Questions, Answers & Tips - 4
“We haven’t had any failures with the Powerex NiMHs yet.
The Powerex do require their own smart charger, though,”
Milhaupt said.
You can buy Powerex batteries at almost any BatteriesPlus
store, on Amazon, or at Thomas Distributing
Tenergy batteries are sold online. Google for “Tenergy 9v 230
mAh rechargeable batteries.”
Several people report poor results with 9V batteries from Radio
Shack, Menards and Walmart. The rechargeable batteries from
Radio Shack would only put out 8.4 volts when fully charged -
within a couple of hours they are in the danger zone.
The Powerex smart charger documentation says “When
the lights turn green, the batteries are ready to be used. If
left inside the charger, the batteries will be trickle-charged.”
Powerex specifies using its charger only with NiMH batteries
that can stand a 90ma quick charge. People who use a different
brand of charger need to check the instructions. You did save
the instructions, didn’t you?
– Jim Bernier, Don, Richard, Fritz Milhaupt
Card boxes for operations
Q.
I’m going to be operating my layout with a car card and
waybill system and I want waybill boxes to keep the clutter on
my layout to a minimum. MicroMark has a nice “RTR” three-
compartment waybill box that’s relatively inexpensive but isn’t
workable in the four-step Set Out/Pickup/Off Spot/Hold system
that I would like to use. Outside of making my own is anyone
aware of four-compartment boxes out there? I was thinking of
combining the set out/hold boxes, as theoretically during an op
session, cards would be added only to this compartment.
A.
If you don’t want to build your own four-hole boxes, use the
Micro-Mark boxes with the same four categories, but divide the
last box (of the three) with two heavy card stock cards that just
fit inside the box and are a little taller than a car card, with the
back one even taller than the first. The back one is tacked to the
back of the box and labeled HOLD. All cards for cars that need to
held will go in front of it.
The other is loose and is labeled OFF SPOT . All cars that need
an off spot movement during this session will be in front of that.
Once those cars have been moved from the off-spot, the opera-
tor will move the card to the SET OUT box. The car cards will be
switched from SET OUT to other boxes as needed between tricks
as would any other car card.
5
5: Internal dividers in waybill boxes can keep car cards
and waybills organized while reducing clutter on the
fascia board.
MRH-Feb 2013
