Saturday, February 4, 2017

Electronics & Open House

 
Last club meeting was an open house thus I didn't venture in complicated scenery work but tackled another CN vehicle project which will soon be featured.


That didn't prevent us from installing a pair of custom built signal on Sous-bois street in Villeneuve. Programming the circuitry to fine tune detection isn't exactly a piece of cake, but it is progressing steadily. When that will be figured out, we will start to dress up the signals with details and paint.


Another electronic project came to life out of necessity. Recently, both Atlas CN zebra RS18 got serious decoder issues that required a factory reset. However, when you pair a decoder with a keep alive, it is no longer possible to do it. So, instead of removing the keep alive each time we have a problem, we decided to install a small micro switch hidden in the fuel tank. It works perfectly and didn't required any modification to the model shell or frame.


Finally, a visitor brought is SP Daylight cars to show off. He is actually in the process of replicating that iconic train. He got about half of the 20-something required cars and have ordered the locomotives. While I'm not a passenger fan, the cars are extremely attractive and well done. They are made by MTH and BLI.


It certainly was a good occasion to see if the nicely replicated diaphragm could handle our 23 inches minimum radius... without problem! I was even surprised by the fact they didn't look too bad. This is certainly the kind of train you run on a very large club layout with broad curves.

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