loco and in my haste, forgot to remove the windows and when the dullcoat dried, they looked really foggy, much like the windows in the old Minitrix Locos. 

So this time, after I got the weathering done on this caboose, I assembled the caboose and applied a very light coat of Model Masters Lusterless flat to the entire caboose to seal everything including the windows.  Next time I might try using the acrylic Liqutex that Gary spelled out in his Fading technique.  This way one might be able to "Wash" the windows with a dry brush or dry Q-tip to give them a streaked effect before it dries.

On one side of the copula I left the windows out as if they were opened [Actually I lost it!  It took off for parts unknown while trying to remove them  :-\].  But it gives a nice visual difference.

Has anyone ever tried to make their windows look dirty?  Any suggestions would be welcomed. 





Allen...

[Zox]

Followup to my earlier post--I've got the legs for the new module working.

Legs set up (gravity inverted for photographic purposes):



Remove two wing nuts, pop legs off pins, and re-thread wing nuts for storage/travel:



I would put this in the Layout Engineering Reports, but while it's definitely engineering, it's not exactly a layout.

[DKS]

Has anyone ever tried to make their windows look dirty?  Any suggestions would be welcomed. 

A light spritz with Dull Cote (as opposed to a full heavy coat) seems to do a decent job of this.

[Scottl]

Beautiful work on that caboose, Allen.  I love the fade and weathering.

[seusscaboose]

Followup to my earlier post--I've got the legs for the new module working.

Legs set up (gravity inverted for photographic purposes):



Remove two wing nuts, pop legs off pins, and re-thread wing nuts for storage/travel:



I would put this in the Layout Engineering Reports, but while it's definitely engineering, it's not exactly a layout.

Legs for the new OML modules

[Bendtracker1]

A light spritz with Dull Cote (as opposed to a full heavy coat) seems to do a decent job of this.

David are you referring to using a spray bomb of Dull Cote to spritz with?  Or just open or close the needle on the airbrush a bit more?  When I airbrushed the final Lusterless flat coat on, I made a fast pass, but I think the airbrush atomized it a bit too fine, still giving it too even of a coat.

Two things I was thinking about after I left the post, was to use a small stiff bristled brush dipped in the Lusterless flat and pull the bristles back with my finger and "Splatter" the windows.  Much the same way painters do when they distress cabinets with black paint.
Then I thought about using some of the Grime Washes that Gary described, and brush the windows.  Then before it has a chance to dry completely, dob them with a course sponge or "Q tip".

Thanks for the idea, I need to return to the laboratory and look into this more.

Allen...

[Bendtracker1]

Beautiful work on that caboose, Allen.  I love the fade and weathering.

Thanks for the kind words Scott.

I almost passed on posting this as I was having a dickens of a time trying to get a good picture of a red caboose.

I tried shooting it with several different lighting options and camera settings in the basement.  Everything I tried made the RED really GLOW and washed out the fading and weathering.  Even trying to make correction with a photo editor I couldn't get an image that I was satisfied with. 

Then I waited till Monday night and took it outside and set on the gray foam in natural sunlight.  That seemed to do  the trick.

Allen...

[inkaneer]

Followup to my earlier post--I've got the legs for the new module working.

Legs set up (gravity inverted for photographic purposes):



Remove two wing nuts, pop legs off pins, and re-thread wing nuts for storage/travel:



I would put this in the Layout Engineering Reports, but while it's definitely engineering, it's not exactly a layout.

Set up may be a problem as you probably couldn't flip the module over.  It would probably have to be done with the module on its side.