Speaking of 12, I fussed around with it to see if there was a solution to the hippity-skippity problem it was having. Well, upon a bit of detailed testing, it turns out that only the rear tender truck was picking up power consistently. The front tender truck was intermittent and the right side of the engine was intermittent. The tender issue turned out to be due to the wiper/pickup tabs not staying in contact due to warpage. Easily fixed by soldering soft flexible wires to the top of the tabs and up to the plate. The engine skip was solved when I unsoldered the wires from the tab, it was a bad 'cold' solder! Here's a video showing how much better it is working,
It's been a busy month with finishing a remodel and starting another. So not a lot of time or energy for the layout, or railfanning even. I did make time to do a bit of fun running though, And then tonight, rambling on about family at Pearl Harbor and after...
And having some free time this weekend, I figured out another deficiency on the 12, which I show for a few seconds in the video. I also upgraded the PRR 2020 by Spectrum, and then went deeper into it. Time to add NP&BH lettering, it is now the 10, Loksound, details, lighting..... And then I hardwired the tender pickups,
Just a short update. Finished the soldering in last night, and then tested the loco, which went well! So insulated all the solder joints with some 'liquid tape.' That is dry this morning, so now it is time for a quick securing of the chip and more patiently waiting....
And a bit more morning fun. The speaker is too large for the unit, so I will be changing that out. Pictures of that later.
#10 runs and sounds really good, Alan. Once you tweak the CVs and finish the paint and details it will be a star on your railway.
Thanks. And a full roster of the 3 ten-wheelers, 10-12. Each of which has a different decoder, which makes for interesting comparisons. 10 has a Loksoud 5 Nano. 11 has an older Loksound Select and the 12 has an Econami by Soundtraxx. Being a shortline, each of the locomotives has it's mild differences as well. Fun stuff!
It turns out the new Lok5 decoders are not as easy to program by just CV. The F8 on the Micro I bought has the Aux 1 turned on by the F8 function along with the sound. So, it turns out that to change that is a many convoluted step thing by just the CV's. All I have read indicated the need t use a LokProgrammer, which I do not have. And it is problematic for me as I don't fuss with Windows machines, which they require. I ain't enough of a computer guy to be able, or willing, to keep up with the 'buggy' issues that happen with their machines. That being said, I did add a damping resistor to the firebox LED, which settled down the headlight flickering issues. Also increased the size of the speaker opening and put in an ESU speaker that I like and gives good sound. Here's a short video.
After doing more testing with the 10, it required a couple of things. The MicroTrains pilot needed some support brass under it to keep it from sagging down to the rail. And, more difficultly, (is that a word?) the front driver, which is the traction tired wheel, needed a shim to put it into better contact with the rail. The left wheelset is the front one, and here you can see why they are not able to be swapped around, I added shims to the front driver slots using the Phosphor-bronze I cut out of the tender wiper pickups earlier. They were cut to fit the top of the slot exactly. Needed to have a coupler, too. The Z scale is so much nicer looking, Here you can see the damping resistor on the green wire, the larger coal opening for the speaker and the fireman's red cap! Weight added to the tender. A large piece of stick on wheel weight and some birdshot supre glued into place. And a video, of course,
Time for a shakedown run of the W3. The only issues it has are two, lumpy bullfrosnot on the wheels and a tendency for the lead driver to climb the rail. Both should ought to be easy fixes.
So, the 10 is running better and just need s a few things, Bullfrog Snot and details. The 12 however, it is disassembled some for fixing up the Econami soldering. Too much excess wire and resistors for the lights. Poorly laid in connections between the engine and tender and it just needs attention to get better pickup. I had just hardwired the truck pickups, which helped until I pressed the tender shell down onto the frame. Not being abe to see inside, the only deduction to be made was that the resistors and wires pressed on the tender truck leads. So, back to square one we go. The firebox LED is unsoldered and fixed in place now, To get a bit more room in the tender, some channel iron is addded, with CA, to raise the body to a more NPish height. Will be permanently fixing the chip to the floor of the tender now the weight is cut down some, as can be seen above. Hopefully everything works out better for this engine.
More Ten-wheeler fun! The 10 is on the run now, awaiting resolution of traction issues on arrival of Bullfrog Snot. The 12 is back together and rolling,mbut still has the 'skippy' issue, grrrr!! One more deep cleaning of the pickup cups and wheels and we will see if it helps. It did have one other issue, as seen and discussed in this little video, Then it was just time for a side by side comparison of the three 4-6-0's and their different decoders, With that, May 2024 be a good one!
So, Christmas brought a new camera from "The Wife!" And I have been fussing with it trying to get the controls and settings figured out. Keeping things in focus has been the biggest issue, thus far. Here's a raw, unedited vid, with a weekend update and a surprise or two...
Seems like the new camera did a good job. The NP semaphore is super cool. I like what you are doing with the Z couplers on the box cars. Nice upgrade.
Those 905 and 903's are really nice looking and work well with the N scale ones. I try to use them on all my locomotives and cabeese also.
Didn't get a lot of time this weekend to do much on the layout beyond run a train around to keep the rails polished and clear. Did a bit on the flat cars and the W3, more to do yet. But had to try out the new camera some more this morning early, It was nice to have the NP passenger set rolling!
