Ticking of Tasks From the To Do List

Well another trying week in our neck of the woods.  We did a few loads of washing for my daughter’s boyfriend’s family.  We let him stay here for a few nights, as they had no power at their place, although their home was above the flood line, it was just an isolated island right in the middle of one of the flood zones.

I still was able to visit the hobby shop one day during the week and picked up another Peco point motor, point motor base and a couple of cans of paint.  The paint was put to good use as I painted up 40 pallets in Chep blue.  I also painted up 15 clothes lines.  I also got stuck in and painted up about 33 tea bags that will allow me to make up 66 tarpaulins during this coming week.

I did get to the shed on the weekend, but boy was it hot and humid.  I swapped the wires on a point motor to Rocklea Siding and adjusted the throw, and this Peco point motor on a dual gauge point works every time now.  I’m very happy.  I spliced in the replaced dual gauge point into the dual gauge at Acacia Ridge and it has a standard gauge connection from the southern entry of Acacia Ridge Yard, to the dual gauge in Acacia Ridge.  This replaced an old Peco point that I superglued a third rail through.  This new dual gauge point was also connected up to the newly purchased point motor and point motor base.  The base is used to provide the over centre locking of the point.  I also added an omega spring from a paper clip.  The point motor was tested late this arvo.  It works like a bought one.  Another success.  I was having trouble with an NCE QSnap not having power.  It was located right below this newly upgraded point.  It turned out was just a wire had come adrift from the track bus power supply.  So that was fixed with the soldering iron and all seems to be well. 

I also investigated a point motor in Clapham Yard on the narrow gauge for the entry into Rocklea siding.  A close inspection shows that two wires had come adrift.  Once I re-soldered those two wires, it was working very well.  I also found a wire had come adrift from my control panel for Rocklea Siding.  This was fixed and that is back in the world of working.

There is another point in Clapham Yard – also narrow gauge, that does not seem to be getting enough umph to cause it to throw.  I will get to that next week hopefully, as well as look at the Dutton Park dual gauge point to be replaced.  While running a test train around Acacia Ridge on the dual gauge tracks, I realised that the set of points I put in last week, caused a lack of electrons to flow on track 1 if this point was set to the curve position – forming a crossover from track 1 to the dual gauge track.  Ask me how I worked that out.  My train stopped running when I had this arrangement set today.  So I added a track power jumper and all is now good. 

I think I will try and make another 25 or 50 Pallets over the next week or two.  It is always good to have some of these in your back pocket, considering I sold 40 of these on Saturday.

We will be having our first Tuesday Nighters for about 6 weeks this coming Tuesday.  Barnacle has done some more work on his layout.  It will be great to see progress.