This evening, I set my focus on the gantlet track. I painted the gantlet track with a Floquil rail brown spray bomb and trimmed the ties.
Now, for the Boulder Creek Engineering WeighStation installation. I cut out the hole in the 1x4 benchwork for the panel. I marked where the sensor would be installed. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the benchwork for the infrared sensor. The instructions suggested creating a plate cover for the sensor using a thin sheet of styrene. I drilled two 1/8" holes 7/32" apart. I reamed them out (pretty easy to do on the styrene) to allow for the sensor and infrared light to fit through perfectly. I drilled two 1/8" holes for the wires on the speaker. Connected the wires to the circuit board which was very well marked.
- 2 wires for the speaker
- 3 wires for the infrared detector
- 2 wires for the 12v DC power supply
Plugged it up and tested. We have power! It detected the car as it passed over rolling up from 0lbs to 80,000lbs. Broke out the manual and set the low/high range for sand hoppers. The hoppers have a max weight of 263,000lbs. I set the low weight to 240,000lbs and high weight to 270,000lbs. This will report that roughly 23% of the cars as overweight.
So, I tested again. The first car over 268,800lbs! Overweight! HA HA HA HA HA! The crews are going to just "love" this! That car would need to be setoff to have the load reduced by the mine workers. I continued testing with a string of cars. The scale rolled up to the weight, beeped, then rolled back down to zero between the cars. Perfect!
I will complete installation tomorrow. Tonight's goal was to get it operational. Tomorrow, I will glue everything down completing installation and will photograph.
I'm pretty excited about the success of this project. I can't wait to operate!
In other news, I heard back from my informant Harold that lived along the tracks in Utica. I need to digest the information provided and come up with a plan for weighing the cars at Belrose Silica.
Steven, can't wait to see this scale in action, I've read about them. I kind of wish I had a used for one of these. If I remember correctly, that company makes a Defect Detector that I think would just add to an ops session, might have to look into one of these!
ReplyDeleteWay to go on the progress.
I've been excited about them ever since first seeing them installed on a friend's layout years ago. Boulder Creek Engineering is the company that makes them. They do make defect detectors as well. That would be neat to have as well!
Delete