Sean

ugh its like the whole "light machine oil" debacle all over again

so i got these tubes of grease in the post today; https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/products/twin-pack-model-railway-grease?_pos=4&_sid=319807b91&_ss=r problem is there is absolutely no description of what types of grease they are or what areas they should be applied to, does anybody know? the white stuff looks just like the stuff you would see inside the A class bogies.

Was pretty underwhelmed by the iPhone speaker I fitted the last day so this morning I'll be attempting to squeeze in this fancy one from road and rails.

VID20230810000352.mp4 Perhaps the finished product will explain things a little better

This is an open source wireless throttle for DCC++ it has a 1 inch OLED display and onboard charging via this full sized usb-b connector, I could have used micro usb here but I did not because i hate that particular connector. Overall it is a very simple build consisting of 4 components(plus the extra usb port and battery) works with or without JMRI. https://github.com/flash62au/WiTcontroller/ Now its time to wire it and hopefully flash the software and away I go.

Something different for tonight. Been looking forward to this for a little while.

will it be known by the time we can order them?

How much are they need to decide how many i cant afford. Will you ask paddy to ship a few hundred extra wipers and handrails and make them available as some sort of repair pack for the older models? lol a man can dream.

your not gonna want to hear this, but take it to the repair shop, not a big box phone store as they will likely tell you its a write off. Think the places you would go to get your console repaired. the guys there will be able to attach that in a few minutes using a hot air station. only issue is they MAY have to strip it down to the bare board to do the job although you could do this part yourself if the store are agreeable. Im fairly sure that connector is for a wifi antenna and the PCB lists it as number 2 with number one still being intact on the left. If so then in theory the phone will still work with that bit unplugged but your wifi signal could suffer as a result, what type of phone is it? in both cases note that these guys are using microscopes to see properly what they are doing! i stopped replacing my phone screens because i was smashing them so often...........

I have been under the impression it will be these two livery types (obviously the mkd versions) I dont think theres more supertrain coming.

Sadly it did not work as the magnets themselves are just too strong and the loco wheelspins instead of pulling away gracefully. Ive got somthing else to try but i reckon i will be happy enough with hand uncoupling for the forseeable. its one thing i really dont mind too much.

Hey @DJ Dangerous Looks like i was wrong about uncoupling now to decide if i actually want/need such a thing before i go spreading ballast!

Twins out These have to be my two favourites

Good shout on the glass doors, that cat is definitely taunting you and looking for its next victim!

edit: Also, last night i fitted a set onto a short ballast rake, plough van and hopper as they are only to be used on straight track in my setup. this probabaly applies to mag too but no guarentees. as per kadee etc they have to be fixed onto the bottom of the nem pocket due to the height issue. Results were pleasantly surprising however, as I was expecting zero cornering ability at all. Indeed a 181 violently flicked the wagon off the rails but a 121 was able to get the wagon through the points if i lightly had my finger on the roof. going to try again tonight with a 121 and some sort of weight in the hopper to see if it can make it without human intervention, I am fairly optimistic. With regards to the remote uncoupling, I dont think thats possible at all but ive also kinda developed an ethos that its not really necessary with these as you can easily uncouple these without derailing the entire train, which is the MASSIVE drawback for Tension locks. I dont really mind using "the hand of god" here because on the real railway things are coupled and broken up by hand and in a shunting yard all the switching is done by hand so i also end up applying the same logic to all the points on my layout.

At this stage ive put them onto a good range of IRM stuff as well as the accurascale pfa and both types of baby GM. In general they are working for me on anything with kinematic or bogie mounted nem pockets but fixed nem are generally incompatible (more on that later) For me to be satisfied they must be able to go through my set of peco settrack points crossing over, so im setting the bar a little high. the only caveat that i have found is that on locomotives and certain wagons (including P42) you must space the coupler out or buffer lock will be commonly experienced , this is consistent with reviews left on the IRM site when others have tried using them on locomotives. its not really a big deal and if you put a small amount of pva onto the very end of the dellner, set it to your needs and come back the next day the glue should be solid enough to pull a train whilst still being removable from the socket later (first few times i done this the glue unstuck the next day because i had'nt added enough out of fear of permenantly sticking them in) Looking at your photo it looks like you've seated them all the way into the socket so i have a feeling you will be derailing from buffer contact rather than the ol, coupling flick. Heres what my A looks like with a flat for comparison; What i have found is that whenever I try them on a new piece of stock and get buffer lock on the crossover, spacing them out until the face of the magnets are sitting just proud of the buffers, they are spaced out a tiny bit on the flats but by a good amount on the loco. NOW!, These photos highlight somthing that has been ticking me off for a little while. One of us, likely me, have put the dellners on upside down! Anybody know which way is supposed to go up? I aint changing mine either way

Have you anything from Tinahely? the station i have planned (mostly in my head lol) is sort of a hybrid of three stations, Initially I was looking at gorey but the sheer lenght of the place made it unfeasible to do properly so i started looking at the other stations on the network and stumbled upon tinahely which in my head is a cut down version of the track plan at gorey, So essentially as a modellers comprimise I will be building the gorey station around the tinahely track plan. then after that its going to resemble Arklow in terms of surrounding buildings and surrounding roads and infrastructure, that evolution is more of a conincidence though. Your latest book is on my list for within the next week or 2 which will undoubtedly help me, have you got any copies left?

192 arrives in with her first liner load after being transferred to the yard for long freight runs

15 minutes later. Methinks it was very generous to allot an hour to this task

kinda feeling bad for my 192 which does not see enough time on the layout so shes in for the works tonight before being transferred to east wall tomorrow in anticipation for a new project. mag couplings iphone 5 speaker 645 loksound should take me about an hour or so,

You know they make tablets for that

4 trains seems like a good rule of thumb, 12 dependant on load sounds very misleading. https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201479649-How-many-trains-can-I-run-on-a-Power-Cab- (I think this is official NCE documentation, not sure) @Leynyshould check out this link to as a follow up to questions raised in his thread. my own system is 2A and they recommend 2 or 3 trains in the documentation so i think this is a good rule of thumb. totally agree about the blanking plates, I usually incorrectly refer to them as a dc decoder as technically that is kinda what they are there for. re the non standard function list, I usually just leave them alone as with the more advanced controllers you can usually put a custom label onto functions, I can see why you would be more inclined to change to a standardised set with a basic interface such as that of the EZ command.... I actually have a bit of a soft spot for that controller too as ive got the analog version here (ez control) and i do miss having hands on control of a throttle from time to time, sometimes using an app is boring

the stock should go around fine for the most part but alot of the time you will run into issues with the buffers and or couplings binding and this causes derailments. so start with short trains and keep a close eye on these areas for fouling.

true but its a good bit of extra work for a simple 1-10 address change