Katzhagen - Archive - August 2020
The past months were a mixed bag...
High voltage line connectors for Ge 6/6 II's roof
When working on the RhB Ge 6/6 II 702's detail improvements it caught my eye that there was no connection between the high voltage lines on both of the loco's body shells. But there was hope for remedy when a picture showing the relevant details was found:
Solder wick, brass profile, modelscrews...
The ends of the bent high voltage lines were removed and the so created new ends were filed flat a little for mounting the reproductions of the high voltage connectors.
Four 2mm wide pieces of a 1x5mm brass profile were used for making the connection cables' mountings. A 0.5mm hole was drilled so that a hexagon model screw could be applied for a prototypical look (see picture above right).
Since soldering the parts together was impossible due to the solder wick's capillary effect, the parts were painted first and then mounted using a clear 2C glue.
The ends of the bent high voltage lines were removed and the so created new ends were filed flat a little for mounting the reproductions of the high voltage connectors.
Four 2mm wide pieces of a 1x5mm brass profile were used for making the connection cables' mountings. A 0.5mm hole was drilled so that a hexagon model screw could be applied for a prototypical look (see picture above right).
Since soldering the parts together was impossible due to the solder wick's capillary effect, the parts were painted first and then mounted using a clear 2C glue.
Massoth Panto drives and XLS firmware... ... or how to best score the next own goal.
Given the Massoth panto drives' design one shold think that they would work in analogue operations too. But bummer - they don't. At least they don't with a XLS. The logic behind the outputs A1 and A2 prevents this and results in a wrong position of the pantos when cutting off track power, supplying it again and then changing direction...
The idea to replace the mfx decoder and the old LGB "fly swatters" of the RhB Ge 4/4 II 616 with a XLS-M1 and the Massoth panto drives resulted in quite some serious ado in form of a new adapter board:
Relays inverting the function of the A1 and A2 outputs above 9V track voltage and a new power supply for the loco's lights. The latter was necessary since dimming the lights resulted in serious flickering... Additional circuitry's diagram
Work entails work... the power buffer's capacitors had to be replaced with types having more than twice the capacity since the relay engaged consumed too much power when track power was cut off - causing the standing sounds to stop early...
Plastic ex...
The Swiss farm's flagpole was a permanent construction site. Every now and then some repair was required - either the "flag" or the pole itself broke off. Sometimes due to climatic influence, sometimes due to aging or animals (read: deer).
Being fed up with this ado a durable solution was implemented. The pole made from plastic was replaced with a 3mm brass pipe to which a trench was applied for taking the flag.
The ball equipped with a 2mm brass pin fits into the pole's top and can be removed easily for changing the flag.
Lacking load - nice remedy
The historic RhB L6659 gondola had been rolling without a suitable (read: pleasing) load since it hit my tracks quite some time ago. Until a friend dropped by and gave me a small present in form of some nice model clay bricks.
As luck had it ... the gondola was on the tracks when my friend came to visit and it was given a bulk load of these clay bricks.
This looked very nice indeed - but not prototypically...
Clay bricks (and models thereof) are quite fragile and hence they are shipped stacked on pallets. 32 bricks are required per pallet for the load shown below.
Since the car is a featherweight no longer with its load (a tad more than 2kg) it was equipped with spoked ball bearing wheels. Such wheels can f.i. be ordered from LGB as a spare part. The number is E289921.
