Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[C855B]

A couple of tweaks, and here we are:



White, gray or black resin, at this "thinness" it's all translucent. The silver paint (Vallejo Model Color) blocked nothing, but black seems to help a lot. So for mast signals, we'll need to paint black before silver.

I have one more adjustment, the Showcase-compatible mount which is currently too shallow, and then we can put this one to bed. I should be able to get up on the ladder this weekend for better shots and measurements of the H-2 case, and will have art on that following shortly.

INcidentally... I discovered in reviewing redoveryellow.com images that it was consistently long visors on signals from Mojave to Tehachapi, confirming what I remember. Even the dwarfs and low siding signals without targets. This is versus the short style on the Showcase casting, although as you know they have the additional long visor in the brass etching with the kit. So we have a triple benefit here, easy fit of the LED, modeling the back, and the correct visor. Good stuff.

[GaryHinshaw]

GREAT stuff!!  The visor (and the rest of it) turned out really well.  A few questions if I may:

* How did you handle the back of the case?  Is that a separate part, or do you insert the LED from the underneath?

* Is the light leak that's visible in the lit shots coming through the paint, or from an opening where the leads come out?  I figured the resin would be pretty translucent, but a pre-coat of black paint is simple enough.

Very cool. 

[C855B]

Back is a separate part. Interesting idea to slide the LED in from the bottom, but I think it more secure to "lock" the LED into the case by closing the door. Less leaky, too.

Light leak is through the case, and that's with the LED brightness cranked down to the point where several of the pictures of a lit indication came out dark because the shutter opened during the PWM "off" cycle.

EDIT: Something I wanted to try tonight but forgot - ngineering.com 0.032" SS tubing for the mast. I have some floating around somewhere in the mess. It has 0.0025" walls and will at least make a two-head mast easier to thread.

[C855B]

Insanity:



That's right, I've managed to render a signal bridge mounting bracket.

Also turns out the Showcase tri-color LED is an exact press fit into the case. Dumb luck. I might change the back to make assembly easier, it's a too-tight fit at the moment.

H-2 case body is in CAD and in the process of "drilling" for mount and conduit. Rear door maybe tonight.

[peteski]

Insanity:



That's right, I've managed to render a signal bridge mounting bracket.

Nice!  So, where did you find that giant dime prop coin? 

[MK]

Nice!  So, where did you find that giant dime prop coin? 

Same place where you found your quarter. 

[C855B]

Layout Status Report

Last update was six weeks ago. We've been doing a lot more than signal modeling, although the previous two pages infer otherwise...

Turnout Retrofit Project

Regular lurkers here may recall I hit a big brick wall on ballasting after discovering the under-tie switch machine (servo) mounting system was an invitation for ballast to fall down into the "well" and jam the works. A really big "oops". A simple fix for that was a bit of styrene under the ties to cover the hole. Simple enough, other than requiring removal/replacement of the turnout. However...

...discovered roughly the same time, the new "updated" servos recently ordered could not tolerate the direct linkage, they burned out trying to keep closure pressure on the points. This was solved with a simple spring linkage, which is being applied to every turnout as they are modified for the ballast cover. Under-tie servos, V 2.0:



Progress here is slow, but it keeps me busy while waiting for glue to try on other stuff or wait time for the Photon. 13 are in service, 40 more to go.

Kelso Depot

The not-good-enough bug bit. I've been working on the station nearly every day for a month. First was trying to match the color for the roof tiles. Here's the test mule, a reject from Craig's @CRudeME various attempts to print on his FDM machine:



Final color is lower right. I gave up trying to compromise between all the online pictures of the depot, I used my own photos from last year's trip there for reference. This was after probably three or four trips to Hobby Lobby and on online order for various shades of Vallejo Model Color. I do intend to touch-up random tiles with varying shades, as per 1:1. (Trips to Hobby Lobby are a faint excuse for lunch at a nearby favorite eatery. MMMMmmmmm... barbecue!)

Main section of the building is an exercise in tedium. FDM 3D printing leaves lots 'n' lots of artifacts - build lines and especially ghosting. I thought I could live with it, but I couldn't. The basic model is just too good to let these defects pass through to the finished version. So after testing methods on another reject, I've been alternately sanding, scraping and spraying Tamiya surfacer trying to get rid of the textures. It's getting close to done. Won't attempt the same on the colonnade, just a little bit of Tamiya spray and we'll call it ready for final paint. Here's where we are today:



You can see the 2nd floor windows already painted in their final green. The remaining windows and doors have been waylaid by the signal project. I am torn about glazing. I can cut 0.005 clear styrene on the Cameo, but gluing all those little bits in the frames is a major... uh... pane. 

Trees, Trees, and More Trees

Robyn has been on an absolute tree-making binge. Here are a goodly handful standing by for me to come to grips with textures (soil, grass, undergrowth) for the small area of the layout ready for scenic treatments:



Here are the cottonwoods for Kelso, modeled from photos circa mid-1960s:



I'm lucky to have her. Her artistry is astounding. Her current quest are the shrub-like "smoke trees" indigenous to the SoCal desert, a prominent feature in and around Daggett and Kelso. They have wispy needle-like leaves, so this may be a creative partnership as I try to apply static grass to her armatures. Wish us luck!

Starry Starry Night

This is the downer of this report. The UV bulbs I tested last year for the starry night LDE are now made of unobtainium. I ordered 10 more last May that never arrived, and the Chinese eBay seller with a 10,000+ history vanished after supposedly "shipping" with tracking. I think his shipping data was fake, there was never a link to a real shipping company, just eBay's interface, and it was never updated after "clearing customs". eBay will not refund the money, his excessive estimated shipping time (2-3 months) broke their guarantee, so I got nothing. Like I said, he vanished, or, rather, his eBay store vanished. It appears he just resurfaced under another similar name (name, products and timing of the "new" seller are too coincidental), but doesn't offer the same UV bulbs.

Nobody does. Which is sad, they worked really well. Everything else is way too expensive, so this project is tabled for the time being. I'm testing some LED strips at the special UV frequency (365nm) for the florescent paint, but they're nowhere near as bright as the track light bulbs, and doing the whole room would be $$$$$.

Also a case lesson in accepting a certain amount of risk ordering from overseas sellers. Even though eBay convinces you there's a money-back guarantee, the system can still be gamed.

JMRI

Just received notice that the Raspberry Pi 4B I ordered two months ago is shipping and due to arrive this Friday. Very high demand for this little wonder! The official source was sold out of most of the critical accessories such as power supply, official case and micro-HDMI-to-HDMI cable, so I scrounged eBay and hope that everything arrives together or nearly so. I'll report separately on progress.

The plan has been to use cheap tablets as yard panels under the JMRI web panel feature. So Menards - of all places - was running a clearance special on 7" Android tablets a couple of weeks ago at $40 each after rebate. I bought one to try. It worked just peachy under Chrome and certainly expect they'll work fine with a kiosk app just like I have on a 10" tablet. So I went back and bought out the remainder of their local stock, seven in all.

[GaryHinshaw]

Great update (except for the bulbs).  I'm envious of your progress. 

Do you have a kiosk app that you especially recommend?

[C855B]

Do you have a kiosk app that you especially recommend?

Not really. The 10" is running the freeware version of "Kiosk Browser". So far it's enough to prove the concept, but I will need to buy the "pro" version for best aesthetics and goof-proofing. Might shop around for other apps anyway. Also need to know how to configure the JMRI web service to disallow user frames on the pads since I'd like to have each pad boot-up into its assigned location and not allow user switching between pages.

[C855B]

... (except for the bulbs). ...

I ran another test with the unobtainium UV bulbs versus the known 365nm strips, then versus the known 405nm near-UV in the theater lights. Surprise! The Chinese bulbs have too much visible purple, an artifact of 395 and 405nm sources. The strips (US supplier) barely project any purple. All will fluoresce the paints just about the same, which are spec'd for 365nm. Bottom line from this A-B-C testing is the Chinese bulbs were probably really bright 395nm bulbs being sold as 365nm. Yeah, there'll be a little higher-frequency UV in the curve if you drive the chips hard enough, but it's not going to be at the peak.

My bad, clearly. 365nm emitters are expensive, and relatively inefficient. So what seemed like a bargain really wasn't. At least they'll be good for curing Photon resins. 

I broke the bad news to Robyn this morning over breakfast. Starry Night was one of her projects, naturally. Maybe something will happen in the near future, the technology is young.

[C855B]

Informal operating session on the GC&W this evening. Justin @MRLX1020 and Robbie @k27463 brought their sound-equipped Kato FEFs for a few laps around the layout. Things managed to stay on the rails until we were starting to shut down, then my train decided it was going to dump several cars while negotiating the crossovers at O'Fallons. OK, it'll be fixed soon enough, those (nine ) turnouts are next on the punchlist for servo linkage upgrades.

The crew, Justin, Jackson, me and Robbie:

[C855B]

Latest installment on the signal project - the artwork for the US&S H-2 is as good as it's going to get, so here are a few test shots sans target:



The second picture is the money shot, showing the back contour and cathedral window case profile which are the main spotting features of the H-2. As @GaryHinshaw and I chatted previously, this is slightly over-scale to match the Showcase Miniatures accessories. RR-CirKits R-Y-G board is an exact fit, Showcase tri-color board will not fit. The flare in the lit picture masks a slight leakage problem in the front of the case. I painted it black (Vallejo) before the silver, including the inside before inserting the R-Y-G board. Probably could have used two coats of black. As it is, with a target mounted the light leak will probably not jump out as much.

I'm not totally happy with the way the back fits once the board is in and the wires are threaded through the conduit slot, but considering as "thick" as #36 wires are, it may be a live-with. The finished result isn't all that bad, certainly represents the 1:1 credibly, so I can't squawk too much. I'll try a couple more test fits tomorrow and barring anything else I can call it done.


In other news, the Raspberry Pi 4B planned to be the new JMRI server arrived over the weekend. Once all the new cables and adapters were acquired (micro-friggin' everything), it's up and running, burning-in on the railcam feed. Performance is very impressive, BIG jump over the Pi 3B+. No wonder these things sell-out nearly immediately. I received the in-stock notification on the 4GB version and jumped on it right away... next day? Backorder. I'll update once JMRI is loaded and the config files ported.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That group shot... the sky looks fantastic!

[C855B]

Thanks, Ed! The funny/not funny part is ten months later I am still cleaning up overspray dust.

[C855B]

Robyn's work this past week, dead and dying trees for the mostly-desert scenery of the layout: