Fun with Signals
Some time ago I took delivery of my first batch of signals. These are generic 3-light signals made in China. They aren’t particularly prototypical – the aspects resemble a type of signal used here in Queensland, as well as some …
DCC
The Possibly Most Asked Question by DCC Beginners, Pt II: What to avoid doing
If you made it here from Pt I, and are willing to hear me out a bit more, let’s talk about a few things to avoid. And by ‘things’, I am mainly referring to certain brands that are likely to …
The Possibly Most Asked Question by DCC Beginners, Pt I: An Attempt at answering it
So you’ve decided to get into model railways. Congratulations and welcome to the fold. It’s a beautiful hobby that can be practised in many different ways, and all of them are equally valid. You’ve probably already read a bit about …
Point Motor Shoot-Out, Servo and Volley
Well over two years ago, I wrote about the conclusion of my quest to find point motors. At the time, the Cobalt motors became the solution of choice. But of course, that couldn’t have been the end of it. Why …
Building a Programming Box, Part 2
Truth be told… the Mk1 of the programming box was always more of a proof-of-concept than an actually usable thing. It was used once or twice, but was so unwieldy that it really needed improvement. I had a few things …
Building a Programming Box, Part I
Recently I found the time to start on a little project that has been going through my head for a while. I wanted to build a separate test track, in a manner of speaking, which could be easily connected to …
Feedback Experiments, Pt. II
The next post in this series was originally going to describe how I implemented the first automation experiment in the control software I am using. But I have changed my mind on that, for two reasons. One, I have something …
Feedback Experiments, Pt. I
Thanks to Covid-19, everything is in a bit of a limbo at the moment. We started planning for a new train room, but that had to be put on hold due to impacted finances. At the same token, because of …
A New Ticker for the Zebra
I’ve talked about the Track Tester, a GE 44-Ton Switcher, a few times. This unit – now having been given the nickname ‘Zebra’ due to its livery – was bought primarily to test the freshly wired layout and tell me …
Point Motor Shoot-Out, Final
It’s been a long time coming, but the saga of my point motors had to come to a conclusion eventually. You may recall that I played around with surface-mounted solenoid motors, found them to be inadequate, and decided to look …