the MRH Forum

One of those Daze..LOL..or "You just gotta laugh at yourself sometimes..." MRH forum help
Reply
Regular poster 175 posts PosPita Regular poster 175 posts
PosPita

It's been one of those days where you get your package in and look forward to  making some progress on your project(s). First up is attaching feeder wires to frogs. The PECO electrofrogs are super easy...the Micro Engineering frogs are spawns of satan..lol..

I manage to get about 50% ( 8 turnouts ) of the feeder wires attached and decide to take a step back. 

I look over and there is my brand spanking new GP40-2LW from Atlas with Lok-Sound sitting on the worktable where it just arrived. I am thinking " ok lets switch to something positive for a bit and regroup for the project/day ". I take the locomotive out of the box place it on the tracks and set the locomotive number in DCC and then decide to test the sound..all giddy with joy I hit F8...and the prime mover starts sounding..and sounding..and crankin'..and still crankin...I suddenly find  myself looking to see is somewhere on the throttle and  or table I have the throttle lever at 1 dot 6 and hoping I primed this bad boy enough as I really don't want to run the battery down...and then I am blessed with the sounds of a 645E3 doing the long start...and I let out a sigh of relief..and then I just...STOP...

 I have to laugh at myself because here I am woking a Altas Locomotove at the programming track and worrying about it not starting and having to go back thru the entire start proceedure one more time.... I suddenly remember an old Elvis song that goes something like " You ever have one of those days " ?...and all I can do is think.." Now I have for sure "...

The burst of humor made the returning work on the Micro Engineering turnouts a little bit easier after reading some technical posts here..
Reply 0
jimfitch Prolific poster 6,083 posts
jimfitch

Thanks for the tip about ME turnouts

Thanks for the tip about ME turnouts.    I have stock piled a number of Peco electrofrog, which I plan to use frog juicers, but was thinking of also buying some ME turnouts.  But once again here and in a few other places, read comments that enoucrage me to steer back to Peco.

As for the DCC sound scenerio, I'm totally ignorant, but when I finally get set up to the point I start playing with them, I'll return to your post to see if it rings any bells!

D&RGW focus late 70's thru early 80's west of Grande Junction CO.

Jim Fitch
northern VA
Reply 0
PosPita Regular poster 175 posts
PosPita

Feels

Jim, I  mentioned the sound and the start up as it's like watching a movie and hoping they get the car pushed up the hill or something like that..having started those things just a few times..I had to laugh at my thought of " I hope this thing starts and what do I do if it doesn't "....

On the Micro engineering switches...they can be a buggar bear...HOWEVER there is hope.

The frogs are coated in a patina I would call, covering  it everywhere..

frog%201.jpg 

This patina is also on the soldering point of the frogs located underneath the switch. Several posts/topics here and abroad tell to lightly clean or brush and remove a bit of  material from the solder point. I used a small dremel tool and removed enough material to ensure I had bright shiney metel to solder to.

modified.jpg 

Here you can see where some of the coating has been removed but some remains. I used an emory cloth and hit it about 4 times. Inside the frog and on the point you can still see remains of the coating that will absolutely prevent a decent connection to the frog short of drilling and tapping for a screw underneath.

I fluxed my wire and tinned it, fluxed the now bright and shiney solder pad of the frog, and then applied the solder gun for about 3-5 seconds and it was a good joint. I did switch to lead free solder here and it worked fine. I will point out that at no time did the solder ever remain shiney after the connection was finished and the iron removed..it went to a dull color like a cold joint but the solder was flowing and cooled VERY quickly. I did put moderate tension on the joint to test it and it held up fine.

I just wanted to thank everyone who posted the help topics on this subject in the past...they were real life/stress savers here...I hope this helps..but again it weasn't even close to how easy a connection was made on PECO switches.
Reply 0
Reply