Grims is there an plastic friendly oil you can buy at the local hardware store rather than a hobbies store as the nearest one is 100 mi from me
is there an plastic friendly oil you can buy at the local hardware store rather than a hobbies store as the nearest one is 100 mi from me
I've read on another site that "Mobil 1 Synthetic Oil" is plastic compatable.
I haven't tried it, but it sounds reasonable.
from the Mobil website:
"It is fully compatible with the elastomeric materials from which all automotive seals and gaskets are made."
Railroad Crossings: Thinning the gene pool daily!
another dumb question is there an plastic friendly oil you can buy at the local hardware store rather than a hobbies store as the nearest one is 100 mi from me
When I read about the evils of drinking I quit reading.
@ cabbage I am doing much the same thing. years of modeling in RC planes,boats,scale ships not to mention designing machines I think i might be able to get trough this alright im just afraid of what I dont know...hence all my stupid questions here where im sure many readers read my questions and roll there eyes.
On a lighter note even though I own my house and all the land there appear to be sections of my yard i dont own evidently anything designated "garden" apparently is not mine so like the real RR of old i will have to negotiate land rights to expand my RR and seeing how the land owner lives with me I know first hand how underhanded and ruthless she can be and this land owner also controls some of the RR financing this is going to be a long hard road to be sure and I fear the honey do list will be growing soon.
I have always maintained that Garden Railways need not be expensive. My own personal budget for my railway has had to under go a 50% increase this year -I now allot £15 per week to it, this is due to the Chancellor of the Exchequer raising the VAT rather than price increases... Take the viewpoint that: I want this -how do I make it happen? I am a scratch builder -this means that I make my models from junk and stuff that no-one needs. A little design ingenuity and hey presto - a loco. Everything that you need to build a railway can be found in your house. An anti gurgle valve for a washing machine becomes a boiler for a Shay. Scent bottle tops and bath bottle tops become steam and sand domes. "Modified" hair curlers become electrical control equipment for a diesel.
As I deal with the recycle from the house -I often ask myself -what can I make from this?
regards
ralph
The Home of Articulated Ugliness
thanx greg i installed a fuse as you suggested did a quick static test and it worked great it also helps my charger can be turned down to two amps. the 110v dimer switch didnt work however so i might go with some sort of 24v variable speed control of some sort . just the control no power.
Ed
Add an inexpensive automotive fuse between the power supply and the track. Since you have 10 amps available, you really don't want all that through a short circuit. I would start with a 3 amp fuse. The fuse holder and fuse are cheap, from any auto parts store.
You want to be sure your battery charger is just a simple transformer and a rectifier, no electronics, otherwise your scheme won't work.
Regards, Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
Thanx two tone while i would love to have the best of everything start up costs of buying everything to once has put a drain on the bank account. i have even gone so far as to eye ball my battery charger (12 volt 10 amp) and 110 volt rheostat and a polarity reversing switch i built for a controller to save some cash.
maybe im not wealthy enough for this hobbie but im gonna try a little at a time.bought enough rail and ties and joiners from switch crafters to make a loop around my pond and water fall but that will probably get boring real fast.gonna try bending my own rails.
time will tell but the journey is more than half the fun.
Hi Grims to the garden railways, I use pheonix sound, its not cheap but I think its the best and the service they give is a 110%. I run track power and have magnets in the track to trigger the sounds. I have chuff bell coal fill water fill all are controlled by reed switches under the tender. The chuff has 2 small round magnets on the back axcil of the tender it gives better chuff than linking it to the loco system. Hope this helps.
Age is only a state of mind, keep the mind active and enjoy life
thanx k strong for your answer thats what i wanted to know i thought about buying an old beat up tender off e-bay that had sound and parting it out. ill look on some of these sites
thanx again
The 2-8-0 doesn't come with sound from the factory, so you're on your own. I did a GR Basics column on sound and control systems a while back. I forget when, but probably two or three years. Summarizing from that:
A few options:
Cheap - MyLocoSound, analog chuff, but sounds reasonable. Whistle is pretty good. Bell leaves a lot to be desired, but you can turn that off. The whistle triggers by closing a switch. Magnet reed switches would work, but you'd get a quick "toot" instead of a long whistle pattern.
Mid-range - Dallee, digital chuff, bell, and whistle, though it's "monophonic," so when you blow the whistle or ring the bell, the chuff drops away. Not noticeable on the whistle, but on the bell it can be. The whistle can be triggered by a magnet. For track power, I'd recommend getting the one that plays a random whistle pattern each time the switch is closed.
Mid-range - Soundtraxx Sierra (Long out of producton, but show up on ebay.) Digital sound for everything, and can play multiple sounds at once. The bell and whistle can be triggered by track voltage or magnetic triggers, and you can program their behavior to some extent.
High-end - Phoenix PB11. Yeah, it's more than twice the price of the others, but it's programmable, and can run off of track power and DCC should you decide to upgrade later, so you can recoup some of the cost then. Phoenix is arguably the gold standard for large scale sound systems.
In all of these cases, running off of track power, you're going to need some kind of battery back-up for when the track voltage gets low. Dallee, Sierra, and Phoenix come with batteries (or at the least tell you how to wire them.
Dallee, Phoenix, and MyLocoSound all advertise in GR, and are very helpful over the phone or via e-mail if you have questions. Phoenix has an on-line library where you can listen to all their sounds. Dallee has dome digital recordings of their sounds, and may be able to e-mail you samples. You can hear MyLocoSound samples by going to their web site and clicking on the links to YouTube video. It's not the greatest representation of how they really sound, but it's fairly close.
Later,
K
For the past week i have been sitting on my deck anxiously awaiting my first train to arrive. Starring up the road like a little kid waiting for the ice cream truck. Finally yesterday it arrived (still waiting on track)so i opened it up was really pleased that i understood the mechanics of how this all worked and confident that i could master this RR stuff pretty well that is until it came to sound. I opened the tender to see what had to be added switched or bought to get the basic chuff sound to work (im not going for DCC just yet gonna start with basic track power) and found nothing no speaker no circuit board just wires to the pick ups and back up light .
So with a tear in my eye i got online and started looking to see what i had to buy to make this work. thats when it hit me" I have no idea what im looking at or for" found sound cards with speakers but didnt know what i needed.
So here I stand beaten down before i begin...not a good start.
Its a G scale bachmann spectrum 2-8-0 can anyone tell me what to look for and can you tell me in RR for dummies terms.
Thanx Ed
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