October 25, 2022

The meeting was held at Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church, President Jeff Graybill presiding.

 
Attendees:
           Jeff Graybill, President
           Warren Ashbrook, Vice President
Dave Bodnar, Treasurer
Rich Aubel, Secretary
Dave Tepe
Dave Murphy
Dave Maynard
Paul Kwiecinski
           Dale Vilsack
David Damp
Vince Lilja
John Skariot
Bill Davies
J. R. Kolmer
Liz Kolmer
 
 Presidents Report:
Setup for Mt. Lebanon Light Night will be on Wednesday, November 16th starting at 12:00 noon for those who can make it during the day and continue until 9:00 pm for those who can’t come until after work.
 
We will be running trains on November 17th from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm and will need as many members as possible to help with event. Those attending should arrive at the Municipal Building between 5:00 and 5:30 pm.  A free raffle will be held for a train set at the event.
 
The Municipal Building is located at 710 Washington Road for those who haven’t been to a Light Night previously.
 
We will NOT be running trains on Friday, November 18th so tear-down will start at 12:00 noon and continue as necessary.
 
Locomotion Weekend at the Carnegie Science Center will be held on January 14th and 15th, 2023. Setup will be on January 13th starting after closing time around 5:00 pm. Jeff will be contacting Nichole at the Science Center to assure that we can use the elevator near the food court instead of the freight elevator.
 
We are tentatively shooting for March 1st to 3rd, 2023 for a show at the Scott Township Community Room.  Setup would be on March 1st and train operation March 2nd and 3rd. More information on times will be provided at a later date.
 
Treasurers Report:
The total of funds in the Treasury is $4882.25 which includes $4422.25 in the bank and $460 cash on hand. The club paid for the train set that will be given away at Mt. Lebanon Light Night.
 
 Program:
For show and tell:
 
Dave Bodnar demonstrated how he used an addressable string of LED’s to simulate lightning more realistically.  He also showed an example for the use of these lights in a model of a cloud with the LED’s installed and how it worked.
 
Rich Aubel brought a scratchbuilt turntable that he intends to control using a stepper motor and Arduino as soon as he can find a suitable program on YouTube.
 
Dale Vilsack brought a custom built box that he is making for the Digitrax DCC system that we use for the module control.  Mt. Lebanon Light Night will be a good time to test it out.
 
Jeff Graybill finished assembling the module connection wires that match the NMRA Div. 2 connections for future use when we combine with them at Greenberg shows. Members were encouraged to take sets to install on their modules.
 
In answer to some questions, the FreeMo modules that we use were described and construction explained.  It was pointed out that a link to the FreeMo standards is available on the club website (www.shmrrc.org) along with videos of the layout and other helpful information.
 
A brief discussion concerning DCC programming on the mainline was held with pros and cons highlighted.
 
A suggestion for a topic on modelling water was made and scheduled for the November meeting.  Members are encouraged to bring examples of ways they use to model water for the discussion.  Since there are many different methods, an email will be sent for members to respond about which method they are going to bring to the meeting so that we don’t have duplicates.  Members can respond with their intentions to the email.
 
Next Meeting:
The next SHMRRC meeting will be at the Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church at 7:00 pm on November 29, 2022.