It's been kind of quiet here lately

[Josephbw]

So I'll start a thread about my railroad. I am building it up in 2 phases, I am currently done with the benchwork and homasote for phase 1, and I'm now wiring 120 under the layout with outlets every 12'. I am putting OSB boards in the middle under the layout peninsula to hold the wiring for lights, switches, signals, animation, etc.

I still need to determine what I'm going to use for layout lighting. I bought 20 edge lit LED fixtures directly from China, got them about 3 weeks later,  cut a hole in the dropped ceiling panel and mounted one of the lights, wired it up, flipped the switch, and nothing. Trouble shooting it I determined that there was power going into the transformer, but nothing coming out. So I tested each of the other 19 and found that 8 worked, 2 flashed like disco lights, and the rest did absolutely nothing. A 60% failure rate quickly put the brakes on that plan.

I intend to get the track laid, some scenery done and maybe even have a couple of operating sessions, then start on phase 2. I have a 30x62' basement, and have finished most of the work in the one half. But I have finished the insulation, drywall, 2 walls, a bathroom and some other work on the other side.

I lost 3 months this summer and fall after having a 5 bypass heart operation that slowed me down for a while. But I'm back with a vengeance now.

I'll post more later, after my nap. 

[nodcc4me]

Glad you are recovering from your surgery Joseph. Sounds like you will have quite a layout by the time you get it all up and running. For lighting, the LEDs are supposedly the best according to guys on another forum I frequent. Lowes and Home Depot sell 4' LEDs that are supposed to be the best for workshops. I would think they would work just as well over a layout. As you know, they are more expensive than fluorescents, but the brightness difference makes them worth the money.

Post some pictures of your progress for us.

[Prostreetamx]

I was going at a pretty fast pace in December due to no work that month and got 6 more engines converted to RailPro out of 8 done so far. I still have 13 new and a bunch of older units to convert. I have not purchased the LM-2s's yet for those. I got most of my track wired up and the basic scenery built up. I'm back working 7 days a week and no longer have any time for the hobby for at least a few more months.

[ngdave28]

Hello All,
Nice hearing from members and their progress.  I purchased  my first HC-2 controller and a LM-2S a couple weeks ago.  Installed LM-2S and a sugar cube speaker in tender of an old Ken Kidder HOn3 2-6-0.  It's basically working but I have to add wipers to engine drivers for better rail contact.  Right now it jerks at times.  I downloaded steam whistle, steam bell and heavy steam exhaust into HC-2.  I still have to set LM-2S for steam sounds per manual - it has the default diesel sounds presently.  So far, happy making the 'RailPro' choice.  Will report more progress in future.

Dave in SW Ohio

[Josephbw]

Well I planned to add some pictures of my layout progress today, but that didn't happen. I tried loading the first picture to my Photobucket account, and it went as far as 90% uploaded, and stalled. I tried twice more, same results. I even tried to upload another picture, but it was still trying to finish the first one, then I got up and went down and finished wiring the 120V under the layout. Then I started the installation of my decoder and speaker in my newly acquired used Amtrak engine, and just about finished that when the call for supper came. I'll go back down and finish that later. I'll try again later to upload the pics. I'm sure disappointment runs rampant. 

[William Brillinger]

Joe, you can upload your photos as attachments on your posts here, and then insert them into the message to add captions etc.

[Josephbw]

The problem I have Bill, is that I took the pics with my phone, then sent them to my email address. I also have them in my Onedrive cloud storage account. I can't seem to come up with a link to move them to anything other than Photobucket, and that doesn't complete the upload. Any ideas?

Thanks, Joe

[William Brillinger]

Can you email your photos to yourself on a PC?

[emd_16645]

The problem I have Bill, is that I took the pics with my phone, then sent them to my email address. I also have them in my Onedrive cloud storage account. I can't seem to come up with a link to move them to anything other than Photobucket, and that doesn't complete the upload. Any ideas?

Thanks, Joe

Assuming you are using a smart phone, I would download the photobucket app and upload them directly to photobucket.  Then you can direct link to here.  99% of my model pictures are taken with my phone and shared with that method.

[Josephbw]

The problem I have Bill, is that I took the pics with my phone, then sent them to my email address. I also have them in my Onedrive cloud storage account. I can't seem to come up with a link to move them to anything other than Photobucket, and that doesn't complete the upload. Any ideas?

Thanks, Joe

Assuming you are using a smart phone, I would download the photobucket app and upload them directly to photobucket.  Then you can direct link to here.  99% of my model pictures are taken with my phone and shared with that method.

I have a Windows phone which seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's come back to bite me in the butt time and time again. Photobucket does not support the Windows phone. I haven't had time to mess with it anymore the last couple of days, but maybe tomorrow I can try again.

I'm seriously considering replacing my phone with a regular android phone. That will be one less headache in my life.

[hirailer]

As a professional photographer specializing in portrait photography for many years and now retired, I still love taking ordinary photos of varying subjects. I have a Samsung S4 Android phone that has a 13MP camera which works surprisingly well for most things. It is not without several drawbacks that prevent me from taking good photos, one being the lack of a provision to attach a tripod to it. If possible, one should always use a tripod to ensure good sharp images. I think most model photography and videos can be done with a tripod. The second drawback of cell phone photography is the lack of aperture/shutter speed adjustments.

I ran into the same problem you have uploading images, especially Photobucket which I absolutely detest. I solved my problem by purchasing a great little camera (Canon SX160) that has 16MP. This little camera takes really nice images and videos and is easy to operate, has a tripod provision and fits in my pocket. When I want to upload images I simply pull the SD card out of the camera and pop it into the card reader in my computer, download to Photo Gallery and I'm set. From this program I can do simple manipulations to the images such as cropping and re sizing, the latter being necessary to post photos to this forum. I realize that I have lost the photo sharing capability of Photobucket which when I think about it, it isn't much of a loss.

Mel

[Alan]

As a professional photographer specializing in portrait photography for many years and now retired, I still love taking ordinary photos of varying subjects. I have a Samsung S4 Android phone that has a 13MP camera which works surprisingly well for most things. It is not without several drawbacks that prevent me from taking good photos, one being the lack of a provision to attach a tripod to it. If possible, one should always use a tripod to ensure good sharp images. I think most model photography and videos can be done with a tripod. The second drawback of cell phone photography is the lack of aperture/shutter speed adjustments.

Mel

The extraordinarily short focal length of phone cameras is their significant drawback. If f-stop adjustments were introduced with such a microscopic focal length then parallax would be an issue.