An LV GP38 to D&H, DC to DCC conversion project

[TMo]

Part VIII - Weathering the Beast

  As alluded to in the last entry, I weathered the cab without the glazing insert.  Most of the stuff I put on it was just black PanPastel on the roof, some simulated oil, dirt and rust on the rest of the shell.  Since this unit was only a few years old, I didn't use much rust.  Also hit the trucks and visible understructure with a dull gray paint and added a few highlights.  Overdusted the trucks and fuel tank with gray PanPastel.  The look I was shooting for was relatively new, but with not a whole lot of effort on aesthetics.  Here are a couple of shots of the finished project.  Started on Monday, finished by Saturday night with a lot of starts and stops.  The Delaware and Hudson has "new" power available....

                   

[cn nutbar]

Very well done Todd ---you have a very special addition to your collection and one to be proud of.

[TMo]

Thanks a bunch! It was fun working on it and sharing bits and pieces of the journey. It's back to our regularly scheduled program after a brief hiatus. I'm hoping to do some ballasting this afternoon at Mud Run.

[Charlie B]

Todd, Great job, and a great job explaining what you were doing, and excellent pictures to document the process. It looks great on the rails.
Charlie

[TMo]

Thanks for watching along the way and catching me when I slipped up, Charlie! It was nice starting a project and only working and documenting it until it was finished and working - and it was nice to work on functionality and aesthetic changes at the same time. Hey, when the shell's off, that's the time to address everything!

[TMo]

I've been frustrated with my lack of understanding of DCC consisting and the link to lighting controls while operating in consist mode.  I'd want a headlight on a specific locomotive to come on (or go out) while it was in consist with others, and I wasn't having much luck cracking the code.  A lot of pictures without front headlights as a result....

So, I think I found a simple solution (for the time being), and that's programming CV22, which for most of my decoders, I believe, has a default value of 0.  I believe that "0" means that the consist lighting CVs (where lighting is controlled over the consist's identifier) for the individual decoders take precedence, and it seems like those vary between decoder manufacturers.  However, if CV22 has a value of "1", the throttle can activate the locomotive's base address lighting (through Function F0).  

For example, I'm currently running locomotives 3614 and 7604 in consist #126.  If I've already programmed 7604 with a CV22=1 (prior to establishing the consist), while running consist 126, I can dial up "7604" on my throttle and turn the directional lighting on (or off) for that individual locomotive.  Until I get a better handle on consist lighting options, I'm going to attempt to set CV22 to "1" for my fleet.

Both CV21 (F1 through F8) and CV22 (for F0, F9, F10, F11, and F12) give the option to control function calls through the base address of the locomotive.  Don't know if anyone else has had this issue, but I wanted to share what I've discovered.