Replacement of temporary capacitor discharge unit with permanent unit.
Final assembly of control panel.
What no camera Grommet?!!! No one had a camera - lots of excuses, but no camera - so photos will have to follow (possibly).
To get things rolling, Geoff had made up a small CD unit, but it couldn't cope with grouped points. EBay provided a pack of new capacitors, 6 of which were soldered in parallel. The charging regulator circuit from John's original CD unit (a Geoff creation) was added, and both units fitted into the control panel with double sided tape.
The mis-placed connector bolts on the control panel cover were moved to allow the cover to fit the frame and the unit was finally assembled.
The layout was assembled and we tested the CD unit, which albeit a little loud, worked well. We then had a running session and it became obvious that the CD unit would have to be powered from a separate transformer, as the loco's stopped each time the unit recharged.
We then discovered several pieces of stock fouled on the Kadee uncoupling magnets. The stock magnets passed inspection, but the track magnets were found to be fitted higher than they should have been. These will have to be cut out, the baseboard adapted and the magnets refitted. This realisation stimulated discussion about new magnets. We have been considering a new design using rare-earth magnets - extremely strong magnets made of Niobium. These are readily available and not too expensive. The idea was to make uncoupling magnets that could sit under the track and be moved in-and-out of position as needed. We
A little deflated, we contemplated the mechanism for moving the actuation method. We knew this would be relatively easy as a manually operated unit, but the principle of the control panel was to be able to operate from a number of locations, which would imply electrical operation. This made us question the original brief and thoughts switched to electromagnets. These are not too expensive, but as we were in home-made mode, we're now on the lookout for suitable wire for coils.
We still had fun moving some stock around, which lifted our spirits!
