More Photos of Track, Turnouts and Servos

As promised here are more photos I took this morning. Few close-ups of turnout throwbars with the actuating spring wire plus shots from below the plywood of servos mounted using the Motrak Models brackets. As you can see in the first picture below I had to solder a PCB tie to the throwbar of the first turnout out of the staging yard since in that exact place there's one of the L-shaped metal girder and it would be very difficult to do the hole for the spring wire. So, I mounted the servo on the side of the turnout and used the tie to move the throwbar. Even if it's not really nice to see I'm planning to have a highway overpass there -to visually separate the section from the hidden staging- and hopefully this will help to hide this tie.

I taped the plastic ties to the foam in order not to lose them before placing under the rails

Servos and brackets fixed below the plywood

To answer a comment from Tom I have to say TVD servos and decoders along with the Motrak Model's brackets are great products. I have no experience with other methods to move turnouts so my feedback could be biased, however I found really easy to mount the servos using those brackets and programming the DCC decoder is really straightforward. In addition the new Quad Servo Decoders you can buy now from TVD are much better than one of the first version I bought one year ago. The new one features adjustable moving speed for each servo output, fascia panels with bi-color LEDs and use the same three-wire cables as the servos for easier cabling. Worth of note is the fact that each Quad Servo Decoder can drive up to six servo using the four outputs. This means, for example, you can drive two servos with one output to move two turnout at the same time. I did this on the two crossovers I have on the first layout section so I could drive all turnouts with just one and a half Quad Servo Decoder.
Overall, I think, TVD's Quad Servo Decoders with Motrak Model's mounting brackets are a really good and easy choice to drive turnouts both manually and via DCC commands.

Finally few more pictures of the first Quad Servo Decoder mounted below the plywood of the first section; the PowerCab USB interface and the AutoSwitch board to automatically switch on and off the programming track when in programming mode and one of the new Quad Servo Decoders connected to the DCC power bus.

See you soon...

Installing Turnout Servos and Decoders

After laying tracks and turnouts on the first section and fixing minors problems with way cars and loco go through them I started to install turnout servos and DCC decoders I bought from Tam Valley Depot. Few days ago I received my second shipment from TVD containing brackets for mounting servos among other stuff. Brackets sold by TVD are resin castings made by Motrak Models. Very well done and the perfect fit for TVD servos.
Mounting servos using those brackets is really easy and everything works really well. Brackets come with everything required to mount them including double-sided tape and piece of spring wire for moving the throwbar.
Up to now I've installed seven servos driven by two TVD's Quad Pic Servo Decoder. I've also already mounted four fascia panels for manual control of five out of seven turnouts (two servos are actually driven by one decoder output since they need to always move together).

I'll post a full photo report of the current status soon, in the meantime few picture of a sample of the brackets, servos and decoders.

See you soon...

New Locomotives

Latest addition to my locomotive roster is a couple of Atlas EMD GP9 Phase II. Obviously Southern Pacific. As usual I've added DCC decoder using Digitrax drop-in replacement decoders, in this case DN163A2. The whole installation is rather simple and all worked fine at the first shot.

So, here are few photos of the new locos. I find these locos well detailed and running really smooth even if I didn't tweaked with CVs yet and basically I'm using the factory settings except for the DCC address.

Lately, I've been working also on laying track on the first section. Work is going on with small problems here and there but overall I'm happy with the outcome. I'll post an update on this soon, hopefully.

See you soon...

Working here and there

Mixed post this one. Few days ago I received my last order from Model Train Stuff. Two very nice Atlas EMD SD9, SP3914 and SP3943 and two Digitrax decoders. So, I started installing decoders in the new locos and also in an Atlas EMD GP35, SP6622 I bought some months ago that I put aside since I bought the wrong decoder. This time I ordered the right ones and I could digitize that loco as well.
Using plug-in replacement decoders it's a very easy task and Atlas locos are really well thought in this regard. Removing the loco shell is a matter of seconds and then you're left with only two screws to remove and take apart the two loco frames. Replace the factory installed PCB board and you're done.
At the end three new very nice SP locos joined my roster.

Then, I went back to work on the scenery applying a second coat of paint on the foam sheets. I wanted to darken the first coat so I used a diluted terracotta brown paint to have a non-uniform ground texture. It didn't come out exactly the way I wanted however it's getting better.

Lastly, I replaced few more wheelsets with Fox Valley Models metal wheelsets. Still some more cars to do, though.

Next time I'll post some pictures of the truck replacement I did on two Bachmann flat cars and an "experiment" I did with the Bachmann GE 44Ton switcher. Stay tuned...

See you soon...

Testing NCE PowerCab USB Interface

Today I went for a completely different subject. No more backdrop, painting and the like. Instead, I wanted to try the USB interface I bought with my NCE PowerCab.

So, I took an older Mac laptop and following the JMRI instructions I installed the required drivers and JMRI Decoder Pro. Connected all the cables and... voilà: all worked like a charm. Simply great!

I had a lot of fun playing with my locomotive roster, reading all CVs into Decoder Pro and doing some programming. At least for the basic funcions it's very easy to use. For example, I copied the decoder settings from my Bachmann GE 44Ton to the new GE 70Ton and it worked perfectly.

This is a small video I took with my iPhone when Decoder Pro was reading all CVs from one of the two EMD NW2 from Kato with a Digitrax decoder.

I really encourage anyone to give JMRI a try, it's a great piece of software and is free!

By the way, here are two pics of my latest addition to the locomotive roster: SP GE 70Ton from Bachmann Spectrum

Photos of the rest of the rolling stock as soon as I get my camera battery working again :(

See you soon...

Well... I did it!

I've been thinking when I would have made my first mistake. Well, I did it.
Actually, I made a lot of mistakes so far, building wooden benchwork sections to be connected together is an example -I replaced them with metal L-shaped beams.

However, this is the real first error I made because I felt to confident in my model railroad knowledge and went on without double checking my steps.

Recently I purchased a very nice Atlas EMD GP35 along with a DCC decoder: a Digitrax DN163A0. Well, that's the wrong drop-in replacement decoder for that loco. It's too long to fit into the split frame of this loco. In fact, the right decoder is a DN163A2.

Not a very big problem, I just have to wait to purchase a new decoder and hopefully recycle the wrong one on a new loco. At least now I have a reason to buy me another new loco.

See you soon...

Laying Power Bus

Not very much time this week to work on my layout. Just few hours I used to lay down the power bus lines for the section on the left and on the back.

I wanted to keep the cabling as neat as possible so I used three connector connector strips for each section in order to have plenty of space to connect feeders. So far no power districts are present but it wouldn't be difficult to do since I have to isolate on power strip from the other and should be done.

See you soon...

More on TVD turnout servo testing

During Easter Holidays I had some time to test turnout servos and controllers I purchased from TVD. I wanted to check how it worked when placing the turnout on top of a 1" pink styrofoam instead of directly on the plywood.

This time I used a piece of 0.024" spring wire in place of the solid electrical wire I used in my first test. After a little of tweaking with the servo and the hole sizes in the plywood and styrofoam I finally got it to work.
A 0.24" hole I ended up with is a little too wide but I could have cut a narrower slot instead of a round hole and it would have worked fine. Also, it would be much more visible underneath the turnout ties.

Anyway, testing with the turnout servo went fine and I'm confident enough I can apply this technique for my layout. Yet, I still have to decide whether to use 1" styrofoam as subroadbed or to lay roadbed on top of the plywood directly.
I suppose I have to think about the layout design a bit more and figure out the elevation characteristics of the area I want to model.

Having said that, last week I also received my last order from N Scale Supply. Three great hoppers from BLMA and a bunch of Bluford Shops 86' auto parts box cars. Here are few photos.

New Rolling Stock

Lastly, I painted two more sheets of coroplast for the backdrop this time using a large flat brush instead of a small paint roller. I can't see any difference so I'll use the brush 'cause it's much more easy to clean once done painting.

See you soon...

Testing QuadP Servo Decoder

Last week I received drill bits to make small holes in throwbars of turnouts I built.

So, I decided to do a real test of the turnout servo decoders I bought few months ago from Tam Valley Depot. I taped down one of the #6 turnout on a scrap piece of 3/8" plywood after I made a hole in it for the actuating rod. Then, I took a small piece of a solid wire, stripped of the isolating plastic and used it as the actuating rod. I know, I'd better use spring wire to do that but I haven't got any so I thought to try in this way.

I bent the wire as shown in the decoder instructions -you can also look at a very detailed article in the second issue of the Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine from D. McRee- and attached the servo on the bottom side of the plywood using a piece of double-sided tape.

That's it. I hooked up the servo connector and the fascia panel to the QuadP servo decoder, connected the DCC bus and I was done. I plugged in my PowerCab and the servo powered up. Few adjustments to the rotation angle for both the straight and diverging position of the throwbar and all worked fine.

Actually it's a very very simple setup. I think the only critical step is to bend the actuating rod correctly and place the servo in the right orientation with respect to the turnout in order to have the servo rotating towards the right position when the straight/diverging route is selected.

I also tested the servo using the PowerCab to throw the turnout. It's very simple, just select the accessory decoder address -default is address #1 for the first servo- and press the number 1 or 2 to select the straight or diverging route, respectively.

Here a short video I took with my iPhone when testing the servo decoder.

See you soon...

Installation of a Digitrax DZ143 in a LifeLike EMD GP38-2

After my recent work to put drop-in replacement decoders in DCC-ready locos I decided to dive into a more difficult project: to install a Digitrax DZ143 decoder inside a LifeLike EMD GP38-2.

I felt a little more confident in taking away loco shell and the other parts based on the experience made with previous installations. So, I decided to give it a try.

First of all, though, I searched on the Internet looking for someone else -maybe more experienced than I am- who already did this installation. Actually I found two or three interesting website but the most well-done document -actually a real tutorial- is the forum post "Decoder Install: Walthers/LifeLike GP38-2" from pastoolio on trainboard.com.

Actually, you can simply follow the installation instruction and you're almost done.

So, I decided to start disassembling the loco. Overall it wasn't very difficult. As shown in the tutorial after having removed the fuel tank, the cover made by the dynamic brakes -hope those are actually dynamic brakes- and the cab I removed the shell by simply raising it with a small screwdriver on the bottom of the loco.

Then, it was the turn of the stock PCB board with front and back LEDs and few other electronic components. Again, as explained in the tutorial I used the board, LEDs and two SMD resistors for the loco head and back light when using the decoder.
While removing the PCB I made an error and I broke the front part of the PCB where the front LED is soldered. I was lucky enough I could reuse the PCB and glue the broken piece to the loco frame as you can see further on.

Then, I took away the two screws holding the frame together and removed trucks, motor and gear worms as well as two washers used to isolate the two frame halves.

Following the tutorial I put some isolating tape on front side of the motor "seat" in order to isolate the motor armature from the frame.

It was time for the motor. Here the difficult part begun. In order to have a way to let one of the motor wire reach the bottom motor contact I had to create a "groove" on the black plastic part of the motor body. I used small triangular and round files. Overall it wasn't that difficult but I felt very scary to damage the motor completely. However, everything's alright up to this point.

Then, I begun to cut the copper cladding on the PCB in order to isolate the components and be able to re-use LEDs and two SMD resistors.

I did that on both sides always following the well-detailed tutorial. Though, here I made my first real error. I thought I could avoid to cut the two notches on the back of the PCB in order to pass the decoder wire through them. Instead I thought to lay the decoder with wire facing on the back and bend them on top of the PCB. That was something made me do the work twice!
Lesson learned: do not always think you're smarter than a very experienced modelers and think twice before taking a different approach with respect to what they do.

So I started soldering the motor wires -here you can see the "groove" on the motor body much better- and putting some isolating tape on the motors contacts.
To test the "great" idea I had I did a test installation assembling the motor, PCB and decoder in place. All looked fine.

So I went on soldering the power wire -black and red- and then the front and rear light wires along with the common blue wire.
I also glued the broken PCB part with the front LED to the loco frame.

Time to put back on the loco shell. No way! There was no space for the wire to bend and go on top of the PCB inside the shell. That's why I had to cut those two notches on the PCB.
So, I unsoldered all wires, took the PCB off the frame and cut two notches as shown the tutorial. Then, I cut and soldered again all wires -this time pay attention to the clearance required by wires.

A quick test on the track to check everything worked fine and tried to put the shell back on. This time is much better. I could fit all wires on top of the PCB rather easily.

I put back in place the cab, PCB cover and hand rails and I was almost done. Still few small adjustments of the cab and cover to sit them in the right place.

Well, overall this small project went fine and I'm rather satisfied with results. However, it could be much harder without the wonderful tutorial from pastoolio and without stupid errors I made.

So far so good, I've got another loco digitized and ready to run.

See you soon...