My suggestion would be to use Pactra Racing Finish paint. Made by Testors (same people that make Floquil and Polly Scale). It comes in various colors, but I have found that Black, White and Yellow will work for most hand rails made from Delrin. The paint is formulated for Lexan racing cars. It will not flake and has great "flexibility". Personally I have done twenty plus engines with it and nary a problem over the years.

As always, your mileage may vary... 

I don't think that you will see any difference in the motor gears. The difference will be, if any, in the truck gears. Pop the truck gear cover and compare the two. My thinking is you will find one or more the gears to be different.
Speed gearing is in the trucks for most every diesel engine. If you have to, count the teeth. 
Good luck!!

To Roger,
Does anyone else have the same criteria when building a roster or are most of you in the "Must have one of those" category?

Ditto!! While I have not been on the board for over a year, I have been "lurking" and this is a topic I felt that I could respond to without getting into "the heat of the battle" or stepping on the toes of those that know a lot more than I do.

That having been said, I agree that a roster should embezzle the period and the road you are trying to "model". If not "road" then at least the era. For me that is the Southern in the late 40's, early 50's. Same concept though. What ran during those years belongs. There are a lot of engines that I have in my collection that do not belong to that era or road, and so they are in my display case. Some people actually think that the display is "neat".

Regards, Ron

Quote from: ysmwad on April 28, 2009, 03:00:25 PM
I tried changing CV 29 to value 34, keeps comming back 255?

I have searched the WEB for an answer to this and have not found one. The only thing that I can think of is that the programmer is in register or page mode... and not in direct CV mode.... ?

Sorry that I can't help more than that..

HO_Ron

Did you set CV29 to 34??? That is needed for extended addresses.
HO_Ron

I have reopened this thread to close it again.
First the tender with the bad decoder was sent back to Bachmann service. I finally got a hold of a tech there and he took great care of me and the problem. Only two and half weeks turnaround time. I think that this is great. I have spoken with the tech since then and he told me that the backlog is six weeks out at a minimum. Because things slow down during the summer months they feel that they can catch up by June.... not this year. Maybe July.... 

Now to the final scene of this three act play. The initial reason for this post was to ask about known wiring issues. You can probably guess.... I got the tender and new decoder back and hooked it up. NO Decoder found..... Turns out that the wiring is and was an issue. Yes, the decoder I sent back was bad, but so is the wiring. The 4 pin socket is/was wired with the motor contacts on the two outside pins and the headlight was wired to the two inside pins. Of course the tender was wired for the typical socket with the motor being on the two left pins and the headlight on the two right pins. So there are 2-10-2s out there with "different" wiring than the quote norm.... Also I tested the decoder with my Mountain and it worked just fine. That is how I knew that the wiring was the source of the issue. I have since rewired the light board so the correct pin out for this engine is in place. It won't work with any of my other engines, but at least it will work with the 2-10-2.

The service was good once I got to talk with someone "knowledgeable", but the quality of the product still remains a big question mark... If you get a good one, hang on to it. If you don't keep shipping it back till you do.

Happy Modeling, and may all your luck be good luck,
HO-Ron

" I have no idea what N/C means, but they obviously didn't fix it.  Does it mean Not Covered?  "

It means "No Charge".

Based on your results I would say that there are problems with the engine wiring contacts. Just a guess. 
Might be a solder joint is not quite right as in "cold solder joint"

You can check for this by looking at the various wires and seeing if the solder join looks "grey". That would be an indication of a cold solder joint. The joint should look bright silver.

Hope this helps....

HO-Ron

15 to 30 minutes depending on what you want to do. Craving it with a hot wire can be done in 15 minutes. Adding another layer can be done in five minutes. If you are going to apply a lot of force to the form you should wait 30 minutes. It sets quite quickly as long as you don't use to much of it. A little goes a long way.

HO-Ron

One think that I noted is no one has talked about decoders and "their" voltages. DCC sound decoders that SoundTraxx made for drop-in replacements for Atlas, Athern and Life Like diesels have a MAX voltage requirement of 16 volts. They can and will burn out at higher track voltages. The maximum voltage is clearly stated on the spec sheet.
If you have friends that have these engines and they want to run on your railroad, and your track voltage is above the magic number, there is SMALL chance they will be burned out. Not what your friends or you for that matter, want to have happen.
Most DCC systems have some sort of method of setting the track voltage. Failing that, you can devise some method of dropping a volt and half or so using diodes or a regulator.

Just a word of caution from a guy that learned it the hard way...
HO-Ron

Depending on far along you are, you could just put a 4x8 sheet of homasote on top of the plywood. If you consider this, you should paint all six sides of the homasote to minimize expansion and contraction. I can truly state that this will deaden all the sound. Only thing better is cork roadbed.
Since EZTrack is mounted on plastic, it will always give you some noise. Wood just amplifies it.
Good luck.
HO-Ron

I don't know about Green Bay, but the one I do know is the Kingston and George Bay Railroad.
HO-Ron

Well Gene, actualy they were mostly white. The trim varied, but the houses were painted with white lead paint as that was the cheapest way to go. Colors cost money and were just about only used for trim. Now there were brick houses and stone houses. Obviously those were the color of the region's brick/stone color. The trim on these also varied, but most of time I remember that being white......
In the city the houses had more color. Lots of blue, tan (light brown) and I do remember one house that was purple. with white trim.
In the rural areas I never really saw more than white. I grew up in Wisconsin so others may have a different prespective on this. All those rural houses were "row houses" or farm houses.
Just my memories from 60 or so years ago.
HO-Ron

I will give you my wild guess at this. My Quantum decoders all shut off the steam chuff when I decelerate the engine. The cutoff value is closed by the engineer and there will be no chuff sound as the engine is coasting to a stop. The key here would be, if you increase the the speed does the chuff return?? If it does then, it is right as far as I can see.

Hope this helps.
HO-Ron

A round table is used to turn engines around. A transfer table is used to move diesels from one shed to another. It will not turn a engine around. Your choice with one caveat. The transfer table is some what modern. The turn table was used "mainly" in the steam era and transition period.

EZ Track has a road bed. Yards where tables are located do not have a raised road bed. The track basically sits in the ground. It is up to you if want to transition your track from main line (raised) to sidings and yards (not raised). All the turn tables I know of are meant to be used with un-raised track. Also true of transfer tables, but...... here there might be more leeway. I suppose there is a way to fudge the turn table too but the roundhouse is another matter. You would in either case have to raise the storage building to meet the EZ track.

Either way, good Luck.
HO-Ron

Unless I am mistaken, the SD 40 - 2 is a Six Wheel engine. Going through a #5 Turnout I wonder if the trucks can deal with it. It makes me think that the "contact" with the rail is lost because it rides up on the frog.... ? Six wheel diesels are not all that great on an small radius 
Give it a check and see if the contact to the frog is being lost. Normally the back wheels will still be in contact and drive the engine from there so the fact that the front wheels have lost contact doesn't present a problem. If only one set of the drivers are in contact with the rail, that could explain why you stop.
Just an idea.. I have seen a lot of problems with six wheel diesels on what might be called small radius curves.
Best to you, HO-Ron