More Pallets - Well Almost

This week has been a bit slower.  I had Friday off work so picked Geoff up and we both went for a trip to Aurora Trains in the morning.  In the arvo I continued work on building another string of pallets.  I ran out of styrene and as it turned out I couldn’t pick any up this weekend from any of the model shops.

On Saturday morning I was able to fit in a trip to Austral Modelcraft as I had not been there was maybe 5 weeks.  I was after some decoders for the Club shop, but they had none of the particular model that were wanted by the Club.  Following watching most of my son’s last soccer game for the season, I made my way over to the Club for our AGM.  Over there I had a chance to have a natter with a few people I had not seen for quite some time.  The N scale layout’s top deck is coming along very nicely.  The water scenes are fantastic.  The Outdoor G scale was running with Quentin using his radio control loco, on the first completed circle of track.  The crossing loops and the second circle shouldn’t be too far behind.  This has been a great effort by a small group of members. 

Today I went over to Barnacle Bob’s place to again do some tinkering work on his level crossing flashing light setup.  The setup that Bob has installed, works flawlessly with trains running in either direction over his single track level crossing.  However when Bob throws some points on his layout, the Arduino acts like one of the IR detectors on the layout has detected a train.  I have watched the detector and it did not detect anything.  So the reason is most likely some sort of inductance in the triggering wires or electrical noise.  I have done some reading and now believe that it will be electrical noise.  I have also written an updated version of the level crossing detector code, and I will load that up next weekend to measure if one or multiple detectors are triggered whenever Bob throws a point.  I have some code to perhaps mitigate this issue, but I first need to measure what is occurring.

Another alternative could to provide a better power supply for the Arduino instead of what is currently being used.  This power supply would need a better filtering circuit going into the Arduino, so it filters out any electrical noise.  I will see what occurs next weekend when I can next go over for a visit.

Today I was able to pick up some more styrene from Raymond and Lefty.  Raymond has a styrene stand to rival most hobby shops.  From time to time, I put out an SOS and Raymond has what I need.  I then replace what I borrow from him at my earliest opportunity.  So with the help of Raymond's styrene I completed another 50 pallets and I am one strip of styrene short of completing another 25 pallets.  So with another packet of styrene I can then do another 25 pallets again, making a total build of 100. 

On Friday evening I did some work on my timetable.  I saw a photo in one of the facebook groups with a Murwillumbah bound cement train with a milk tanker as first wagon.  Guess what?  My cement train now has an extra wagon or two or three.  These wagons need to be dropped off at Lismore on the dairy siding.  Upon return, the now full milk tankers are picked up and placed behind the locos again.  That will be an interesting problem for the driver to solve as he will have to run around his train, if he can.  As one of the last trains in the timetable, the yard at Lismore should have enough free tracks for the various shunting to occur pretty easily.  But we will see.

Next weekend may be another change of pace, with some work on a few locos to ensure that they are working again after one lost its address following a short, and some others have had some gear changes.  I might have to check to see if I have snubbers installed in that section of track.