Busy Doing Nothing Much

This week, my on-again/off-again purchase of some 0402 LEDs from ebay finally arrived.  That was after two Sydney based sellers (probably the same company with two different seller-ids), did not have any to ship and they cancelled the purchase after 4 or 5 days each.  This was even though they advertised that they did.  They should be counselled by ebay, and suspended for a month.  However, a Melbourne based seller shot me 60 of the blighters real quick.  So today I installed one in the Fairy Hill Signal box, so I am very happy with the results.

I also bit the bullet and drilled out the headlights of a semi-trailer and installed two more of these 0402 LEDs into the headlights.  A test shows that are working very nicely.  The semi has not yet been put back onto the layout.  Plenty of time for that.  I still have some more ebay purchases on the way, some 0603 LEDs and some miniature switches.

Last week I thought that I might have to buy a new ammeter for the layout, but I realised that I might have one on an old unused test station.  I went looking one afternoon and sure enough I had one.  So that meter was cannibalised and that saved me $18.  I installed that panel meter on Saturday afternoon.  In the morning I went to the Club for our monthly meeting and had a good chat with a number of members.  At the Club I was blown away with the amount of work going on in the Club Workshop area.  I had never seen 8 people in there at the same time.  But sure enough they were all working away fixing various things.  Apart from that there were people running on the HO and N scale layout and people working on the N scale layout.  Someone was also working on the HO exhibition layout.

On the right here is the Club President - Barry.  Next to him, is Laurie McClean MMR putting lights in one of Barry's Locos.  This area has N, HO and HO 3 1/2 tracks for testing.  These can be switches from DC to DCC.  these are on the middle shelf around this room - seen at the back of the photo either side of the person standing up.  This area always has someone working on a loco.

During the week, I might have flexed the Mastercard a bit.  I purchased a stay alive that will hopefully be installed into my NSW Paybus.  This vehicle was critically chastised for its lack of consistent running around the layout on the last running day.  So I bit the bullet and will have the stay alive installed in the Paybus.  Who knows?  That weird guy from the north side that takes the Micky out of me at every chance might just do it for me.

Today I went in shares with some mates for a packet of SRA Red NOBX wagons in the Auscision rollingstock sale.  I just wanted one.  The rest will go to good homes.  I was tempted in a PTC Blue one as well, but we did not have enough takers.  I was close to also ordering another 442 class loco with sound, but the Mastercard gave me a dirty look when I went trying to work out a loco number to buy.  So I backed off.  Maybe next time.

This morning I was watching the NMRA-X broadcast and I was amazed at how interested I was with some of the presentations in the second half of the broadcast.  I had one eye and ear on the broadcast and the other eye and ear in the chat talking at Gordy and others online.  That was until a mate came over with his two kids for a tour of the shed.  I think the two kids 12 and 11 were impressed.

Next week, some progress of some more light installs, this time three streetlights to see how they will look, and I will be back acquainting myself with the Kyogle Station building.