Friday, November 28, 2025

[Zephyrus52246]

Morning all,

Eighteen degrees and we'll barely break freezing for the high.  They're predicting nine inches of snow to start late tonight and basically snow all day tomorrow.  I hope the neighbor has the plow for his truck mounted and ready to go.  Hopefully the workers finish today so they can remove the dumpster and the leftover materials from my driveway so I can get both vehicles in the garage before the snow starts.  

Will see if I can figure out why the FT B&C units don't move.  The sounds works, but they just sit there.  They are consisted with an F3 unit that runs fine.  It can't drag two dead units very well.

Jeff

[deemery]

The yard guys are here blowing the leaves around, so for a short time I'll have the best looking yard in the neighborhood.  

Yesterday's dinner extravaganza went well, but frankly I'm still feeling a bit stuffed.  Fortunately, I like leftover turkey.  In between cooking, I glued the roof trusses into position, today I'll double check the roof panels.  If I want to make the front wall removable, I'll also have to make that roof panel removable, which shouldn't be a big deal.  But I'll have to figure out the roof trim installation as well as the wall trim installation on the removable parts.  Still, this project is moving well, with only "normal" assembly problems remaining.

dave

[BandOGuy]

Morning all,

Eighteen degrees and we'll barely break freezing for the high.  They're predicting nine inches of snow to start late tonight and basically snow all day tomorrow.  I hope the neighbor has the plow for his truck mounted and ready to go.  Hopefully the workers finish today so they can remove the dumpster and the leftover materials from my driveway so I can get both vehicles in the garage before the snow starts. 

Will see if I can figure out why the FT B&C units don't move.  The sounds works, but they just sit there.  They are consisted with an F3 unit that runs fine.  It can't drag two dead units very well.

Jeff

Doctor Jeff,
I recently bought a new, in the box Stewart A-B set. Working with Michael at Yankee Dabbler for DCC-sound parts, he said to check the powered trucks in the set and clean them prior to use. Even with NIB's lubricant can dry out and seize the gearsets depending on how long the lube has been in there.
Hope this helps.

[GPdemayo]

Morning all.....hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.....

[KentuckySouthern]

Post turkey coma greetings from Michigan.  We have just lost a bit of sunlight and blue sky to a bit of cloud cover.  We are under a weather advisory in anticipation of the same snow storm Jeff mentioned, we'll be 12-18 hours behind. Today will be quiet with some lake effect possibly reaching us.      The weather instigator said 1-2 inches per hour snow overnight Saturday into Sunday.

We had a nice turkey dinner at the middle daughter's place dtopped off with a disappointing Lions game as their depleted "O" crew lost more folks. 

EZing into to day with no plans.

Stay safe all, drive safely if traveling. 

KSinMI

[jbvb]

Good morning, all. My extended family dinner went well too, the dishes we brought were appreciated and our share of the leftovers will last a day or two.  But the 32 lb. turkey made everyone tired; we cleaned up and cleared out before 7 PM.  I don't have much impulse to go out today, so layout time this afternoon.

Jeff, one thing I've done when complicated decoders act up but I can't find a CV whose value is wrong: Copy the whole configuration into DecoderPro, do a hard reset, reload the configuration.  Many appear to have internal state that isn't reflected in CVs.

[Orionvp17]

Mornin' All!

The grey blanket is comfortably ensconced atop the sky here in the northern mitten, although there are indications of an edge to the northwest. No leakage at the moment, although we did have some graupel followed by large white flakes earlier on.  WW's are torn between "meh," and panic in the streets, but most of the noise is directed at Saturday and Sunday, which are probably good days to stay home....

Whatever the weather, we'll weather it, so stay positive, test negative and stay safe!

Pete
in Michigan

[deemery]

Good morning, all. My extended family dinner went well too, the dishes we brought were appreciated and our share of the leftovers will last a day or two.  But the 32 lb. turkey made everyone tired; we cleaned up and cleared out before 7 PM.  I don't have much impulse to go out today, so layout time this afternoon.

Jeff, one thing I've done when complicated decoders act up but I can't find a CV whose value is wrong: Copy the whole configuration into DecoderPro, do a hard reset, reload the configuration.  Many appear to have internal state that isn't reflected in CVs.

That sounds like the DCC equivalent of "reload Windows" on your computer    And yeah, resetting to the initial state is a standard well documented technique, it goes with Jim Grey's (fault-tolerant computing expert) observation that "rebooting the computer often clears transient faults."  Reloading clears "digital cruft".

dave

[ReadingBob]

Afternoon all,

I ventured out today. Junior and I went to the mall to have lunch at the food court and browse through Barnes and Noble. I was actually shocked at how crowded the mall was. I expected a bit of a crowd, it being Black Friday and all, but not to the point where the parking lot was almost full and navigating the crowds was challenging. I'm home now and done peopling for the day. 



Have a great one!

[KentuckySouthern]

In the midst of a spur of the moment "get out before it dumps on us big time" run over to the W side (Grand Rapids) of the state. LHS had a fair crowd and a 8pin to Digitrax adaptor for an older DH1xx decoder that I found. The sound market has priced me out.

Black Fri traffic isn't much worse than usual. The Doll got some custom ground coffee and now is browsing an antique shop. I'll hit the MRR Estate Sale shop during her next stop.  I'm sure something will follow me out to the truck 

Be well all. 3 pm and the weather is feeling claustrophobic     Lots of folks sure look like they ate well.

KS

[jbvb]

Jeff, one thing I've done when complicated decoders act up but I can't find a CV whose value is wrong: Copy the whole configuration into DecoderPro, do a hard reset, reload the configuration.  Many appear to have internal state that isn't reflected in CVs.

That sounds like the DCC equivalent of "reload Windows" on your computer    And yeah, resetting to the initial state is a standard well documented technique, it goes with Jim Grey's (fault-tolerant computing expert) observation that "rebooting the computer often clears transient faults."  Reloading clears "digital cruft".

dave

Better practice is to save every your "operational" version of each loco's  configuration (e.g. acceleration/deceleraton, sound volumes etc) in DecoderPro or another computer DCC tool that supports this. Then when the decoder gets wedged you just Master Reset and reload the "operational" configuration.  No risk of saving an accidental CV change that broke it.