Google Apps transition test

I completed transition of my Google Apps hosted domain to Google's new authentication system. This is a test post to make sure, Blogger still works with the new credentials.

Yumm Yumm - What giraffes like to eat

LPAC @ Belwood

Today was the last regular swim meet before Champs. Both Tatjana and Pascal are swimming great.








And I finally managed to convince kdenlive to not letterbox the funky SD mpeg2 wide-screen videos that my Panasonic SDR-H80 camera produces. I'm setting the project settings to edit in 720p, import the 480p SD material, force pixel-aspect ratio to 1.19 on the clips, edit the video, then finally render into HDV 720 30p 2-pass. This produces ginormous videos (sorry, storage and processing folks), but the final quality doesn't suffer nearly as much as when I edit and render in straight SD.

Stuck

What do you do when you're stuck at an airport overnight? ... Have some fun!

LocoNet issues with Uhlenbrock 63400

Wow. This is really confusing. 

The Uhlenbrock 63400 is connected to its own 16V AC transformer. The Intellibox is on its own transformer as well. The 63400 is connected to the Intellibox via short LocoNet cable. The track connection from the Intellibox is directly connected to a portion of the layout that doesn't have trains on it (one of the three power districts on the layout). And LocoNet communication is still affected.

If I unplug the transformer connected to the 63400, LocoNet communication is still affected.

If I remove the 16V AC feeder to the 63400 (i.e. make it a passive device), no issues.

Similarly, there are no issues if I remove the tracks from the Intellibox track connection. 

I.e. the mere fact that about 40ft of Maerklin track and the respective bus wiring is connected to the Intellibox moves the needle from "LocoNet works" to "LocoNet doesn't work".  I double-checked the cabling to ensure no crossed wires. There is no connectivity between the power districts, either.

While Uhlenbrock Support responded to my first two emails within a couple days each, the last update apparently got lost in the ether.

So, at the moment I'm putting this issue to rest and may get back to it when I build the panel for staging. Meanwhile, a TeamDigital SRC16 in combination with jmri logix is pressed into service to drive the panel. Not exactly the most economic or simplistic option, but it should do the job nicely, plus allows for some bells and whistles that make the Talheim block a bit more fun, too.

Unfortunately, the 63400 is too light as a paper weight.

Update 07/08/2011:
Uhlenbrock got back to me and suggested another test regime only involving the Uhlenbrock components and a short piece of track with a loco to weed out any influence from other components or wiring. I'll do that over the weekend.

Update 07/10/2011:
And that test had all the components working correctly.

I removed (even) more components from power and busses. By now all twin-coil turnouts are disconnected, the somewhat messy Talheim panel is completely removed and cabling cleaned up. No DS64's have push-buttons connected any more, DS64 power is disconnected (not that it matters for the test).

There are no obvious ways any more I can think of that would inject non-DCC power into the system, yet LocoNet communication is still affected.

I don't get it. There must be something wrong with how the track is wired, but I have no idea what it could be.  Need to find an oscilloscope, and re-read Wiring for DCC for any hints.

Tschuess!

Layout ground connected to LocoNet ... somewhere.

Hmmm, I heard back from Uhlenbrock's tech support. As suspected I must have a connection between layout ground and LocoNet somewhere, which causes communication issues on LocoNet. The problem is present when track is connected to the Intellibox. This won't be a fun exercise to find...

At least I have a quick and easy way to tell whether LocoNet is working or not: Connect the 63400 via LocoNet to the Intellibox by itself, then power up the Intellibox. If the keyboard mode takes less than a second to show in the display, all is good. If it takes longer than ~3 seconds, LocoNet communication is affected.

Some extra time...

Spending some time at home over the next few days should help me get through a few work items. More electronics. Freight car routing. Convert another locomotive to digital. Maybe I finish up more of the backdrop painting. That would be nice.

First bit of feedback on car card & waybill routing of freight cars: Contrary to when I used JMRIs operations module, I'm more inclined to keep cars and cards in sync. I often run only one or two trains in the evening for fun, not as a formal operating session. Having the car cards right there in my face makes it painfully obvious and quick to move them to the right slots and trains.

Yes, a stack of car cards is not nearly as neat as a printed train manifest, or switch list, but so far it seems they fit my needs better. Time will tell.

Update 06/18/2011:
Well, I did end up spending an hour or two in the garage throwing paint at the backdrop while chatting with my Dad. Quite enjoyable if not for the colors on the backdrop that didn't quite work out the way I wanted. On the second try it started to come out more the way I imagined. We'll see what it looks like when the paint had a chance to dry over night.

Exciting!

 

A bit more than 2 hours left...

DS64 "forgets" programming

When I mentioned a while ago that bad JMRI logic blew out a DS64 output, the actual problem was a lot more benign. The decoder simply "forgot" that output 3 is for turnout 11. I reprogrammed the 4 turnout IDs into that DS64, and afterwards everything worked just fine.

Various posts in the jmri-users and digitrax Yahoo groups report similar issues, and the same resolution. Problems with the track connection, or spikes on LocoNet frequently get mentioned as culprits for this. Hmmm...

Talheim Local Panel

The buttons are in, plus some LEDs. I'll test-program the Uhlenbrock 63400 unit driving this tomorrow.

The local panel for Talheim

Contrary to the Emsingen panel this one will be mounted horizontally next to the Intellibox, so I'm putting a little box around the electronics and wiring.

Elapsed time so far: 3 hours.

The red buttons are for setting routes ("Fahrstrassen"). The routes don't lock, since I don't yet have a way to unlock them automatically as trains pass through, though that would be cool. (I will need similar functionality once I have signals, so that a green signal turns red as the train passes through).

A route is set by pressing the two red buttons at the ends of the route, and all turnouts inbetween will be lined properly. I'll program the LEDs to light up if the turnout is set to Thrown (i.e. the train will take the diverging route, instead of going straight). I'm counting a total of 12 different routes.

Just like in Emsingen, the black buttons are "locally operated" turnouts, and simply toggle between Closed and Thrown. The 2 cross-overs at the small run-around are connected. The button throws the turnout, and the respective LED lights up if it is set to lead into the industry tracks.

Update 06/07/2011:
Oh well, that didn't work. LocoNet becomes unstable (again) as soon as I plug in the 63400. There must be something special about my LocoNet setup, though I can't put my finger on it. I'll do some more testing tomorrow, and if I can't figure it out quickly, replace the 63400 with a SRC16, and do the routes in JMRI. At least temporarily.

Update 06/08/2011:
Hmmm, that 63400 might be a bit wonky. I made sure it has a dedicated power supply, but even with only the Intellibox, a single DS64, and the LocoBuffer connected, LocoNet is unstable as soon as the 63400 is connected. I put the new panel into a box for now while I mull this over and tend to other things.

Glass

A few weeks ago I went to a glass blowing lesson at the Bay Area Glass Institute. This was very cool. While the participants didn't work directly with the melting oven, we got to do most of the forming, and cutting of the pieces. After some initial explanations the instructors pick the glass from the oven, and prep the hot blob of molten glass, and then you get to have it with scissors, pliers, and and funky round wooden tool, while the instructors help you along. One has to work fast as the glass quickly cools down and hardens. Once the piece is done it goes in a special cabinet to slowly cool down over night.

Every participant made a flower and a letter weight.

I think, my creations came out surprisingly well.

New Talheim panel in the works

Alright, I enjoy the panel in Emsingen so much that I'm building a similar one for Talheim (and will build yet another one for staging). Because the trackwork around Talheim is fairly complex (which should be an indicator that this will be an eternal bottleneck, but let's not go there...), Talheim routes are set by pressing two buttons on the panel at once, and the switches are lined appropriately. Well, at least they are supposed to.

The baseboard of the panel is done. Again I made this from hard-board. The buttons and LED holders are installed, and partially connected to the Uhlenbrock 63400 Switch-Control unit. I should be able to test-connect it to the layout tomorrow, and program the Switch-Control for the various routes.

This panel will replace the existing Talheim panel which was a lot of work to build, but turned out to be impractical to modify for the Kopper siding, as well as cumbersome to add LEDs or additional switches to it. I spent weeks building the old panel and the control board, mostly because of the many wires and solder connections needed to connect LEDs, buttons, and switch decoders to each other.

The new panel controls switches using LocoNet, so it doesn't matter which switch decoder controls the turnout, and they all work and behave the same.

Another shot at operations

I mentioned before that I feel too boxed in with doing car routing with the computer. I don't have that many freight cars on the layout that need routing (~35), and the operating pattern is fairly simple. I also don't want to chase after cars that are not where the computer says they are, nor do I care that much about preparing printouts of switch lists for operating the railroad.

So, I decided to try the traditional route with car cards and waybills. There is tons and tons of information on the Internet about how other people have done this (Google for [car cards way bills]), and including primers about the principles and mathematics of operations.

Here's my version 1.0 of Operations on the Welztalbahn. I'm using Micromark's car card & way bill set for this.

Cards

Each car is assigned a car card. The car card lists type of car, reporting marks, and has a pocket for the way bill card.

The way bill defines where the car is supposed to be delivered to next. Additional information may include load, shipper/consignee, and special instructions.

There are also engine cards that have information about a locomotive (road, reporting marks, and DCC address)

Trains

A train is formed by forming a stack of car cards representing each car in the train, and putting the respective locomotive card on top. I use colored paper clips to hold together the card stack.

Train types in priority order:

• White - switching and deliveries
• Green - Local Freight (typical stops in Emsingen and exchanges cars at the yard)
• Blue - Through Freight (typically unit trains, their main purpose is to keep traffic up and get in the way)
• Red - Local Passenger Train (typical on-layout stops are Emsingen and Talheim)
• Purple - Through Passenger Train (typcial on-layout stop is Emsingen)

The pocket on the locomotive card has a schedule that describes destination, stops, and for passenger trains, length of station stops.

Car Routing

Following the principles of car card and waybill operation, the destination for each freight car is provided by the way bill. To keep things simple, at the moment not every way bill is fully filled in. Instead, I simply color code for the major destinations:

• Blue - Deliver to the North
• Yellow - Deliver to the South
• Green - Deliver to Talheim
• Red - Deliver to Emsingen

Unless the way bill has specific instructions, the operator decides on an appropriate industry spot based on the type of car. Future iterations of the operating scheme will likely improve substantially on this aspect.

We'll see how this works...

Unexpected

Elvira having fun running a passenger local

Elvira stopped by the train room yesterday evening. We chatted a bit, and as usual with visitors, I handed her a throttle to run a passenger train. She seemed to enjoyed it, so I ran a couple more trains in addition to keep traffic up and make it more interesting. She still enjoyed it apparently.

Alrighty then, ... let's try switching: "Here's a short freight train in Emsingen, run it down to Talheim, drop the cars at this, this, and that location, pick up the other cars and come back to Emsingen."
That was a nice little brainteaser puzzle, and she managed it perfectly.

Well done! :-)

Couple things I noticed while doing this:

• The new local panel in Emsingen works well. I need to build a similar panel for Talheim. 
• The cheapo push buttons are not so great, though. 
• The Talheim panel needs LEDs for reporting which way switches are set.
• There are a few dead spots in the less used industry leads due to dirty track.
• Talheim Track 2 is commonly used for temporary car storage while switching. I need more experience how badly this affects traffic flow through Talheim and whether that is acceptable. Otherwise, I need to consider adding another track for working the Talheim industries, though there really isn't any space.

More progress

Panel installed in the fascia

After quite some deliberation where exactly to put the local panel for Emsingen, I cut a hole in the fascia, and put the panel behind. This gives a nice look, and I hope the panel will be in a useful position for operators of all ages. The alternatives just didn't work for everyone. I tried installed the panel at an angle below the fascia, but that would have required to either intrude into the operator space, or the panel wouldn't have been visible for taller operators. Another option I briefly considered was the mount it from the ceiling (maybe on a movable arm), but that wasn't really satisfying either. In the end the traditional "mount it in the fascia" option worked out best. The temporary mounts for the panel will remain in place until I have a chance to give it a good work-out.

Platform detail.

I cleaned half of the underground track so far. I cut myself a little "cleaning pad" from hardboard and glued a handle to it. That way it's easy to apply some cleaning solution to the hardboard and slide it up and down the track. I'm trying to avoid using a Brightboy to reduce the amount of new scratches on these old sectional tracks.

The platforms of Emsingen are taking shape. The platform edges are made from wood and will get a pattern of large stone blocks when I'm done with the sand cover. The area between the wood pieces are filled with very fine, soupy and colored plaster, and topped with very fine N scale ballast.

This method of building a platform has grown on me, and I'm likely going to use it again when it's time to build the platform in Talheim. The photo shows the almost finished state of the platform (of course for messy work like this, the track gets covered up with painters tape). Later I will add some vegetation, "platform furniture" (lights, benches, signs), as well as people to break up the monotony. 

Summer Rain

Summer ... Rain? Here? Seriously? That can't be right.

Yep.

We very much enjoyed the dripping of the rain while sitting outside. The smell of fresh rain on grass.

Smooth

The BR211 from Roco is a very nice runner. It runs fairly quietly, with only a slight wirring sound. Nowhere as loud as the Maerklin BR86, but not as quiet as the Maerklin BR24, which is practically silent.

BR211 completed its run-in routine over the last two evenings. Now it's time for detailing and some minor reprogramming (I want to be able to turn off the red rear lights from the throttle, since they are only supposed to be on when the engine is running light). I'll use that opportunity to save the decoder values into JMRI, and adjust the locomotive address.

Staging 2 tracks affect current draw sensor

Last night I was running a few locomotives and notices that there's lots of LocoNet traffic. LocoNet monitor reveals that the sensor measuring current draw in the staging departure block was continously flipping on and off.

After installing Staging 2 all three tracks were part of that block. I didn't really worry about train detection when I temporarily installed Staging 2. Bad idea...

Either way, apparently there's some resistance between the rails in Staging 2. I'll have to check for that when I install the track there permanently. Meanwhile, I  insulated Staging 2 from the departure block, and now the sensor is behaving properly again.

Emsingen Panel close to working

The LocoNet problems I had with the SRC16 are now resolved (Thank you, thank you, Bill Robinson!) Adding a DS64 on the LocoNet bus apparently provided enough signal stability that the SRC16 can work properly with the Intellibox.

I moved on to programming the local panel and it's respective routes before putting the decoder back into the layout. So ... much ... fun!

I'll post some pictures once everything is installed.

Update 05/24/2011:
The Emsingen panel and SRC16 are working correctly in place now. Routes work as advertised. For some routes the SRC16 needs to throw switches that are connected only to the track bus. The Intellibox translates the Switch commands sent to LocoNet from the SRC16 into DCC commands sent via the DCC accessory bus and executed by a Tam Valley Depot servo decoder.

Next up:
Temporarily put Staging 2 in place, track cleaning, some loco maintenance, and a shake out Ops session to determine work items for the next 2-3 weeks.