We have extra lighting

 Our living room is 40' x 18' but the ceiling lighting is just 6x5w LED (used to be 50w Halogens). This means that the railroad sitting on one corner doesn't get enough light to be able to work easily. Hence, I decided to install some "under cabinet" LED puck lights. Thinking about how to do this without annoying the other half led me to think that I could use her pile of Jigsaws that sit on top of the glass cabinets which are directly behind the railroad. I thought that, if I could make a strong structure out of my stock of 5mm foam core, then I could hold it up by sliding the back part under the jigsaw boxes.

The foam core was cut with channels from my 'v' shaped cutter. This enables me to fold the foam core easily. The result looks like this.

The puck lights look like this.

The lighting set came with four lights. The finished article looks like this. (Sorry about the Captain Kirk photo at an angle. My wife told me off for that - she is the Star  Trek fan.)

It's not perfect but it is the best that I can do, given that we rent. At least, I now have consistent lighting across the board which is brilliant.

Uncoupling Saga

 

I have great difficulty using a skewer to uncouple cars so I decided to try out the Kadee under track uncoupler. Stupidly, I bought the 5 that I thought that I would need before testing them out. Well, I have installed one of them.

As I have laid all of my track, I had to cut away from the underside. The magnet is then stuck to the bottom of the track; the hole below is filled with a square of foam core and then a piece of 2mm cardboard  that is larger all round is glued over that to keep it in place. Sorted, I thought and happily went on to the testing stage.

Well (as my youngest daughter would say) that didn't go too well. It seems that  all couplers are not created equal. They may look like Kadees but Kadee they are most definitely not. I tested some of my cars and only the real Kadees worked. I had a long exchange on Model Railroad Hobbyist about the issue and came to the conclusion that I must convert all of the non-Kadees to the real thing. £62 later and I have now received a pack containing 25 pairs of 148 whisker couplers. I have also ordered some "Grease-em" which is a small tube of graphite dust to blow into the coupler boxes.

Last week one of my favourite Youtube channels - Chadwick Model Railway - had a video on installing Kadee electric uncouplers which made me wonder. So (again as my daughter would say) I have ordered one set of his recommendations to try out. The complete set comprises a Kadee electric uncoupler, a relay/timer board and a momentary push button as described by Charlie. Here is the eBay order.

I have just received today's post and included in that was the pack of 25 pairs of couplers so I can  at least test out the current under track magnet. More on this to come.