 I'm James Regere and December's What's Neat starts right now. The What's Neat show is sponsored by Caboose, sharing our passion for trains since 1938. This is What's Neat for December 2020. I'm your host Ken Patterson and this month we really do have a good show. First of all I'm going to show you a product called Ballast Bond and Ballast Magic. Ballast Bonder is a product from the UK that allows you to glue down the ballast on your railroad track either in liquid form or in dry powder. It also works good for making trees and doing freight car loads which I will demonstrate in this month's video. Also in this video I show you how to install a TCS train speed 1 speedometer for your layout. And in this case I decided to install mine on the fascia of one of my modules in the room and it reads accurate speed either in miles per hour or kilometers for your layout. I'd like to thank the viewers of What's Neat for supporting and watching our show. We're coming now into our ninth year of doing this show with over 98 different What's Neat videos made since November 2012. We've covered all subject matter, we've shown how-tos, we've done interviews, the St. Louis RPM meet and so many other great shows and subjects that we've talked about. Be sure to check those out at the Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine's YouTube website. There's a lot of information that you can go back on through the years and review. Also I'd like to thank the viewers that watched the What's Neat this week podcast. That's the weekly video show that we create every single Saturday night to keep you updated on what's new, the latest news, latest products and what's going in on in this hobby of ours, the best hobby in the world, model railroading. So with that, let's continue on with the rest of this December 2020 What's Neat. For this segment of What's Neat, I'm going to install a speedometer onto my layout so I can accurately read miles per hour of the trains as they move along. Now I'm going to install this sensor on my river diorama here that has got an area of the layout where it's going to be easy to be seen from all over the area where we usually sit and congregate. I do most of my work so I can simply look up and be able to read the digital readout. I've got a TCS or train control system, train speed one system here and it's a system that is simply a module with a LED readout on it right here and it mounts behind the fascia of the layout. So what I'm going to do is mount that right here on the layout behind this plywood. My layout of course is foam and all my modules are designed so that I can lift them up and take them over into the shop in the event that I want to do work on them, which is what we're going to do here. Now the system runs on between 6 and 18 volts. So what I did was I went through my box of old transformers. We all have those from various electronic projects and things that we get through the years and I found a transformer here that puts out 9 volts. I also went through my old electronic box and found this old USB hub and I took that apart, pulled out the circuit board and what I found on that was a connector that just happens to plug in with the connector on the transformer. So my plan is to mount this connector underneath the layout so that I can plug in the electrical jack directly from underneath my layout anytime that I want. I also plan to put a switch, a rocker switch on the side of the layout so I can turn the power on and off to the system so that it doesn't run all the time. Now the digital readout here is just got the right thickness on it here where it'll mount flush behind this piece of plywood. So all I've got to do is cut out a hole in this, cut the foam and then mount this up underneath and I'm probably going to attach it to the side on the inside with Velcro. So accessibility and removal will be easy in the event that I need to do maintenance on this. So I'm going to screw the power supply into the terminals here that are on the circuit board, mount it in place, plug in the jack. Now the other question you've got to ask yourself is how does this system read speed? It does that through these two, what appear to be almost LEDs, these little sensors and the distance of the sensors is the most important thing with installing this system because if these are off by as much as a quarter of an inch you're going to get an inaccurate read. Now what do I mean by that? The system is set factory to read these little, the distance of these need to be set at one hundredth of an HO scale mile and what does that mean? Well there is a chart in the instructions that explain that one hundredth of a mile in HO scale is seven point two, eight, three inches apart. Now what does that mean? Well it sounds like it's about seven and a quarter inches but again if I do it at exact seven and a quarter that's not seven point two eight three because seven and a quarter would be seven point two five. So what I did was I pulled out my handy calipers here that read in a thousandths of an inch and I was able to set them to the exact dimension of seven point two eight three and by setting the pointers on the track I will be able to see where between the ties exactly I need to put each sensor in relation to the ties which is actually perfect it fits between the ties in this area just right. Once I've got the sensors in place I'll run the wire from the sensors where there's a jack right here that'll simply plug into the circuit board on the system. So this should be a pretty straightforward installation I don't think it'll take very long at all but I'm going to walk you through the process as I do it and let's see how this project turns out. The first step in the process was to remove the river module from the layout. All of my modules are built on flat table tops and come out for easy maintenance and access. I simply rolled this into the shop where the speedometer's installation would take place. I used a spiral cutter in my Dremel with a router base attachment to cut a square hole into the quarter inch plywood fascia. This hole would be one and a quarter by one half inches to accept the digital display. I used a tippy foam cutting tool which is essentially a hot foam cutter to create a space behind the quarter inch plywood to accept the TCS train speed one circuit board into the module. I then used a file to do final carving around the quarter inch plywood fascia until the one and a quarter by half inch hole would accept the train speed one's three digit digital readout. This fit flush into the quarter inch plywood making for a very professional looking finish. To further enhance the installation's appearance I masked an area around our square hole with blue painter's tape and white paper to protect the plywood and proceeded to paint this area with shake the can black spray paint. I let this dry for a few hours before removing the tape. Once the paint was dry I drilled a three-quarter inch hole into the plywood fascia that would accept a radio shack rocker switch giving us the option of turning the speedometer on and off. Using woodland scenic's dry transfer letters I burnished the letters m p h onto the side of the module just under where the digital readout would be placed indicating that the reading on the side of the module would in fact be in miles per hour. I then finished the side of the module fascia with a fresh brand new coat of high gloss polyurethane to the entire eight foot long module and then I let this dry overnight. With a visual finish of the speedometer on the side of the module complete it was now time to focus on the wiring on the underside of the foam module. I cut a piece of plexiglass on the bandsaw in a circle with enough flat space to glue under the diorama. This disc will act as the mount to hold the female plug that will allow me to easily plug the wall transformer's wire and male plug into the bottom of the scene. I picked the location under the module to draw a circle on the foam where the plexiglass disc and the female jack would be installed up under the scene and tucked up into the foam. Using the hot foam wire cutter I cut a space into the foam underneath to accept this disc with the idea of keeping the jack flush up underneath so that it wouldn't protrude to the bottom of the module when it slid back into position. I also cut a channel in the foam leading from the female jack to the space where the speedometer would be located. This is the area where the power wires will run from the jack to the circuit board's J2 power screw terminals. Now I'm turning my attention to the top of the diorama where I need to put in these LEDs the sensors that sense the distance and gives us our calculations. This comes on a big flat wire like this and all the wire is not necessary. Only four of the wires in this harness are necessary for the two sensors. So I've stripped away a lot of the extra wire so that I've got these small two wires connected to each sensor which I will then run through this I think this is a three sixteenths brass tube and they fit in there perfectly. So I would run this brass tube through the foam of the layout and then run the sensors up through it right flush with the top of the railroad ties. Now I notice these sensors they're soldered and the soldered joints are open to the air so I wrapped I'm wrapping them in black tape so that as it goes through the brass tube I don't get a short on the sensor that's kind of important. Now looking at the layout here I've got the module on its flat side and I've got my caliper set for the exact distance of one one-hundredth of a mile which as we said before was seven point two eight three seven point two eight three and I've got it set for that right now what I'm going to do is take the points of the caliper here and put them on top of the trackwork find out where these two points are take a black sharpie and make dots on the ballast line inside between the ties where this is going to fit right here and then I'm going to sink the brass tube down through that point onto the underneath side of the diorama and cut it off so that we'll be able to run a channel in the foam underneath with these wires. I'm running my second tube through using a screwdriver to help me push it in place all the way through the foam until I can feel it pop out the underneath side and I want this tube to be flush with the top of the rails actually with the ties just like that now I could glue these tubes in but they're so tight I don't think they'll ever move a little white glue would be something to think about around the edges the second tube didn't protrude all the way through but I can see exactly where it is here I double check with the calipers to make sure my distance is right so I think as we take the hot foam cutter and cut into this we will locate our brass tube in there I can feel it yep there it is right there and it's already deep into the foam which is exactly what I want I don't want the tube protruding out the bottom of the foam I want the foam the tube to be up inside the foam so when this diorama lays flat on my tabletop surface all these wires are going to be tucked up in a channel looks like I've done here this is the main power wire for the track in fact and it's mounted up underneath there flush so when the table sits everything's flat then I use this foam pro orange foam to keep it in place and it's exactly what we're going to do on this project with all of the wires we're going to mount all the wires inside these channels that I'm creating with the hot foam cutter and then cover them up with a foam pro burying the wires into the foam so what I need to do is cut all the way across now from each brass tube create a channel just like this this foam cutter cuts very quickly take that piece out and then I'll be able to put the leds now these will have to be glued into place with white glue I still need to wrap this one with black electrical tape but we're going to put these leds right inside the brass tube and feed it through absolutely flush with the ties and as you can see I'll bury this in this channel here and feed this one through the same way after I wrap it in electrical tape which I haven't done yet just for illustration purposes I'll go ahead and thread it through now and then we're going to have all of this wire where the connector is going to run up to where the electronics are going to be right here so all of this wire is going to have to be folded up real neat and I'll create a area here a big hole where we can tuck all this wire up underneath the module as well very clean so I've got both of the leds pushed through the brass tube here you can see the wires and I've got them both wrapped in black electrical tape I'm going to take this tacky glue and I'm just going to put a little glue around the edges here and shove these flush with the ties and just let them set for about 30 minutes just a little glue it'll go into the brass tube and hold everything nice and tight it will dry clear so it won't affect the led and I'm going to push this led completely flush with the tops of the ties just like that I'm going to do the same thing on this side doesn't take much glue at all it won't take much just a little bit so that it touches the inside of the brass tube and we're going to shove this one in place too the both spaced are spacing our exact spacing of seven inches point eight three seven point two eight three spacing so that'll give us an exact readout when a train goes across the top of this and interferes with the light creating the circuit which the detector will detect so that's all I've got to do on this side I'm going to let that set up and then we'll start burying all the wires on the other side of the diorama underneath and get everything wired up now that the sensors were behind the track it was time to go underneath the diorama and start gluing all the wiring and everything in place starting with the plexiglass disc that would hold our connector to supply power to the diorama I used foam pro that orange foam to glue the disc into place underneath the layout and then I used tape in fact some black gorilla tape to hold it into place because this foam would expand and I didn't want the plexiglass disc to be pushing out from underneath the module that would hold it into place until everything cured in about 30 minutes so now that the wires with the brass tubes this is all dry now I've got our ribbon cable here in place and I cut out a groove so that it comes off of each brass tube I cut out a groove here going right up the middle of the diorama across diorama and I'll shove this flat ribbon cable in there I also created a cavity for all this additional extra ribbon cable since it's so long I can just tuck that inside the module here just like that which leaves our jack which simply plugs into the speedometer right on the back right here just like that okay then what I'm going to do I'm probably going to use some silicone glue and silicone this up to the fascia of the layout I've got my rocker switch in place I've soldered the wires to that you can see it works here just like that and I've got the rocker switch wires connected to our jack what I did was I took the great stuff foam pro glue and that plastic plastic plexiglass disc that we made that the jack is mounted to I cut out a cavity here inserted that in there put gorilla tape over the top of it and let that sit for about 20 minutes until the great foam set up and it is now set up so what I'm going to do all I've got to do is simply like I said take the speedometer puts put a little glue on this here maybe silicone I'm going to push it up into place through our hole in the plywood so it'll be fascia mounted and then I've got all these wires to tuck into our grooves which the grooves are already cut all I got to do is plug everything together on the jack this is going very quickly right now and then what I'm going to do is make sure all these wires are in tight okay and then I'm going to fill all of these channels that we made with the great stuff foam let it fill let it cure let it bubble out and then I'll shave it off smooth so that the bottom of the diorama will be completely smooth when I put it back into place on the table surface where it belongs on the layout so this is going to take just a few minutes to do and this is going to be complete now it was time to connect the sensor ribbon cable to the train speed ones circuit board matching the red cable on the harness to the number one pin on the 10 pin jack this is very important and it's covered in the instruction pamphlet that comes with the train speed one here's a trick I've got for holding the wires into the foam until I fill it up with the great stuff I like to take these one inch staples that are usually used with a staple gun and I pull them apart individually and I press them into the foam I let the staple go on either side of the wire careful not to damage the wire or puncture the wire and I just shove these staples into place into the foam and they hold it temporarily until I get the great stuff into the groove and that's what I'm doing right now I don't think I have to do that to the ribbon wire okay I'm ready to mount the speedometer into our fascia and I'm going to use just a little silicone glue on this right out of the caulking tube I'm going to put it right on the circuit board I'm going to press it into position and watch as this thing fits right into our hole that we've got carved right here should fit in there flush mount nicely it does everything's plugged in everything's already pre-wired there's nothing else I need to get to now all the ribbon wires all the black wires everything is tucked into our grooves in the foam as you can see right here the bundle of wires like I said is right here our electronics are all in the place the rocker switch is wired we have flush mounted with silicone everything's in the place so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to take this great stuff foam this pro stuff and I'm going to fill this groove and let it go ahead and bubble on out it's going to expand and then after it expands we're going to shave it flush this is no magic to this cover everything thoroughly encasing everything and to get to these electronics everything's and that's it we're going to let this cure razor saw and shave it off smooth after it expands the further in the next 30 minutes and then we'll be able to put this module back into the layout plug it in and see if it works so with all the foam cured and all the wires tucked into the module all I got to do is take this saw and just flush cut the bottom of the diorama and then we're ready to go and put it back into the layout where it belongs to get a train running let's see how it works just like that we slide the diorama right back into place where it belongs the tracks match up right here back in place and I simply plug in the power underneath the layout I've got jacks right here I plug up underneath and power each module individually to make sure good power ready to test the system now and see how it works after I put in the rails right here and just line up the tracks and so just like that we've completed the installation of the tcs train speed one speedometer I've got it of course mounted right here and I'm going to turn it on and as a train runs across the sensors you're going to see that it's going to read out the speed that the train is going and there you can see it's going 25 miles an hour it's worked out really well I really like the way it works guys I'll enjoy seeing it operate as they run their trains now so be sure to check it out you can find this at tcs's website tcsdcc.com they offer the single unit the train speed one that you just seen me install they also have a train speed four which has four sets of sensors to read off of the same digital readout meant to be put in your control panel or mounted onto the side of your layout and so with that that's the segment for what's neat and Patterson the host of the what's neat show at model railroad hobbyist magazine and today I've got an exciting new product to talk about from the uk this is called ballast magic and it comes in a kit and I also have another product here called ballast bond and this is from deluxe materials if you check out their youtube site it's got a lot of great videos that show how to use their products and they have a lot of other model railroad products that are really great for the modeling industry in general doll houses building scenery they've got a really a lot of cool products so check them out and you can find their website at deluxe materials dot com so let's start with the ballast magic kit and what it comes with is inside the box there is a stirring stick there is a container to mix your ballast in with the glue and the glue is a powder it comes in this container it's a very fine powder it doesn't yellow and it allows your ballast when it dries to adhere to your track very well there's also a misting bottle in the kit and I've already prefilled this with water so that we can wet our ballast after we mix it I've got two different kinds of ballast here first of all I've got woodland scenics ballast and I also have rock ballast from high ball production so this is really good ballast that we like to use when we're doing dioramas because it looks very realistic in outdoor sunlight and I like the way it looks the first thing you do and the instructions specify that you should mix it seven parts ballast and then only 30% with the powdered glue and I'm going to dump the powder glue inside the container here and I'm also going to dump it in with the woodland scenics and I'm going to mix it up with the stirring stick that is supplied with the kit and as you can see the ballast gets a color to it that shows then what you do is you simply apply the ballast I have a piece of track here already glued down and I'm going to simply apply the ballast like I always do and this is the rock ballast I'm using first put down the woodland scenics ballast next in the middle here and then I'm going to take my brush a paint brush and spread the ballast the way we always show in videos nice and smooth I can see the powder mixed in with the ballast very even I'm using two different kind of brushes I've got a fan brush or a regular artist brush and then what you do is you simply spray on the water with the misting bottle which I've got right here and that causes the glue the powder glue and the ballast to stick together and they suggest that you let it dry for two hours the other thing I've got is a product called ballast bond and this is a liquid product it's thinner than white glue it is non-yellowing and it comes with an applicator to apply the liquid to the area that we're going to ballast and I might just pour it right out of the bottle because I feel very comfortable doing that and I'm going to use rock ballast for this so I'm going to apply the rock ballast here to the scene right next to the other area that we're waiting to dry spread it smooth and then I'm going to apply the liquid which has already got a wetting agent mixed in with it so it'll soak in between the ties and around all the ballast and what we'll do is we'll put this aside and let this dry and see how it comes out in two hours another thing that you can do with this product which I find very interesting I've got a Bachman coal car here which has got a plastic load in it already and what I want to do is I'm going to sprinkle coal on top of this and glue it down using the powder glue and I don't need that much coal so let me dump out some of this I'm going to mix the powder in with the coal and stir it up evenly and I'm going to place it right on top of this car actually what I'm going to do is spray a little water on it so I get good stick just a little mist with the misting bottle and then I'm going to put the coal into the car this will make the car look very realistic you can see the white powder glue easily with the coal it really sticks out it's easy to see and then I'm going to spray it with the misting bottle to mix the glue in tight with the coal on top of the load that's already in there and that's all there is to it this car is already pre-weathered so I don't have to worry about ruining the outside finish on the car and we'll let this dry another thing that this product does which I find absolutely fascinating is it helps you apply the ground foam to trees so here I've got an armature of a super tree from scenic express and I'm going to mist this just a little bit with the spray bottle just to make it wet and then I'm going to sprinkle the powder glue directly on top of the tree just a little bit not a lot it looks like it's snowing and then what I'll do is I'll take woodland scenics fine ground foam and sprinkle that on top of this tree I'm going to wet it first so the glue will be activated and sprinkle on the ground foam pretty simple it looks good and then what we'll do is we'll set this aside to dry I'm misting on just a little bit more water so that the glue mixes in with the ground foam and it says to give it two hours to dry so I'll stick it right here in the diorama and we'll come back and see how this looks so here we are it's been three and a half hours since I put down the ballast bond and the ballast magic powder and I've got to tell you it's pretty much dry the woodland scenics as you see here ballast is dry the real gravel right here is dry and the ballast bond the liquid that I put down it's just about dry and it's my opinion till probably let it dry overnight but as you can see all of it is holding and none of the ballast is coming free from the main line also the coal car I'm very impressed with this the coal load looks really nice and again none of the coal it seems to be falling out of it and it didn't affect the sides of the car whatever so it's a very clean finish on this model the tree looks absolutely perfect as you can see the woodland scenics ground foam is holding quite well on this and it appears that this is a perfect tree and that the powder glue worked very well so with that it's a new product from the UK check it out check out their website by looking at deluxematerials.com and also check out their youtube site where they show these products demonstrations and a lot of other products that are helpful for us model builders so with that happy modeling all of the model railroad products seen in this episode of what's neat are available through caboose in lakewood colorado or order online at mycaboose.com