Sean

hmmm, upon reinspection my 141 does NOT have the head and marker seperated at the moment, so what the hell did i do to think i did

when you extract the wavs from the MM201 .ESU file for a closer look........

Sure pull a rake of spoils with one. it wont spontaneously combust

yes, playing with toy trains has provided great relief and distraction from worries regarding world events over the past few months.

not a bad idea, those pictures are taken using linux off a 10 inch netbook so leave a lot to be desired. JMRI runs really well on really old crappy hardware so i like being able to upcycle what i have lying around and watts consumed are always on my mind so it was ideal candidate for JMRI. sounds complex but its simples really. JMRI(java model railroad interface) reads all of the data off an esu decoder without the need for an expensive lokprogrammer. (screenshot is the A class decoder but its all the same) its a bit like a spreadsheet then. the first column deals with each function and what it does in each direction. the second column programs just what the function does. i.e each aux corresponds with a physical connection wire somewhere within the loco and turns it on or off. take for example Forward.F4 - Aux 3 and Reverse F.4 -Aux 4 (rows 8 and 9) When forward is selected and you turn on F4 it will turn on Aux 3( the front headlight) but when reverse is selected it now lights aux 4(rear headlight) and aux 3 turns off because it is no longer selected. you can tie as many aux to a single function as you like and they dont have to be directional as can be seen on F2 which is currently linked to toggle shunting mode instead of a physical wire.. when everything is tweaked to your fancy, you simply hit write changes to sheet and it will reprogram the decoder with no need for an expensive lokprogrammer, my dcc base station/programmer combo cost me less than 20 quid to put together and can be reliably driven from an app on my phone for throttle control. its only 1.5 amps though which limits the amount of trains that can run at one time without some kinda booster.

is that confirmation on the IRM GM and Toothpaste range so? "POWERED ITEMS"

hey gph. take a look at my dcc workbench thread. this post will show you exactly how to change the F0 issue for the markers and headlights being tied together on the 141/181. thats using a 121 esu decoder in jmri. not sure about 071 i have never used one but im sure it would be a similar sort of nuance.

And just for fun here's the latest gl8

so here we go again. Admittedly the train to skaville soon blew up due to a myriad of issues with the design. I'll discuss just WHY when I give an overview soon, all issues came down to trying to run a 6 watt amp with a rather underpowered 5v converter and windows insisting on 100% volume everytime the Bluetooth clicked off and back on and trying to have a stay alive with no diodes. It worked for about an hour before going kaput However now impressed with the tech I'm after spending a few Bob on components that should bring the desired outcome with all of my locos. New soldering iron,, glue gun the lot. Will update soon with hopefully a working loco.

will try and get that for you this evening im also trying to put together sound projects for the jmri virtual sound decoder, only at the very early stages though,

dont suppose you can get your hands on a spare buffer beam for mm201 dave?

I dont have a specific guide but you need to put the loco onto the programming track and then open decoder pro and click add new loco, you get a list of decoders to chose from here but its best to hit "read type from decoder" and JMRI should select the decoder type automatically, when you have the loco added double click it and you will see a box pop up containing loads of different tabs. scroll down and hit read all sheets and jmri will read all of the settings from the decoder 1 by 1, takes a few minutes........ make any changes and the write sheet options as you can guess writes the new settings back into the decoder, you can write an individual sheet or the entire decoder from here so take care to select the right option. i cant really give advice beyond this as im using ESU decoders however all the steps up to this point should be roughly the same. FUNCTION MAP FUNCTION OUTPUT and FUNCTION SETTINGS are where you will find the programming options for the lights. (you want to be in function map for the initial setup) if you want I will read off the function map from an ESU decoder and post it up here. you would just have to change the physical wire parameter to suit your own decoder. you dont need any sort of special programmer at all with jmri, just pop the loco on the programming track. its possible to get the marker lights working independantly to the headlights with 141/181 using this programmer, a feature i know some users struggled to get going with other systems.

this is what we got as revenge.....

whys it being piloted by a really creepy looking boris johnson lookalike? i really enjoy seeing different exports of the EMD locos's the GL8(121) in particular went around the world and can be found in loads of gauges. https://www.facebook.com/ferromodelismorealrail.trenes/posts/1391265241059234/ theres also the GA8 variant making up a pretty large family of motive power. notice the tiny bogies on this one! I certainly never noticed those foreign 071 variants before now!

sheeeeesh same seller, not a bad deal until you realise youve preordered far superior versions of the same thing due in a few months.... maybe he wants these sold quickly so he can fund the new ones haha

Ya but can your loksound do this?? VID20220330210254.mp4 IE familliarity and training day on the new Caribbean prime movers The stay alive capacitor is going to be 100% needed so not gonna post up any diagrams or parts lists until I find out how they fit into this..... I have no diodes so unless I can find a nice circuit without one I'm snared until I order more bits. There seems to be a few at least so I may experiment. That's definitely the hardest part sussed

some lad in canada with the same sort of notions! seems to be a general theme on ebay of limited run or niche stuff going for 3-4x its worth not long after the production of them winds up

so I made this today. For one reason or another my BT board released its magic blue smoke and no longer works. I don't think the regulator was properly regulating. Oh well. Thus I have had to concede that my electronical theory isn't up to scratch for putting together the 5v regulator part of the circuit. It's not all bad though as I did get a better understanding of how the bridge rectifier works as well as the seperate components in the BT board and because of this a new baby gm friendly version has been developed and will be assembled on Wednesday in 201. With a few to doing 141 as soon as we get a successful run done. Unsure of doing 121 due to the convoluted railing system so that could well end up being the one that gets a proper esu. Beyond that I have some other fun stuff planned with sound but next in line will be point and signal control using servo motors and finally layout lighting.

facebook killed off the majority of good internet forums, so its still good to have at least one stay active

I dont want to move the station as its sort of "built in" to the side of the hill i have made and i have a nice plan to integrate those, i also like having the bit of space to show off a few model cars. as for the buildings though do you mean moving them into the blank space between the fuel and hard standing? in reality on the layout that bit is all covered by the freight yard, however your comment has given me a little idea. I do want to expand the bottom siding a little which would give trains a proper straight run to couple up to 3 flats. to do this i would probably have to delete the buildings, moving the road off to the very left hand side. the main purpose of the buildings is to disguise the transition where the train leaves the layout, but in practice i need bigger buildings. what i might do is build a new embankment on the left hand side. a bit wider this time and with a road on top. the road can run over the top and it can ramp down and meet the platform that way, this would give plenty of room to display a few cars whilst also covering up the trains route in and out of the layout. it would also completely bypass the sheer annoyance of having to keep the road closed for long periods of time whenever a train was shunting in and out of the yard, a practice which was sure to enrage most of the locals before long!

really cool idea about the turntable david, unfortunately I have built a hillside and permenant platforms on the layout now so any changes like this would be a major reconstruction. I can still make changes to the left hand side of things. I am considering investing in hunt couplings, they seem to be a good solution with easy uncoupling but we shall see, im still messing with track ideas. thankfully the crossover i have any bogie stock poses no issues, somthing extra to think about though. went and set this one up as I already have all the track in stock so its just a matter of altering things on the baseboard. had a play with it and everything works and asthetically operations on the middle siding look for better than they did before. it has however introduced a new trope of anything that parks in the loop will need to move out of the way for middle siding access. not ideal, workable but slightly annoying. so upon looking closer i soon seen a solution that allows the turntable to stay whilst allowing for the wider loop as discussed earlier. now the middle siding has a nice straight drive in, and all points will work without issue, unfortunately you could park up a full lenght train in the middle siding before and with the new plan that will be no longer possible. which brought me to this design, seems to capture the best of all worlds so far, middle siding is better now because it doesnt start on a turn, another great cause of coupling annoyance. the bottom siding DOES, i am considering changes to make it one set track longer, which would eliminate the last of the coupling annoyances. this would also mean a redesign of the street area, which has not been permenantly built just yet anyway. so it could well happen. the fuelling siding has been shortened but this is not a big deal. tankers are always removed after delivery and otherwise one or 2 locos can be parked up there.

these were released in january for £350 there are unpowered units available too for mad money VAT on top of course

the last time i paid i brought in some old components via address pal (think a few old xeons and 32gb or so of ddr3) got stung with a hefty hefty bill that was nearly the value of the components with no means to actually appeal it. have since stopped buying cheap components. that was either 2020 or 2021.

wait what....... postage is included now too? They arent even stickers, they are a big metal plate!