Tuesday, April 17, 2012

N-Rail Updates

Hello from the wonderful world of N scale hobbies! :)

I had a few updates for what's going on in the microverses of Soyokaze (formerly Old Town) and Shizuka (formerly Downtown) these days. There isn't a whole lot, but there is some news.

SOYOKAZE

Efforts to get a grip on LED lighting brought progress on Soyokaze to a halt. I had everything ready to set, paint and detail, but the issue of lighting the buildings stopped me from doing anything until I figured out what I wanted to do lighting wise.

I set out to learn about LED lights and the like and....well...got really frustrated. I'm an "artist" and have that mindset. Thoughts of power sources, current, electricity flow, voltage and watts made my head spin.  The small efforts I made didn't seem to work. At all. An LED that worked when touched to a battery failed to work when wired and soldered to one. So, I stopped.

I've gone through various stages of being ok with no lights this round. It is, after all, a little "practice" layout and, when I get my space I need in a new house, I'll be redoing the works. But, it would be nice to have lights now. I have almost a year before we move and we're still not sure I'll actually have room for a set once we do. So, I keep thinking. I might just run wires to the buildings now, then move on with details with the idea that I'll go back and add power and LEDs later. That's sounding like a good plan right now.

I continue taking pictures, too. Sad - it's the same shots over and over.

Station Area - Soyokaze
Temple Area - Soyokaze
Meanwhile, people continue to wait around for a place to sell their goods and shop. They sit atop my shelving unit and mill about aimlessly. However, some of them have managed to start dating which is nice. :)
First Date in Shelf Limbo

SHIZUKA

The office layout of Shizuka needs to be packed up and put away until we get our new offices set up. A sad day indeed. It'll be missed. but, the upside is that I'll be able to work out anther variation of it once the new office is set. The new layout will be smaller at first due to space constraints (not that I even know what my space looks like yet!) However, I'm told that that will change yet again in the coming months when someone leaves the company and an office space opens up again. Figures crossed, but my breath is NOT being held on THAT one. We'll see what happens.

For now, Shizuka is missing. It disappeared right off the face of the map!
Shizuka minus people and buildings. Twilight Zone

OTHER PROJECTS

The buildings behind the people in the FIRST DATE image above are going to be used in another, US based module. Plans are not set yet, but it will involve boats, water and a ship museum along with the brick buildings above. I needed something to move forward on while LED issues got resolved.

I'm also going to look at a rearranged setup for my US industrial shelf module. Not sure what's going to happen there, but something needs to change. I've been staring at it for far too long and taking the same pictures of it for months now.




All for now. Happy Hobby to ya! 

~Malco~

4 comments:

  1. I have a thought on your use of LED's. They absolutely must have a resistor, or they will generally only work once, for a brief time. And they are polarity sensitive, so you must attach them correctly to the power source. However, it doesn't matter which leg you put the resistor on. Not sure if that helps.

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    1. Thank you for the reply.
      Yup, had a resistor on. I have online "How To" pages and a Model Railroader Basic Wiring book. The issue is definitely "P.E.B.K.A.C." (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) :)
      I think it was the soldering. Looking back at the book, I think the connections were not 100%. I plan to take another swing at it...shortly. hehe
      Thanks again for the comment! Nice to know I'm not completely alone in this endeavor!

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  2. One other thought, heat kills LED's (and other sensitive components). You don't want to take too long to solder the leads. A nice hot iron with a very sharp pointed tip, pre-tin the leads on both components, and then solder them together. If the final joint is shiny, and you can't tug them apart, it isn't a connection issue. Good Luck, I'm sure you will figure it out.

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    1. Good to know - I wasn't aware of a heat component to the equation. The connection was tight and I could not pull the apart. I think I just need to sit down one day and sort it out. :)
      For now, I'm just going to run wires to the buildings, I'm not going to glue the hill base the buildings are sitting on the the base board and I'm going to move along and sort out the wires later. I was thinking it through and the bottom line is that I want to have fun doing this. If I'm not having fun with this part, I want to move on. :)
      Thanks for the input!

      M~

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