Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e finally had a weekend of solid nice weather so I had no problems doing some electronics work out at our little garden railroad.  I expected this project to take an hour or so...  it took all day so I'm very glad I waited for solid nice weather.   I spent far too much time running in and out of the house retrieving tools.  Plus, I always forget how time consuming soldering tiny electronic parts can be for someone who rarely solders.  Needless to say, this phase of this project was far more time consuming than I anticipated.   I set up everything in the late afternoon including some photography gear.  This way, when it did get dark enough outside at around 8pm, I was ready.  I did get some photos and video clips during the day simply to show the new streetlamps installed in position on the bridge.   There is a short video after all these photos below. I captured a photo of my tablet as it was running the software that control...

I accomplished a bit more work on the bridge yesterday and then shot a few photos. I decided to add an on-off switch for the grade crossing signals rather than using the on-off switch on the battery packs.  Adding this on-off switch provides far easier access.  Actually, I decided to do the same for the street lamps also.  In this photo, below, you can see the new weather-proof push button switch for the grade crossing signals (the black button next to the big red button).  The red button is used to activate the grade crossing signals...  push and hold to activate... I installed both grade crossing signals.  Routing the wiring was a bit difficult for this front signal though.  It required a few holes and a 12" long drill bit! The street lamps are in place temporarily to see how they will look.  I think they'll work just fine where they are placed in this photo.  The bulbs and the tops of the lamps are not installed yet.  This was just t...

I decided to test the newly wired grade crossing signals for our small garden railroad here on our living room coffee table.  This way, if I happened to encounter a problem, I could figure out what is wrong without all the variables of installing it outdoors.  Doing this test in a controlled environment is the best option. I have a few circuit boards in this configuration that I should explain... First, the power is sourced from four AA rechargeable batteries in the black case pictured at right.   From there, the power goes to a voltage regulator.  I need the voltage to be a steady 3.0 volts for the new LED bulbs in the grade crossing signals.  This voltage regulator can be set to a wide range of output voltages but I need 3.0 volts so that is what I set it to.  The output terminals on the regulator circuit board run to a large momentary push button switch.  The kids can easily access this big button and hold it down to keep the grade crossing si...