This week I installed a D13SRJ decoder into the 400 Class
Railmotor. I also added pickups to the power bogie, by supergluing KD bronze centring spings to each end of power bogie and folding the side arms to rub on the wheels. Pickup wires were then soldered to the springs and these were joined to the pickups from the other non power bogie for additional pick ups, When I did a test by applying power to the wheels the motor ran. So the railmotor was put on the
track and given some DCC power and it started to run. Or more correctly,
the motor turned the wheels and the railmotor sort of just sat there. I
think it needs some additional weight over the bogie to help it keep its feet
on the ground. I might have to spend some time checking that the bogie is
sitting squarely on all 4 wheels. I have a feeling that it is not, and
this is contributing to the wheel spin.
On Friday I visited Aurora Trains and picked up some 12mm
points and track. On Saturday I visited Austral Modelcraft and picked up some rail
joiners and couple of other things. Upon returning home, I installed the points and track at the
eastern end of Fisherman Islands. It wasn’t until today that I spliced in
the points for the other end of Fisherman Islands so that trains can enter the
two new run around sidings. Sometime next year, I will add some
intermediate crossovers into the narrow gauge tracks, maybe 1 or even 2 pairs
of points. These will be controlled by push pull piano wire.
I also wired up tracks jumpers to both ends of the new
sidings. This was followed by powering up the NCE QSnap which will
control the 4 sets of Peco points (I only have three point motors at this point
in time). The three point motors were wired back the QSnap and the layout
powered up and the point motors tested. However upon testing, the throwing of the points from my handheld throttle, two of the points work very well, but the third, will not throw the point. So tomorrow I will rip that point up and give it a clean in case some dirt or sawdust got into it when I was drilling holes for wires today. I will then retest it. I still have some more work in adding the wiring from the updated control panels for Fisherman Islands back to the NCE Mini panel, and then coding up the correct commands in the Mini Panel.
Tomorrow I will install the point motor ready to control the standard gauge track into Rocklea Sidings ready for my Operations Session next weekend. On Christmas Day, as my present to myself, I will run trains on the layout in the morning, and I will commence various road trials of the layout. All track will be run over by my track cleaning train. Later in the week I will then check the headsets for communication back to North Coast Control, and the Raspberry Pi fired up and checked.
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