MWaz Get off your duff challenge

[twilight]

During this build, it also has become utterly frustrating with how cluttered my workbench would become. Sometimes with 3 or 4 different builds going at the same time. One thing that really had been driving me nuts were wires laying across the work bench. Whether it was, test leads, power cords, DCC flat wire, things were always getting tangled and in the way. So I came up with this:


It allows me to send DCC or DC power to the test track and DC power to a terminal block:






At the terminal block I can hook up alligator clips, to test motors & mechanisms. Added Atlas bumpers to each end of test track. They were long overdue. On/off switch allows me to turn track power on and off. Just allowing DC power at terminal block.

It's not 100% complete yet. I have DCC decoder tester that I'd like to incorporate into this little test station, too.

As for the build, I have decided not to add the torque arm. Fingers crossed on styrene block behind gear box. Will keep an eye on this set up and save the torque arm install for future builds .

End of yellow stick shows styrene block painted and glued in place:



And as stated in an earlier post, the H9 is looking a little rough after all the handling from the gearbox and pickup troubles:


So, I spent sometime today cleaning up the workbench and doing some touch up on the locomotive.

These exposed wires were only set up as temporary when I added the pickups:


So, I made them a little more permanent with some square tube styrene:


Then painted the styrene(paint was a little wet when I took the picture):


Going to try straighten out the tender later tonight. Probably the 3rd time for putting that missing marker light on.