Workshop Wednesday

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the workbench is so delightful.

I needed to go back to programing locomotives, and today was a great day for it. I had a real nice view from the workbench while the snow came down. Pictured is a Scaletrains SD38-2 that is next up on the programing track. The SW1500s aren't quite enough by themselves, so they're about to receive some help.

 

I finally tackled another issue today. I have both road numbers of the O/W VO-1000 from Bowser. Both have had electrical pickup issues since I got them, and they ended up parked most of the time. Clean track and clean wheels didn't seem to make a difference, so I figured at some point I would add a keep alive to them. At the time, I couldn't find a 21 pin decoder that was ready to accept such a device so I kept kicking the can until I had time to replace the entire board.

Fast forward to earlier this week, I'm looking for something else on the digitrax website, and see their new series 7 decoders and notice the 21 pin model is ready to plug and play with their power pack (their keep alive system). I thought sure let's give it a try. The new components showed up today so I went right to work with the installation. By sheer luck, they both fit under the shell without any modifications. The power pack is down on top of the front truck. I'll have to get these guys on the new layout and see if they work better now.

 

One more for this weekend. This project had been on the back burner, but a conversation with friend of the forum Rick McClellan got me going on it. Both Rick and I were looking for a way to patch out a Rock Island GP38-2 to match how they looked in their early second lives with the MoP. Here's the solution I cooked up: 1/4" wide yellow painters tape painted in your choice of paint color. I went with black for my project because I needed some similar patch outs elsewhere.

Is it as crisp as applying a decal? No.
Is it a viable option if you're not sure you want to permanently change a $200 engine? Yes

Rick and I have different plans for our patch out units. His is actually supported by prototype photos. Mine admittedly skews more proto-lance. But, I can now have 2 MP GP38-2s in-service.