Coffee Shop XXXIX-9/21/2013


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Good afternoon,
It's a nice day out but a bit cool, Wunderground Weather says it's, 57.7 °F with 50% and will be dropping down to 36 °F tonight. Time to also put some new plastic in a couple of storm windows to keep te place warmer as well as close up the crawl hole into the attic over the garage. So more to do, it never ends but such is country life!


I did some more work getting things adjusted on my 3 hand laid switches to ensure everything was in proper gauge, thought I had done that before but I guess I was not a cautious as I thought, and I could get an old time log car to roll through them with a bit of a push. I then took a look at the last curved switch that the Whiskey mainline & siding will tie into and found that I needed to streighten out the extending rails so they will line up better with two lines they will be extended from them along a somewhat narrow ledge so that is what I will be doing in a little bit. Fortunately when I build my turnouts I always leave extra rail about a three of inches long extending beyond the actual < of the frog so I have enough to work with in a situation like this.

Have a good Monday.
 
kbkchooch said:
They look great Terry!
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Thanks. Have you noticed any issues with Digitrax decoders operating on an NCE system? In the video, you can't tell, but one of the GP9s is a silent engine, with a Digitrax motor decoder installed. It is the second Digitrax decoder I have put in it , and both of them act the same way. It runs great by itself, but the motor won't run when it is in a consist. I even tried consisting it with itself, and got the same results.
I then took it home and consisted it with 5 other engines, and it again works perfectly on my home Digitrax layout. Other than re-replacing the decoder again, any ideas?
 
The engine with the motor decoder is basically that, it runs the motor and lights, as opposed to the ones that have sound and or smoke .
 
bnsf971 said:
Thanks. Have you noticed any issues with Digitrax decoders operating on an NCE system? In the video, you can't tell, but one of the GP9s is a silent engine, with a Digitrax motor decoder installed. It is the second Digitrax decoder I have put in it , and both of them act the same way. It runs great by itself, but the motor won't run when it is in a consist. I even tried consisting it with itself, and got the same results.
I then took it home and consisted it with 5 other engines, and it again works perfectly on my home Digitrax layout. Other than re-replacing the decoder again, any ideas?
Click to expand...

Terry, what model Digitrax decoder are you using?
 
bnsf971 said:
Thanks. Have you noticed any issues with Digitrax decoders operating on an NCE system? In the video, you can't tell, but one of the GP9s is a silent engine, with a Digitrax motor decoder installed. It is the second Digitrax decoder I have put in it , and both of them act the same way. It runs great by itself, but the motor won't run when it is in a consist. I even tried consisting it with itself, and got the same results.
I then took it home and consisted it with 5 other engines, and it again works perfectly on my home Digitrax layout. Other than re-replacing the decoder again, any ideas?
Click to expand...

Terry, what model Digitrax decoder are you using? :confused:

You have to remember, Digitrax's systems cause atoms to travel faster than any other through the track, so other decoders may not work well with their systems, and vice versa. :rolleyes: Yes, the preceding statement was actually uttered in front of me by a Digitrax dealer. :rolleyes:;)

My guess is there is something different in the way the 2 systems are set up. Track voltages, frequency of stop packets and other settings may be different on the command stations. Either that or there is a bad value in CV19 when you are consisting it. I'd love to throw it on Decoder Pro and read out everything and see. Maybe someone a little more local than me can check it?? :cool:
 
kbkchooch said:
Terry, what model Digitrax decoder are you using? :confused:

You have to remember, Digitrax's systems cause atoms to travel faster than any other through the track, so other decoders may not work well with their systems, and vice versa. :rolleyes: Yes, the preceding statement was actually uttered in front of me by a Digitrax dealer. :rolleyes:;)

My guess is there is something different in the way the 2 systems are set up. Track voltages, frequency of stop packets and other settings may be different on the command stations. Either that or there is a bad value in CV19 when you are consisting it. I'd love to throw it on Decoder Pro and read out everything and see. Maybe someone a little more local than me can check it?? :cool:
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I have tried two completely different decoders. The first one was a simple DH123ps, and the second one is a DN163ps. I've had it on decoder pro, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A full reset of cv8 to 8 netted me the same lack of results. I've noticed this before with some Digitrax decoders on our club's NCE equipped layout. The lead unit will work fine, if there are more than one unit in the consist, but the trailing units will sometimes go into electronic comas.
I know who wired my home layout, but God only knows who or what wired the club layout, when they did, and how they did it, using what wiring... I've seen more organized bowls of spaghetti on my dining room table.
The club layout has the Procab wireless system, with a combination of single throttle handhelds and some of the newer T-bone throttles.
 
I haven't noticed anything like that on my Digitrax system. But I rarely use the suggested consist operation. Rather I assign the same address to all the units in the consist and run them under that address.
 
jeffrey-wimberly said:
I haven't noticed anything like that on my Digitrax system. But I rarely use the suggested consist operation. Rather I assign the same address to all the units in the consist and run them under that address.
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That's the thing. Everything works great on my Digitrax system, but becomes an exercise in frustration when trying to use the NCE system at our club.
At one point, I was ready to ditch the Digitrax system, and get an NCE system. Now I'm glad I didn't. I have decoders from Soundtraxx, QSI, BLI, Digitrax, NCE, TCS, and ESU, and they all work just fine at home. They only lirp out on the club's (NCE) layout.
 
bnsf971 said:
I have decoders from Soundtraxx, QSI, BLI, Digitrax, NCE, TCS, and ESU, and they all work just fine at home. They only lirp out on the club's (NCE) layout.
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As Arthur Conan Doyle said, eliminate all other factors and the one that remains must be the truth. The problem lies with the clubs system. The problems you describe are caused by low or fluctuating voltage. This can be caused by bad connections, bad power management, too much dependence on power routing turnouts, ect. I've dealt with all of these. Just because a layout was built with extreme care doesn't keep the devil out of the details and it most certainly won't discourage Murphy from taking a whack or two at it.

*

Got my A2M0003 Apple disk drive today. It's been fully checked and tested. The speed and tracking are spot on. The CP/M co-processor is coming tomorrow.

Got some more work done on Paradise Cove today. Two more properties and homes are left then Nelson Street will be done. I may be able to get those done tomorrow.

It's time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.

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bnsf971 said:
That's the thing. Everything works great on my Digitrax system, but becomes an exercise in frustration when trying to use the NCE system at our club.
At one point, I was ready to ditch the Digitrax system, and get an NCE system. Now I'm glad I didn't. I have decoders from Soundtraxx, QSI, BLI, Digitrax, NCE, TCS, and ESU, and they all work just fine at home. They only lirp out on the club's (NCE) layout.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of some Geeps I had with Digitrax decoders. When consisted together they would shake like shivering dogs when running on the club layout, but ran fine at home. Both NCE PHP systems. Turns out there was an incompatibility with DH120's & the club's NCE system that required changing the amount of stop packets the NCE system would send out to idle loco's......... this was way back in 1998 and took less than a minute to fix.:)
Anyhow,
Ok, that being said,
How many units are ever on the track pulling power at 1 time? (Running or idling, those decoders are alive)
How many linear feet is the power buss? Control buss too??
Is there a "rramp meter" ? Is there any idea how many amps are being consumed in each district at any one time? Ideally, one meter per power district will allow you to monitor each at a glance. http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/rrampmeter.htm
Power districts, How many and what kind of power boosters (and signal boosters eg: Wallworts)

After all, if they all run fine at home, but mess up at the club, then logic dictates something at the club is lacking.
I'm thinking the layout might be under powered. That is, if the wiring isn't all fubar. :rolleyes:
 
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Joe and Jeff ... Thanks for the comments on my Silver Fountain observation car.

Jeff .... I like the night photos.

Logandsawman .... SW Lake Superior.... It gets cold there. I have been in Ironwood, MI and in Duluth MN in the winter.


Here is "Silver Orchid", a Budd Sleeping car made from a kit by NKP Car Company.

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Good Morning! from Tipton IN.

It's Tue 11/5/13

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:cool:

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Temperature in TIPTON IN

High temperatures will range from 58 to 54 degrees with cloudy skies. Winds will remain steady around 11 miles per hour from the south. No precipitation is expected.
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Good morning folks

The phone call went well last night. Now one more phone call this evening and if it goes as expected we are done.

I hope everybody has a good day.
 
tompm said:
Good morning folks

The phone call went well last night. Now one more phone call this evening and if it goes as expected we are done.

I hope everybody has a good day.
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Tom, Hope you have some time now to run the trains!
 
Good morning. It's 62° with 96% humidity. The high will be 75°.
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I'm expecting the CP/M co-processor for my mothers old Apple IIe to arrive today. That will have that computer almost complete internally. It still needs a new keyboard.

I hope to get more work done on Paradise Cove today. There's still two properties and two homes to be done. That comes out to four programming blocks. Each block is an average of eight mini-blocks with two to ten lines of code each. One block can take an hour or more to program. When those blocks are done Nelson Street will be done. Then I can get started drawing up the coding for the layout in the train room segment.

I still haven't decided whether to make the character a willing participant who's watching the action from a railfans perspective or an unwilling participant who's trapped in the action and has to search the train to find the means of escaping the altered reality he's found himself to be trapped in before God knows what happens to the train.

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Hey Guys,

Sounds like the snow will miss us, but DairyStateDad may get hit tonight!

Jeffrey, I like the middle shot in the above post. Looks like something I lived in just after college.


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Took this photo yesterday. The right is mainline, handles 15 or so coal, taconite, freight every day. The right? This runs through some of our wonderful swampland here in MN.

Maybe a challenge to model.
logandsawman
 
logandsawman said:
Hey Guys,

Sounds like the snow will miss us, but DairyStateDad may get hit tonight!

Jeffrey, I like the middle shot in the above post. Looks like something I lived in just after college.


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Took this photo yesterday. The right is mainline, handles 15 or so coal, taconite, freight every day. The right? This runs through some of our wonderful swampland here in MN.

Maybe a challenge to model.
logandsawman
Click to expand...
Looks like some of the trackwork on our club layout. It didn't start out that way, but after decades of warping subroad ed and support wood, it is starting to look like a rollercoaster.
 
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