I found an oopsie while laying track around the Pennsy Marine facility this evening. Turns out there was no drop in bench work to allow for any marine things to reach the repair facility.
Before: There is no water at the marine facility.
Before: Fortunately this is a layout full of modules.
After: The sea change resulted in a standard 1-1/2" drop. I don't know how I determined that was where the tide was back in the summer of '13 when I started installing modules, but that's what it is.
After: A nice little chunk of harbor now allows vessels to reach the Pennsy Marine facility.
And the "main line" is now in from soup (Weehawken) to nuts (Port Authority Pier), and I am closing in on the golden spike. Sounds like a ceremony is in order soon. Where should it take place?
The CVP CONVRTR chip and AirWire 5000 battery installation can be deemed a success at this point. What is not so successful, is that the micro-Tsunami crapped out after about 15 minutes of running yesterday. It restarted after a few minutes of what I assumes was cooling down. Today I attached an aluminum heat sink to the flat bottom of the decoder using some ArcticSilver 5, which is a high-density polysynthetic silver thermal compound. After getting everything back in the shell with some shifting around of the individual pieces, I ran the locomotive for about 45 minutes with no problems. I'll declare victory on the overheating problem for now.
Things are shaping up nicely, and I can see doing more installations soon, now that I have a feel for the components. So far, I have run the locomotive for about an hour on a single battery charge. The set up is a Tenergy 1-4 Cells Li-PO/Li-Fe Balance Charger + Tenergy 11.1V 1000mAh Li-Po Airsoft Stick Battery Pack from All-Battery.com.
Connection from the decoder to the CONVRTR chip and battery. Just two wires substituting for the track pick up and decoder signals.
ArcticSilver 5 thermal compoind from the Rat Shack. $12.
'Tinting' the heat sink rubs the compound into the micro-grooves and pits of the heat sink surface. Just use a hard (clean) piece of plastic to scrape back and forth on the surface. Try not to get finger oil into the mix as this degrades the thermal conduction. I don't think it is that critical here, but a good practice nonetheless.
The heat sink bound tightly to the micro-Tsunami with Kapton tape. I ended up having to remove the back of the speaker baffle and relocate the capacitor to over the trucks to fit the shell on completely. The capacitor needs better securing, because it is hitting the drive gear every so often making a bit of a grinding noise and adding unnecessary load to the motor.
An amazing thing happened today - something worked. I was able to install a CVP mini-AirWire radio control system "in" an HBS 44tonner, and it worked on the first try. I will ride this feeling for as long as I can.
I used a spare gondola (after converting the couplers to Kadee No.5s) to carry the battery (made for Airsoft guns) and CONVRTR chip along with wiring and a power toggle switch. I attached small plugs to the micro-Tsunami leads and two wires run between gondola and locomotive. I can explain in detail the set up more later if there is interest.
Note: There are no lights in the locomotive, yet. May not ever be, since they didn't operate at night, and several of the terminal railroads didn't require them. I'll have to check if that is the case on the HBS. This locomotive was a problem child, too, when it was just DCC, but it showed none of those signs in the initial run. That points to track pick up as the culprit, and not the Soundtraxx micro-Tsunami decoder. I was thinking that the 750 was getting overloaded and resetting, but apparently not.
I'll need to clean up the wiring now that I know it works, and I may try to put the decoder in the gondola, too, if I can't get it situated inside the locomotive. It keeps the body shell up off the chassis just enough to mess up the body-mounted coupler heights. I may be able to modify the motor enclosure enough that it will lay flat.
There will be a tarp or something over the "load" in the gondola, and the wires will be painted black and as small a gauge as possible. It should end up looking like hoses. The idler car works fine on the HBS, but the Erie 149th Street terminal doesn't have any spare room on a crucial lead.
The parts are not cheap, but then again, what is? The HBS will be an all battery fleet (5-8 locomotives), but the pocket terminals will probably stay DCC since there will be a variety of road names on numerous units - unless the shells are the only things that change...? ;)
As is the double slip ladder on the north end of the yard. The next step is to verify that the Erie yard tracks and the first section of HBS yard tracks between the north ladder and the slip switches are equal. Why? So that the switcher can move equal cuts of cars between them. This is a good example of those small decisions that should be made with operations in mind.
In this case, I empirically verified that the optimal number of 40' cars is 4 that can be accommodated on each side of the ladder.
Across the way from the interchange yard over at Bethlehem, the shoreline is getting glued to the module so I can continue laying track inside their property. This end is where the dry docks and piers run into the aisle. A large ship will float here somehow sliced in section to fit.
Installed some foam tonight at water modules to clean up bulkhead line at Bethlehem Steel and float bridge.
Battery radio control system from CVP ordered. It will be an involved project to install in a switcher with an idler flat or gondola carrying the battery and maybe chip, too. Stay tuned.
I'm making progress on installing skirt boards on the HBS. These are ex-West Texas sky boards, and I will be painting them a different color (perhaps the color of the wall beyond.) I used self-adhesive Velcro reinforced with super glue.
The materials and tools.
No thoughts on the fascia, yet, but I'd like to make it good.
Upcoming things in approximate order:
re-building the Erie 149th street yard bench work in 2 parts so I can move it and store it more easily.
procuring foam board for building up right of way on the modules that are lowered for water.
battery powered radio control systems testing. I'll probably try CVP first. I'm thinking about trying it in a double lash-up of 44-tonners 700 and 701 or more likely a trailing idler gondola.
get rid of beds in room and replace with inflatables for guests.
operate!
build bookshelves in other part of the house for the multitude of books in the room.
get rid of TV.
build workbench for modeling and computer.
I also found out that my cat likes Spicy Nacho Doritos. I assume it is the salt at crunch more than the spice, but he enjoyed the little taste he had either way.
As is the double slip ladder on the north end of the yard. The next step is to verify that the Erie yard tracks and the first section of HBS yard tracks between the north ladder and the slip switches are equal. Why? So that the switcher can move equal cuts of cars between them. This is a good example of those small decisions that should be made with operations in mind. 
Across the way from the interchange yard over at Bethlehem, the shoreline is getting glued to the module so I can continue laying track inside their property. This end is where the dry docks and piers run into the aisle. A large ship will float here somehow sliced in section to fit. 
Installed some foam tonight at water modules to clean up bulkhead line at Bethlehem Steel and float bridge.
