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Jul. 15th, 2021 05:38 amOtakon is next month. I figure I might as well go. The badge has already been paid for, I've had my shots, and I have a bunch of masks at the ready. Otakon has decided to just make everyone wear one. I can deal with that.
I'm assembling a small and simple tool kit to permanently reside in Miharu. A breaker bar with a 19mm socket for lugnuts, jack, 6-in-1 screwdriver, adjustable wrench, pliers, box cutter/knife, small flashlight, bag of wire ties, roll of tape. The sort of stuff that can mean the difference between "getting out of a pinch on my own" or "waiting for AAA to show up". Because sometimes things will happen that aren't the car's fault, or might not involve the car at all. Oh, and a long time ago I learned a roll of paper towels is great to have too. I've made it a point to have such items in Ai and Nozomi and it's worth having.
The lack of a spare tire is curious. There's a space in the trunk for one, but the only thing there is a pump with fix-a-flat sealant. I'll either find a compatible donut spare or prepare a full-size one, and share it with Nozomi, as they have the same size wheels and tires. I guess the logic is that someone who buys that kind of car can afford to get out of such a predicament without getting their hands dirty, or avoid it entirely in the first place. I dunno, maybe I just like having the ability to get out of a spot on my own. For what it's worth, I've never had to use the spare in Ai, and only twice on Nozomi. But just because I've never had a massive tire blowout doesn't mean it'll never happen. Sure would suck if that happens when I'm on a road trip in the middle of nowhere and I don't have a spare.
Work on the train layout has started up again. I made progress on the control panel, giving me the ability to switch between the analog and DCC controllers. I also have it set up so when I plug everything in and turn the controllers on, it doesn't automatically put power to the rails; I have an activation switch that goes to a relay. Right next to it is another switch to shut everything off if need be. Not an official EMO switch but it can work like one. I also built up a sub-box for the rail switches, complete with indicators to show which direction the rail points are in. (Or should be, when everything is working right.)
Also on the control panel is an ammeter for the DCC so I can see how much current draw there is. I went with an old analog Simpson meter I found on ebay. It's functional, yet has that retro look to it. I got another to monitor voltage on the analog plain DC side. The twist there is the voltmeter only measures positive DC voltage, so if I switch the trains into reverse, it'll force the needle backwards. The solution to that is a simple bridge rectifier, made of four diodes, so the voltage going to the meter will always be positive, while the voltage going to the rails can be positive or negative. The penalty there is the reading on the meter will be 1.5V lower than what's going to the rails, but for the voltage range and non-critical application, that's fine.
I'm trying out the DJI Pocket 2 for model railroad POV footage. It's a lot different from the Sony action camera I was using for the past few years. As it turns out, it might be better to build a new bespoke railcar from scratch than modify the current one. Another thing to get used to is the built-in gimbal on the DJI. While that makes for much smoother footage when hand-holding the camera, it results in some disorienting footage when mounted on a railcar where it needs to stay focused in one direction. I still have a bunch of things to figure out on it yet.
I found a batch torrent of the old show "Belle & Sebastian", encoded from the R2 DVDs. Except it's all in Japanese and not translated. My childhood memories have been betrayed (not really)! What annoyed me the most about how Nickelodeon handled it all those years ago was how it seemed like they kept airing the same bunch of episodes and never bothered with showing the ending. "Stupid kids won't notice" well we weren't stupid and we did notice. Assholes. That really ganks my grinnygog, y'know?
I'm assembling a small and simple tool kit to permanently reside in Miharu. A breaker bar with a 19mm socket for lugnuts, jack, 6-in-1 screwdriver, adjustable wrench, pliers, box cutter/knife, small flashlight, bag of wire ties, roll of tape. The sort of stuff that can mean the difference between "getting out of a pinch on my own" or "waiting for AAA to show up". Because sometimes things will happen that aren't the car's fault, or might not involve the car at all. Oh, and a long time ago I learned a roll of paper towels is great to have too. I've made it a point to have such items in Ai and Nozomi and it's worth having.
The lack of a spare tire is curious. There's a space in the trunk for one, but the only thing there is a pump with fix-a-flat sealant. I'll either find a compatible donut spare or prepare a full-size one, and share it with Nozomi, as they have the same size wheels and tires. I guess the logic is that someone who buys that kind of car can afford to get out of such a predicament without getting their hands dirty, or avoid it entirely in the first place. I dunno, maybe I just like having the ability to get out of a spot on my own. For what it's worth, I've never had to use the spare in Ai, and only twice on Nozomi. But just because I've never had a massive tire blowout doesn't mean it'll never happen. Sure would suck if that happens when I'm on a road trip in the middle of nowhere and I don't have a spare.
Work on the train layout has started up again. I made progress on the control panel, giving me the ability to switch between the analog and DCC controllers. I also have it set up so when I plug everything in and turn the controllers on, it doesn't automatically put power to the rails; I have an activation switch that goes to a relay. Right next to it is another switch to shut everything off if need be. Not an official EMO switch but it can work like one. I also built up a sub-box for the rail switches, complete with indicators to show which direction the rail points are in. (Or should be, when everything is working right.)
Also on the control panel is an ammeter for the DCC so I can see how much current draw there is. I went with an old analog Simpson meter I found on ebay. It's functional, yet has that retro look to it. I got another to monitor voltage on the analog plain DC side. The twist there is the voltmeter only measures positive DC voltage, so if I switch the trains into reverse, it'll force the needle backwards. The solution to that is a simple bridge rectifier, made of four diodes, so the voltage going to the meter will always be positive, while the voltage going to the rails can be positive or negative. The penalty there is the reading on the meter will be 1.5V lower than what's going to the rails, but for the voltage range and non-critical application, that's fine.
I'm trying out the DJI Pocket 2 for model railroad POV footage. It's a lot different from the Sony action camera I was using for the past few years. As it turns out, it might be better to build a new bespoke railcar from scratch than modify the current one. Another thing to get used to is the built-in gimbal on the DJI. While that makes for much smoother footage when hand-holding the camera, it results in some disorienting footage when mounted on a railcar where it needs to stay focused in one direction. I still have a bunch of things to figure out on it yet.
I found a batch torrent of the old show "Belle & Sebastian", encoded from the R2 DVDs. Except it's all in Japanese and not translated. My childhood memories have been betrayed (not really)! What annoyed me the most about how Nickelodeon handled it all those years ago was how it seemed like they kept airing the same bunch of episodes and never bothered with showing the ending. "Stupid kids won't notice" well we weren't stupid and we did notice. Assholes. That really ganks my grinnygog, y'know?
