ICE 3 ride around the layout

 Video shot on my layout of my ICE 3 train running around.

Two long trains

I am now able to run reasonably long trains. This video shows two of them. The long goods train is 5.9m long and the transformer train is 3.5m long.

Aurora borealis

Here is my ICE 3 train rolling past the aurora borealis....

The lights in the sky are implemented by two Hue light strips that I make flicker in alternating aurora colors.

They are controlled by my layout software

Some train video (old layout)

On father's day I ran some trains about and decided to see how my son's digital camera video function worked so we placed the camera on the layout and filmed some trains. No planning at all. TV can even be heard in the background - (Indianapolis Formula 1 GP)

Linus added some train sound effects and put them all into one clip...

The video camera does not do well with the bright signal lamps, they tend to over expose.

Review: Märklin mobile crane 46715

My Märklin mobile crane 46715 arrived this week. As reported by others, it is on the noisy side and somewhat faster than it could have been, but overall its a nice model.  Trying to operate it by selecting different functions and getting the motor direction is not very friendly, so I created a control screen in my software - and it provides a much easier method of controlling the crane....

Review: Digitising a 3048 steamer with ESU LokPilotDCC

The ESU LokPilot and LokPilotDCC decoders are good multifunction decoders with load control and many configurable settings, for example, the light intensity of lights, various flashing patterns, etc. The only reason these decoders do not get 5 stars is their extreme sensitivity to momentary loss of power - which can happen if the track is dirty.

This is a sequence of photographs showing how I installed an ESU LokPolotDCC decoder into my Märklin 3048 steamer that has the old motor type with the large flat commutator. Also shown is the relay I added for the smoke unit.

Speed calibration of ICE 3 (37783)

Today my 37783 set arrived and I thought I would report on its speeds.

The max speed setting in the motorized car was factory set to the maximum speed.

My software calibration measured the following  scale speeds

speed step   forwards  backwards
 1              19km/h     18km/h
 5+            138km/h    158km/h
10             318km/h    208km/h
14             319km/h

I decided that it was way too fast for my layout and decided to reduce the speed by reducing the max speed pot by a 180° turn. (My longest straight track that is visible is only 2,5m long)

This shows the calibrated speeds of my ICE 3 train after reducing the max speed setting with a 180° turn of the speed pot.
It seems that the intermediate speed steps are not all that significant - and are often the same as the non intermediate speed.
All speeds measured with acceleration off.

As you can see the speeds increase pretty much linearly with the speed step.