Forward dating a Southern Railway E8A

Thanks Claus, Peter.

Long vision is fine, close-up needs a new prescription. Having moved down from HO to N I'm not having difficulty working at the smaller scale. I did a fair amount of modeling previously in HOn3 and OO-9, so working with small bits and pieces is nothing new, and I have a tool set to match. Modern HO and OO have not, in my opinion, done any favors to those of us who like to fiddle, fettle, bash, and change. Unless it's DCC-ready (and well-designed) the space inside is full of cast alloy. Steam tender models excepted. One thing I like is getting the body shell off an  N-scale diesel takes about 10 seconds. And no screws.     Older N-scale models tend to have no space for decoders/speakers. new ones do. I digress.

Yesterday was a 2-steps back day. It turns out the stated dimensions for the ESU decoder do not take into account the wiring. One of those Hobson's Choice moments. And definitely a "Would you believe it!" moment. Elongating the fuel tank will interfere with the truck rotation. Forcing the wires will compromise the soldering. So…move the decoder to the chassis, which will mean some metal removal from those weights, and move one speaker to the fuel tank, one speaker inside. More metal removal. It's a nice day, so on with the gloves and off with the metal.  More on that in the next post.

The ESU decoder came without the E8A sound files installed (I had asked), so an ESU programmer ("Lok Programmer") is coming next week. Something new for me to play around with (and which I have zero experience of). I have several ESU decoders that could benefit from updated sound schemes.

Cheers,

Nigel

I admire your skills in working on such small models Nigel !

Re the lok programmer, I believe   SRman has used one quite a bit so should be a good port of call for any questions  you might have  


Looking forward to seeing what comes next

Cheers

Matt

Hi Matt,

it's a nice piece of kit - serial/USB cable, transformer, programmer. As usual with ESU these days no documentation in the box. Sort of commits me to ESU LokSound decoders. Which is OK, I have been using them since around 2004 (V3 and V3.5). I'll make a start next week - income taxes got in the way of life last week.

I was looking at a Proto2000 SD-9 HO model in Great Northern colors recently that has been in storage for a couple of years. It has DCC sound (LokSound V4) but with a mess of wiring inside. I may use a Plex-18 V5 with a light board and rewire it properly for lighting. After working on N-scale models it's amazing how much space (potential or actual) there is inside.

Nigel

I'd not thought of that Nigel, after working on all those N guage Locos, Ho/oo must seam positively cavernous ! 
  I struggle with 'neat and tidy' even in OO  I find myself so short of time these days I have to try and NOT rush whatever I am working on, take the time to at least finish one thing at a time as its too easy to leave something in pieces for days, weeks, a month or two and then forget what, how and where you were with it. I think I've fallen into the same trap as many others ? too little time and spreading that time too thinly in too many directions. I'm actually trying to cut back on 'Projects' and spend at least  SOME time just running trains.

looking forward to whatever is next on your 'to do' list ?

cheers

Matt

Hi Matt,

I'm a bit of a gadfly when it comes to modeling. I do try and focus on one thing at a time, but I have 4 Es (E6A, E6B, E7A, E8A) I'm working on simultaneously. Golden rule - only one locomotive on the work board at a time.
Otherwise things get put on where they shouldn't be. Or even worse taken off.    I also put a big label on the model so I know immediately which one I'm going to work on. One thing I've learned since moving to N scale is there are limitations and compromises. Change what you can, live with what you can't. Ignore the rest. I limit the time I spend on anything to an hour. If I hit a roadblock then a break of a few days (or even weeks) working on something else or just doing some research means a fresh mind.

The Es are on hold for the moment - I have a clinic on track building coming up in May that I have to prepare for. Plus code 40 rail is once again available and I can start on some tangent track (and maybe some turnouts, although code 55 turnouts to code 40 track is not an issue). And I'll be traveling for most of April.

I'm going to revisit my HO scale locomotives at some point now I have the LokSound programmer. And maybe rejoin my local HO modular group. Which usually attends the same shows as the N-TRAK group. Saturday N, Sunday HO?

Nigel