Yes, I know I have two othrer projects on here that are stalled. the Mountain is going with me to a friend’s this week I hope, so we’ll hit it then)
In the meantime, I have another steamrer with issues. This is a Blueline Light Mike, NKP 587, with an old metal tender. Or efficency, I ripped the guts from the BLI USRA, to stick in her new one, simulating an NKP long Haul. (I now think it’s too short to be such, but it’s closer than the original)
Said metal tender has one slight issue. Two metal posts that screw into the trucks. To get around them, I bathed the metal tender in liquid mask, and turned the decoder on its side. Next big trick: the motor control decoder shorts itself dead. Sounds still work, it’s motor control I’m sure of it.
So, One or two of several possible questions needs to be answered for me. Did the tender do it? Or was it a fault of the BLI board? I’m inclined to think the former, since it didn’t short in the original tender. But the tender is the only thing that cahanged, I’m using Athearn Buckeye trucks, but I even put the BLI axles in for power pickup, and used the same contact strips from the BLI tender. And as far as I know, everything is insulated, plastic trucks, nylon screw, the truck’s between the pickups and the tender posts, additional electrical tape around the decoder. This does not mean I didn’t miss Something, but I tried very hard to be thourough.
My next question, is should I move the decoder?, and if so, to where? I wanted it in the tender, so that the engine is versatile. I run it at the Naptown and White River since it fits their operating era, but I got it to do the Indiana TYransportatin Museum since that was my jumping off point into railroading as a career, and a heck of a lot of fun to boot. 587 has a tool car for ITM, (former PRR RPO) as well as an aux tender I could stick it in, if I could find the tool car. she didn’t have t