Troubles, troubles and more troubles

It's been a time of strife over the last few weeks. Often, I was tempted to stop what I was doing and find another hobby - well, not really but almost!

OK, so what were the problems.

1. My software seemed to be unable to do anything correctly
2. Lighting coaches created lots of issues
3. Derailments that were too regular.

 Software

My software is intended to provide a series of suitable train consists to give me a lot of interest and variety. However, the random allocaters of loks and wagons was failing miserably. I started out trying to fix the problems but then broke all my own commercial programming rules and - basically - tried to hack my way to a working program. On realising what I was doing, I stepped back - went to an earler version and rewrote the way these things were allocated. It took a couple of weeks of frustration before I sorted it out. It still isn't perfect but, currently, it is usable. Needs more work though.

Lighting Coaches

I would like to get all of my coaches lit but I can't find a system that I am happy with. I have tried four ways:

1. Fit a slider and pickups; fit a rectifier and power a string of LEDs. Use Viessmann conductive couplers to get the power to other coaches.
2. Fit a slider and pickups; fit a decoder and power a string of LEDs controlled by a function on the decoder. Use Viessmann conductive couplers to get the power to other coaches.
3. Fit a slider and pickups; Viessmann LED fittings. Use Viessmann conductive couplers to get the power to other coaches.
4. Fit Layouts4U battery power and latching reed switches.Use Viessmann conductive couplers to get the power to other coaches.

None of these worked because of my incompetence, basically.

First off, it didn't occur to me that fitting Viessmann couplers would shorten the distance between the coaches. One of my coach sets is comprised of "Expert" Piko ones and these are full scale length. However, individually, this is how it panned out.

1. The worked OK except for two things. The way the keep-alive works meant that when the coach lost power from the track, the battery took over and the lights shone brighter. Not quite what I wanted. Also, my local DCC man - Kevin at Coastal DCC - only had one unit in stock. I tried communicating with the manufacturer - Express models but never got any answer to my e-mail - not good.
2. Using a decoder didn't get very far as, firstly I blew one up so I had to buy a second to test the installation. Secondly, I was fitting it to my push-pull set so had to take the Piko decoder out (that controlled the lights on the end of the control cab). Once I had the ESU LokPilot fitted, it broke the way that the coaches worked with the lok. I now had to configure the coach lights using DCC and then switch to MFX to get the consist going between the lok and the coach set. Again, I had the problem of the coaches and couplers.
3. I bought some Viessmann strips and put them into my Piko coaches - wrong! Realised that they still wouldn'y go around the curves. Broke the strips up taking them out and couldn't find a way to reconnect everything so it all went into the bin. Good setup though. The strip includes a rectifier and a brightness control. Still needs a slider though so conductive couplers.
4. This seems to be the best was to go. However, I think that I must have had some faulty reed switches. Using a magnet, you should be able to turn the coach on and off. However, every time that I turned the coach off, it would come back on as I pulled the magnet away. I did find, later, that some that I put into my Rheingold coaches along while ago all worked fine. This is the way I will go for future investigations and it is cheap and doesn't require a slider.

Derailments

The last problem came from the new Piko Hobby red/cream coaches. As these were shorter than the Piko push pull coaches, I assumed that they would go around OK but they kept derailing at the s-curve at the front of the layout. I was showing my wife what was happening when she mentioned that the track seemed to dip at that point. On investigation, it appeared that the levels between the two boards were wrong. Using the electric raise and lower mechanism, I raised the main desk just a tiny amount until everything showed level and, lo and behold, the coaches went around OK. On u to my eagle eyed wife!