Running Bear's June 2020 Coffee Shop

[Bruette]

Good morning Everybody!

Another busy day on tap.

Have a great day Everybody!

 

[Bruette]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

Terry, I would buy the system I wanted at lowest price, even if I had to wait.

I wish you well with your new system.

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

Time for a western omelet, short stack with bacon and coffee this morning.

Currently windy and 60* this morning. The high wind warning they blasted us awake with at 3:30a yesterday was canceled at 3:00p. They did issue a high wind advisory early this morning, but doesn't blow the darn weather radio. I have certain advisories disabled (silver and amber alerts, flood watches and warning, etc.)

I did get some train time yesterday and have the continuity issue resolved until it isn't. Loco's work properly around all track segments, although I'm not real sure what caused the issue in the first place.

Terry: I agree with Louis and get the unit you want at the cheapest price. With the pandemic shipping has been delayed on both sides of the retail equation. I waited an extra week for track stuff from MTS because I knew it would come. I also waited on a laptop battery from Amazon as the seller emailed me saying he had run out of stock but was expecting a shipment in 10 days (which actually took 20). Burning out decoders and having to replace them is a reason I'm giving for not moving to DCC yet.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. An incredibly low 59° with clear skies this morning. Should only make it up to the upper 80's today says the ever-changing weather forecasters. Headed out early for a "high-tech" transmission test on the car this morning. It's hesitating and stuttering when accelerating at slower speeds. Doesn't happen when I drive because I've learned to "put the pedal to the metal" to avoid it. Rather than rely on many friend's varying opinions, I'll bite the bullet and let the computer tell me. I am no longer very savvy about gasoline vehicles, and never was about automatic transmissions to begin with.

A pair of eggs over easy with a stack of sausage patties this morning Flo. Nothing complex.

Thanks for the many likes, reactions and comments regarding yesterday's progress post; Sherrel, Guy, Garry, Chad, Louis, Jerome, Karl, Patrick, Tom, Curt, Phil, Hughie.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I mainly worked on a derelict structure that I am going to use along the front edge of the CUP. It's an older Smalltown kit from the old layout, known as John's Place. All of the window acetate that I had used had fallen out and there were a few cobwebs. I cleaned it up and replaced all of the window glass.
Before.

After.

Can't really tell much from the picture.
I also added figures to the toy store.

Additionally I did some minor detailing behind the store and spread some ground foam around the grade crossing (no picture yet).

Making just slow progress right now because life keeps getting in the way.

Guy - Nice picture that you posted yesterday. A good example of ground cover to study.
Garry - Hope that those geese are eating lots of grasshoppers. That would make up for the mess that they are probably leaving. If I recall correctly, Alan had it right regarding UP and the licensing royalties.
Curt - Really nice looking benchwork.
Terry - My vote is to go DC. I never have "decoder smoke", never have to remember CV settings and never have programing issues.

Gotta go now, here comes Flo with breakfast.
Everybody have a wonderful day.

 

[Boris]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

Terry: Not for nothing, the biggest flaw to the MRC system, is product availability. I brought out my Prodigy Advance² controllers, after a five year hiatus, and everything works fine. Problem is my layout grew, and much of what I need is not in stock anywhere, including MRC itself.
FWIW, while I really haven't used anything else, to compare, I find MRC systems intuitive and easy to use.

 

[Boris]

Willie: Good luck with the tranny. it's kind of rare for one to go bad these days, but it happens. More likely, some obscure sensor is failing somewhere.
In any event, at this stage, I wouldn't mess with one myself. Last one i worked on, was a crate tranny to replace OEM in an '86 Monte Carlo the boys were "building". Even then, I was the third helper...

It's an older Smalltown kit from the old layout, known as John's Place. All of the window acetate that I had used had fallen out and there were a few cobwebs. I cleaned it up and replaced all of the window glass.

Great recovery. I used the storefront with a Pola multi story for my Sylvania Cafe. I had somehow lost the sidewalls of the Smalltown kit, so I improvised. Amazin how those models keep turning up, eh?

Making just slow progress right now because life keeps getting in the way.

Tell me about it. I go down in the morning to empty the dehumidifiers, and open the windows for some air circulation, then i go down in the evening to close the windows. Maybe, I'll do something that begs for attention, or run the RDC back and forth. That's about it. Of course i'm pre-occupied with pre-op details, but I could do more. It beats sitting around.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

Terry. I don't think changing systems is going to help with burning out decoders. In my experience, (been DCC since 1999) I've never seen systems cause decoder issues, unless you go waaaaaaay back to the original Digitrash DH120 decoders, and that was just erratic operation, not failure. I've got a real issue with system that deviate from the NMRA DCC standards, MRC is one of them, MTH is another. IMHO, decoder failures are usually installation or selection failures.
As far as NCE not honoring their warranty, that seems inconceivable to me. Jim Scorce and the gang have been more than accommodating with me and the club on "gray area" repairs.

 

[Boris]

Happy Hump Day. 75° and sunny...going up near 90°, and it hit 91° yesterday. if it doesn't rain tonight, I have to water again tomorrow.
it's a good day for Taylor Ham and egg with potatoes and onions on a Portuguese Roll, with a Container of Coffee. Just like the breakfast served from the Polka Dot Lunch truck, on Delancy St.

Willie touched on how life gets in the way of our hobby. he's right. Couple weeks ago, I was on a roll, and I got out the next group of kits needed for my paper Mill complex project. Then someone decided that Elective Surgery was back in vogue, and it's been a whirlwind ever since. This morning, we realized that I will need a bed of some kind, on the first floor for a few days. This house is not ADA compatible.... Too many steps... Believe me, if I wasn't a RELO buyer, I wouldn't have bought the place.

HHP powered Northeast Direct Southbound at Edgewood, MD. The Hippos were the biggest flop as a passenger locomotive, ever. Inside, I felt trapped, like being sealed in a space capsule.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Morning from Commiefornia Land!
Finally got the outdoor garage light "jury-rigged" back together - only got one piece out of place .
It works, but if it fails again, we will just replace both of the lights. The Spousal Unit has never liked them to begin with.
Today's mission is to get crackin on the water softener - it's like looking at a DCC manual, HA!

We had two brush fires yesterday afternoon which made it REALLY smokey. One was somewhere on the Camp Pendleton Marine base - and the other was around 5 miles to the east of us ... probably some pot grower tossing a cig out the window. CA spends about ZERO on keeping the right o way grass mowed and chances are a fire could be started by a car simply pulling off the road?

It was 98 degrees yesterday - and they are calling for the same today!

Willie - and others .. Here is a nice structure for a smaller town. I think this is a kit?

 

[GeeTee]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

You dont have carpet in the room by chance ?

 

[santafewillie]

I will need a bed of some kind, on the first floor for a few days

Joe - Many people just use a recliner if they have one. Plan on one of these as well. This is the one that we got, but there are many more that are more fancy than this.
Elevated Toilet Seat
Fortunately our house is relatively low and only one floor. Two 4" steps to get on the porch from the built-up ground leading to it.
They will most likely give you an ice water circulator to reduce swelling. We learned after the fact that you can use small frozen plastic water-filled bottles, instead of purchasing a bunch of ice. Our ice maker could not keep up.

 

[chadbag]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

I use the Digikeijs DR5000-ADJ. It is Loconet compatible so all your Loconet devices should work just fine. While I imported mine from Germany on a sale, they are sold and supported by Digikeijs.us . It is basically compatible with everything (except NCE) so you can tie the disparate systems together. (I use the Rocco Z21 Wifi throttle WLANmaus and also the digitrax compatible WiThrottle soft throttles on my phone using a Digitrax Loconet Wifi adapter).

 

[Boris]

Many people just use a recliner if they have one. Plan on one of these as well. This is the one that we got, but there are many more that are more fancy than this.

Willie: Thanks for the tip. Item 2 is ordered from Prime...I'm going to look on Wayfair for the recliner after lunch. Been wanting one since the old one expired. i have already cut a length of PVC to assist in the toilet. Learned from the pre re-hab last winter. The PVC is used for support.

 

[Greg@mnrr]

Good Morning Everyone.....overcast and rain is forecasted for this afternoon. Perhaps heavy rainfall.

No model railroading yesterday since I joined the Mrs. on a shopping trip for a new gas stove. Wow, the prices for a new stove plus delivery and set up costs. One of our stimulus checks went for the new stove and related costs. The old stove will not ignite when the boiler or oven is on and the oven fills with NG until it does ignite with an explosion. Too dangerous and we spent tons of money n the stove already so its time to part company.

This will be our third stove in 43 years. Avoco Green to a Almond and now a Black and Stainless Steel stove.

Going to start my track plan this afternoon. I have a rough plan done in Excel for the layout boundaries and I just want the get exact measurements of the bench-work, room size and take some photos and rough drawings of the track-work in relation to the bench work. I'll take some photos as well to refresh my memory as I do the rough drawing on graph paper before I do an final plan.

I spent several semesters in Engineering Drawing classes in High School and I worked as a Landscape Designer at a well known nursery and landscape contractor, so I may be rusty, but I have some experience in doing drawings. We did our landscape plans just like you do a track plan except the lot's boundary lines is the bench-work and the house, driveway and maybe the walk ways and a patio being fixed items to be drawn as a start to the design. The first stage of the drawings were done on drawing paper and then a final plan which was transferred later to blue line reproductions to present to the clients.

I tried to be original for each of my landscape designs and trying to develop different themes for each job drove me crazy and then I realized that my boss and co-owner of the company who was a national known Landscape Architect, basically used the same design format for each project, but used different plants on each design. No use reinventing the wheel.

Once I do the drawing that I like I'll transfer the drawing to a Microsoft's Paint Program and enter the yard names, industries and other key areas on the layout drawing.

I'll run a train or two while I do the measurements. Funny how the layout's size shrunk from the planning stage through construction.

Going to the cabin on Friday through Monday to do some repair work and staining. The weather should be dry and cool, perfect for staining. Two years ago I sanded the rear deck down to bare wood which was a summer's project. It paid off as this year I'll sand the spots where the stain is gone and not stain the entire deck surface, just the bare spots as a time saver.

Tomorrow, I need to do some yard work doing trimming of shrubs and other tasks. The basement dehumidifier needs some attention to the discharge hose and settings. Then maybe some model railroading. If I get a good rough drawing of the layout I''ll take it to the cabin and work on it when I can.

Keep those photos of your layout coming on the Form.

That's all for now.

Greg

#########


A Rock Island locomotive patched for the CM&N pulls a weathered C&NW caboose along the right of way. I see old C&NW caboose(s) in use near the UP Butler, Wisconsin yard doing local switching moves. A rare sight but neat to see a caboose attached to a short train-Greg


The Saxeville water tower no longer in use since steam is gone. It may service thw 80 Ton Shay when its in use pulling a fan train, but that's about it. The tower is from Walthers and the signage is a decal from a local vendor. The industrial area behind the tower is Saxeville. All spots on my layout are named after places near my cabin and Saxeville is a small town with maybe 100 people in the town proper and several thousand people in the entire Saxeveille Township.-Greg

 

[bnsf971]

You dont have carpet in the room by chance ?

Hardwood floors.

 

[bnsf971]

Karl, the smoking decoders were primarily Paragon 2 units and a db150 system.
NCE flat refused to honor their warranty because I abused the dcc system. What that means is, I didn't buy a seperate circuit breaker from them to protect the buillt in circuit breaker in the multi hundred dollar system I had purchased from one of their dealers as "complete, everything you need". I swore at that time when I had to spend another several hundred dollars to repair an in-warranty system they would never get another dime of my money. I hope they choke on the check I had to write them.

 

[Greg@mnrr]

Good morning. It's cloudy and 70.

Terry: I finally decided to try a different brand of DCC system. After having all the problems with the Digitrax system I had burning out decoders, and the problem I had with NCE refusing to honor their warranty, I decided to try an MRC system. I ordered the system from Tony's Train Exchange on May 24, stated as "in stock, ships within 10 days if not in stock". It's now June 10th, and after an email inquiry to Tony's, they told me they were expecting to get a system within another ten days, and would ship after that. So, how much longer should I wait before canceling my order, and getting one from somebody else? Or should I give Digitrax another chance? NCE is not getting any more of my money, so that option is not going to happen.

I wouldn't make the Digitrax system as responsible for burning out decoders. There's something wrong with the decoder(s), decoder installation or locomotive wiring. I'm not sure that the MRC system will solve any problems and to wait that long for an item that is should be shipped as advertised, forget it.

If the Digitrax system is working fine other than the decoder issues, keep the Digitax system. I've had mine for over 15 years and it is still running strong.

I test my Digitrax DB150 using the quarter across the track to ss if the circuit breaker works as intended. Try it on your system and see what happens.

Greg

 

[Sirfoldalot]

GREG - That was TERRY with the Dcc issues -- NOT BORIS!

 

[kbkchooch]

GREG - That was TERRY with the Dcc issues -- NOT BORIS!

Nobody likes a nitpicker Shirley!

 

[Greg@mnrr]

Nobody likes a nitpicker Shirley!

I caught my error and did an edit before I read your post...hope you don't edit my tax returns!!!!

But anyway, thanks.

Greg