I’m not new at this - I’ve been modeling on and off for about 45 years. I have a Heljan theater on the layout and I decided to light it up. Installed lights for the marquee, lights for the sign, two lights for the interior, and a streetlight for the alley in the back. Tested each one and they looked great so I’m feeling pretty smug with myself.
Went down to the layout to install the building and realized I had five sets of wires to deal with. No problem, I thought, I’ll just drill five holes since the wires were too far apart to go down one hole. Of course, I could get two or three of the wires in their respective holes before one pulled out. I fooled around with this for an hour and nothing worked - you CAN’t get five wires down five holes inside a building that has an attached roof.
Got some dinner and then the lightbulb went off in my head - I didn’t need five wires, just one. It attached all five wires together on the workbench and then used a Posi-tap to connect them to the ONE set of wires that had to go down the hole. After that brainstorm, it took about five minutes to get it up and working on the layout.
The really dumb thing was that I had already done basically the same thing on the workbench to make sure all the lights worked together. I don’t know if I’m getting dumber as I get older or what but I’m sure all of us have done something like this. [:)]
My layout has 10 AC plug sockets on it for connection of various items (throttle controls, turnout and sound power source, tools. that sort of thing). These plug sockets are spread out over 3 wall socket units. One day, not too long ago I had to do some work under the layout. The cord for my Dremel tool wasn’t quite long enough to reach, so I unplugged one of the layout cables from the wall so I could plug in the dremel. I got the work done and unplugged the tool and came out from under the layout. A little while later, I noticed my structure lights weren’t working. I checked the main fuse for the power supply, then the downline fuses. I even turned off the power supply to let it reset. No joy there. I was just on the verge of pulling my hair out, when I chanced to look under the layout and saw one of the cables lying on the floor. I had left it unplugged when I unplugged my Dremel tool 1 1/2 hours earlier. Boy, did I feel STUPID! [D)]
Consider a reefer. The trucks on that reefer rode too low and needed washers to pass the coupler gauge.
It took me 6 months to build the said reefer. I should know what I did to build this thing.
Wal, the truck pin securing it to the underframe was tight. I added pressure to it until the entire head of the pin snapped off, leaving me with a filled in bolster hole.
It seems I glued these truck bolster pins into this kit and only now I remember.
I have two choices. Find a spare kit and hope I have a fresh underframe, Buy a similar kit and canabalize it for parts or drill out this pin which shows evidence of strong glue.
Next time I build these kits with the plastic push in pins, they get to go on the coupler test gauge before final assembly of the trucks.
So many dumb moments, so little bandwidth. Swiping the tip of a soldering iron across plastic coated drop ceiling tiles, dropping Gorilla Glue gobs on the carpet, programming loco #07 using Paged Mode when six other locos are listening…D’OHHH!!!
I’m glad I’m not the only one then. Geez, it wasn’t even complicated as far as wiring goes. I’ll tell you one thing though. If you haven’t tried Posi-Tap connectors, you need to. You’ll never solder wires again - best thing since sliced bread. Did I tell you about the time I was soldering under the layout, felt a little warm, and looked down to find my shirt on fire from a drop of solder that fell down from a connection? I’m really good at this kind of stuff![:)]
Not admitting to anything, just some advice. If a soldering iron accidentally rolls off the work surface, do NOT reflexively catch it. Enough said.[D)]
OUCH! That hurts just thinking about it. Been there and done that!
Here’s one I did while getting a loco ready for DCC.
I was converting an Athearn PA2 to get it ready for DCC. I took the shell off, then stripped the loco down to the frame, motor, trucks, shafts, everything. I then turned the motor over, snapped off the two pieces that contact the frame, then carefully soldered a thin wire to it. I then put a strip of electrical tape across the bottom of the motor just to make sure the contact would not touch the frame. I put the motor back in it’s cradle mounts and reinserted it into the frame. Very carefully, I reattached the trucks and mounted the drive shafts, then soldered the other end of the wire to the ground pickup on the front truck. Since both trucks contact the frame, this is all I had to do, as far as grounding was concerned. I put the locomotive on the track and put power to it. ZIP! ZILCH! DANADA! BOP KISS! Nothing happened. I checked my power wires from the power pack (once in a while I accidentally rip one off), no joy there, so then I check to make sure that part of the track has power. It does. The meter says 15.3 volts. What is going on, I wonder! So I look carefully at the locomotive and see what the problem is. I then solder two wires, one each from the positive pickups on the trucks to the positive strip on the top of the motor. Put power to the locomotive again. It runs fine. I’m thinking, I’ve been in this hobby for over 30 years and I missed something that simple and obvious.