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 …
DCC
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 …
Out with the Old, In with the New
Ever since I bought my first ‘real’ digital command system – the NCE PowerCab – I’ve been thinking and researching about the possibilities of DCC that go beyond running trains and switching points. Subjects like detection, feedback and automation rear …
The Tale of the Track Tester, Pt. II
With the track plan decided upon, and the layout making progress, there was somewhat of a need to test the work being done. I had previously bought a cheap(ish) loco to do exactly that, but it turned out to be …
The Tale of the Track Tester
A few weeks back, after understanding the difference between H0 and 00 gauge, I decided to switch to H0, simply because it offers a much larger variety and is not just limited to primarily British models. I sold my 00 …