Sean

I'd buy that only im poor again 

On 26/2/2022 at 5:50 PM, Ironroad said:

When I see these, I'm suspicious of their provenance.

well maybe whoever is ripping them off could churn out some fake 071's to appease all of our lusting for one 

the hill itself is nothing special, i just got the basic structure built out of polystyrene bits and built up a layer of powdered filler,badly painted green with random poster paints, then painted again with an extremelly thick layer of pva for the scatter application.

Brown scatter does not seem to be available to buy, and at this stage most people seem to use sieved garden dirt, Instead ive been using sieved coconut coir which to me seems like a much easier option to work with as it does not disintegrate when it gets wet, less mess and just wipes away from the backscene when wet without leaving any skidmarks! Coco bricks are available as bedding for reptiles in most pet stores and as a soil mix in garden centres. it is a sustainable alternative to peat and compost made from coconut shells. 

it also wicks up moisture, including pva glue, so its easy to apply in thick coats , covering up any craters left behind in the filler build up stage.

After the initial application onto the wet layer of glue we applied earlier I spray over the top layer with watered down pva so that the adhesive wicks through the entire application of coco and it all sticks nicely together, the mess on the backscene then just wipes away without any fuss and you can pat down the coco edges with your fingers quite easily.

looks a bit dark and messy but that will only be temporary.

after a couple of days its drying out to a nice earthy colouration(like coconuts!) ready for scattering, fences, cows and lichen. I dont do static grass just yet. have used this exact same procedure to great effect on my n layout so im confident ill have a nice little corner here when im done..... most of the coco feels solid now but some areas still feel a little loose, so another dusting with pva water and hoovering away the excess when dry should be all i need to do to have a nice little hillside in just a few evenings of an hour here and there.  

otherwise not much has happened i have been lazy about relaying the track, as im still thinking about making the jump to peco electrofrogs all around so no trains have ran. I'll be making a push to finish off the hill as the cows etc are on the way and i have scatter and lichen here to finish stuff off. need to get the finger out and wire for DCC. 

a carpenter friend has been comissioned to build a simple turntable mechanism based on a h0 design from youtube, chances are it will remain hand cranked, although with my new foray into the digital world im going to fully motorise the points using cheap servo motors so you never know i might come up with some sort of motor solution in due course.

Російська армія, іди на хуй

Very little has happened for about a week now as i have been away on london and in awe at how cool the underground system is.

I ended up making a big earth mound in order to try and sort of 3d the background a little instead of it being totally flat image, this approach has some limitations given the compact nature of the baseboard. it should be okay, and the base of the hill is going to tightly integrate into the beginning of the platform  to tie it all together.

I was experimenting with using a curved bit of sky to take out the last of the corner feeling alright but as of yet havent done so.

its going to have a field with cows ontop to add a little bit of interest and distraction from the railway. next step will be to scatter it and preparing for said scening as a field. i have bought fences and stone walls in order to have variety to experiement.

have held off on ballast wagons for a while now due to not being able to get these so I was delighted to see a small restocking of them on the site,  along with some of the other classics that must of gotten lost down the back of the warehouse sofa for the last while  ,  was a little dissapointed to see the IR version sold out with only the IE remaining, but whatever a minor detail i ordered it anyway. was only delighted to see the IR version turn up today anyway. so a happy mistake :D.

IR ballast pack A is now on the way from marks along with some more scenics to keep things progressing, the next couple of evenings should focus on getting a good thick layer of scatter onto the newly built earth mound.

I think with it being n and so small i started with one end and sort of rolled it on, but its over a year ago so i cant remember for sure, one thing i do remember was that they had to be cut out of a larger piece with a scissors, no nice perforation around the shape to peel away.

there was another company that did them called electra rail and i was dissapointed that i did not try them instead of the ebay ones as the quality looked a bit better.

ive done these mk3's in n..... not sure but i think its the same seller its a while ago now. initially i recieved transfers very close to the "executive" coach colour but once i complained i was sent another set.

they do the job but not sure i would buy again, i would definitely go for a more expensive set.

yep sat here and watched them all sell out....... decided on ballast ploughs though, since not having them was putting me off starting a rake. was either that or cement bubbles and i dont really want to add a cement plant to my layout. the lights will be fun to play with

this restocking event has me filled with indecisiveness, everythings gonna be gone by the time my mind is made up!

a few things that i had relinquished as "its gone never to be bought again" are now all in my face at once  the the wallet is currently holding moths......

Will investigate during the week as I have to borrow a Windows laptop each time I wanna mess around. I reckon I'll be putting a better computer together from the scrap pile this week. Have a sound card with 8 outputs too so that should be interesting.

Is the sharing of esu files/flashing to multiple decoders to be frowned upon?

Or is it upto the manufacturer to protect them? I see they can be locked to only work on a certain decoder.

My justification is that whilst the coaches fit my era they did not exist in this guise until 20 years later so I can be a bit "loose" about my choice of loco. 

It can be my own little tribute to the cset locos at Downpatrick pulling flying snail coaches 

Came on to post that listing.. it really takes the p*ss

Someone's still getting ripped off....

Whilst in reality I am flying though things in my head I'm slowly getting there

The old pva trick worked as I was able to spray paint down the concrete with cheap nasty deals primer without melting the surface of the layout

Yea got my set secured as well, first time ever making a pre order of any kind

Shamelessly, im gonna pull them with one of these things! 

44 minutes ago, Adrian said:

@raymurph I was in the exact same boat a few months ago - looking to build up a fleet and nothing in production. Best bet is keep an eye open on this forum, get in touch with the contacts above and watch eBay  

I would definitely grab a couple of 121s from Marks before they are gone too - I’d even ring up and buy them as opposed to depending on a visit. At least then you’ll have something to play with  Also they had some 071 sound decoders last week so perhaps grab one of those even before you find a loco, as they sell out quickly too

Lastly Roads & Rails in the UK do quality sound decoders for 121s (two different engine types) as well as the 141/181 - I’ve bought a few and would recommend them

Best of luck, these locos do come available from time to time so patience is needed, bear in mind though you will likely need between €200-€400 per loco though, so start saving!

Are the sound decoders limited runs or are they in constant production? since after all the actual decoder itself is going to be in constant production.

these look great!

last few announcments have been a little "meh" for me but only because the models didnt fit into the greater scheme of what i have been trying to do on my layout....

that being said these more than make up for that! and reassures me a bit of more liverys coming down the pipeline.

hoping i can get a pre order in before they are all gone, on that note,  maybe the  unpaid pre order option could be resinstated on the condition that pre orders must pay a deposit? i would happily go for this and put down 25% if it meant the item was secured for a later date. (will email for a payment plan later)

also noticing how this is called "set 1" when are ye announcing set 2?

That boards looks absolutely PERFECT for the job and you know its gonna be tiny when you see that micro usb connector. took apart the lynx pack and its essentially one of those although the pcb is a bit too big for a loco, its a good starting point for mounting into a building etc.

that board is actually capable of 2x3 watt so i bet they could be tied together into a 6 watt package for mono setups like we have in our locos.

not sure about FT just yet,  I dont think its enabled by default  but at the same time i really dont know what i should be listening for, i was trying to use isolation switch and reverser centre functions and they were not responding as expected, however they are disabled by default in the files anyway.  nextgen does send throttle info and the default enabled functions just fine except now the loco responds to functions both on the decoder and in nextgen so its a little bit of a mess until i get in and map them out to different f numbers.

I assume it should work but i dont really know how it should be behaving with it turned on so cant really say until i investigate further.

wasnt too fond of that corner and ive already got a fairly busy scene for buildings so i just spontaneously put this mound together tonight, will model a little field edge on the top of it and it should look decent.

a rare appearance from an out of era spoil, totally acceptable whilst we are still under construction as how else would we build the model without modern day stock  

kinda mad to think this "corner" of the layout will be complete as soon as i get some ballast down and all the white surfaces covered. its my first "all irish" layout and definitely the most prototypical ive built so far. 

Im now most looking forward to 

still trying to decide between beet doubles and pallet cement as my last source of industry  

i have some ambitious plans going forward in terms of adding sound and lights, so maybe its good that im geting all the model work done now and I did always anticipate this to be a quick project.

ya your right, seems to be mention of an amp board too in the comments, 

another possibility would be a small  battery powered bluetooth box, have an old lynx one here that im gonna pull apart for a look tonight , only downside is you would need to get at the charging port easily, so im thinking 141 would be a good contender since the cab comes off so easily.

looks like bachmann have an implementation of it in their app too.

How old are the reach stackers used in this video? have been hesitant to buy some lately as they seem a bit too modern for my era.

Interesting.

In theory once theres enough current then somthing like this could be dropped in and wired to the existing speakers set up as a set of headphones within windows

https://gleanntronics.ie/en/products/bluetooth-audio-receiver-module-5v-for-diy-wireless-speaker-3099.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAjc2QBhDgARIsAMc3SqT0NNcSf37RttamCCVKjc7j_NFhYLLoBSNlkVpMJw41PaBzEhZpgMMaArf_EALw_wcB

Does anybody know what voltage the aux pins on a 21 pin decoder are outputting at or if 5v is present anywhere on the decoder or loco pcb?

can only link you to some random german forum theres no website or anything for the project as such, but videos of it working on youtube... i think its safe but as always with random.exe files take care. my german is poor to nonexistent so you may find better insight there than I have ha.

https://www.stummiforum.de/t200523f7-NextGen-the-Windows-loksound-simulator-free-download.html

not inside or part of rocrail as such its more of like a "plugin" for z21 systems and it just so happens rocrail can emulate z21,

the only downside im seeing so far is that it only supports esu 5 files, so the 071 and 201 downloads on esu's site are not working as they are esu 4 files.

im hoping i can make a small alteration with the lokprogrammer and resave these so that they become esu 5 files. worst coming to worst i can live with american prime mover sounds and ill find an irish horn somewhere, i was always just gonna put a class 66 hornby chip into 201 anyway so i dont need exact accuracy to be satisfied  

suddenly a wheeltappers Baby GM file becomes an attractive proposition to purchase.

ah yes so the plot thickens even further.

found out that rocrail supports both dcc++ and it can be configured to as a z21 base station in a sort of passthrough manner; im in luck!

figured out that rocrail is not that bad and just needed another guide to get me started as the menus are a bit nuanced. (its definitely not as stable as jmri as it crashed a few times) once i had that working i added the z21 server and fired up my third party solution.

this is where things get interesting because now my throttle app doesnt work anymore, but the official z21 one does, and it feels a good bit easier/more comfy to use, and the functions seem more straight forward.

There is another application now also listening on the z21 server and this is where the sounds are being generated.

So why have i gone to all this extra trouble you may ask? well mostly because i wanted  the 8-567 and 12-645e and the jmri option had been only offering me 16 cylinder versions that left a lot to be desired in terms of detail.

 we are now decoding .esu files!

to take things a step further even, the person developing this has begun mounting bluetooth speakers within locos. possibly a sign of where the tech might be going soon. whats interesting is i see scope for having the bluetooth speaker complimented by some sort of small sub woofer hidden somewhere near the baseboard.

so something else in terms of sound also which could be possible using jmri, the audio backend really reminds me of the audio engine within a video game, i see there may be some scope to add 2 or 4 speakers into the corners of the layout which carry a panned soundscape of the surroundings on the baseboard, an example of this would be the sound of welding buzz coming from the car garage on my layout in the right location, there may be also some scope to trigger effects based on block occupancy, for example the layout has 3 points in a row at one stage. it would be cool to set these up as a block that triggers the sound of flange squeal in the location of the block in question and stops it once the train is off..

it could be done over multiple different blocks depending on where it would be desired. other effects could be triggered in such a manner too.

one thing i will definitely be doing once the layout is all set back up is i will be setting up 130 with the push pull carriages as a shuttle that comes and goes in between manual freight workings.

thans for posting these, have decided to go down a bit of a different path for sound but these will sure come in handy as reference pieces