02 Gets a makeover

Hi.

I was never quite happy with my little engine, the class 02 shunter. It was the first engine that I had ever finished and as I have learnt so much since those days it was time to spend a little time and rework a few things.

The thing that was first to go was the paintwork. For some reason I tried to weather the engine with my airbrush and somehow it ended up as Mark called it "camouflauged" so out came the Mr Muscle oven cleaner and after a couple of hours soaking the paint easily came off with a little scrub of a toothbrush. Eventually it will be repainted once I am happy with how it runs with the same green as before but this time I will take a little more care in how I weather the thing!

Secondly the LEDs which once worked but unfortunately got a bit 'shorted out' oneday and went pop were replaced with a new set and the wires replaced too. The PCB board which holds the surface mount resistors is now safely tucked away inside the top of the bonnet. This time extra care was taken not to short anything out as the body of the engine is the common return for them.

Finally I have fitted a CTE DCX74z decoder (see if you can guess where it is!) and have spent time with a sprog to programme the speed curves etc. One thing that means is I now have the advantage of directional lighting, which stays on all the time, I am so impressed! but then I am easily impressed.

Anyway things are progressing slowly with the little engine but fortunately it seems to be getting better each time.

Julia :o)