Killashandra - Irish Nn3

[Philip H]

Every off the shelf version is in a plastic body off a reason.

[chicken45]

I agree with Powdered Toast Man, but I'll admit that I like his forum name of Dr. Hotballz better. 

DFF

[Mastertech]

you did read my article right? I built I VERY good fly swatter applicator yes it worked BUT not like i wanted to, area of standing grass was toooo small for my layout, so I found the you-tube article and searched e-bay and went to town on the the Water bottle, The water bottle version works so well I can actually hear the ions being generating from the bottle also the main thing Is you CAN SMELL the ions being generated YES >>SMELL<<< have you every stood in front of Ion generated air freshener? well that's what it smells like. TRUST ME it works 100% better than the fly swatter, Also side note I did touch the alligator clip a couple times and NO SPARK!! don't no why.. but no spark.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=37599.0
Another thought, I noticed while shopping there are a lot of CHEAP-0 fly swatters out there some maybe worth crap some maybe good, Put it this way Have you ever used one to swat flies or bees, One i had didn't work for *&^%!! my second one worked good and they got zappppped with a big spark. that's the one i keep on the deck. I bought it from TRACTOR SUPPLY.
remember by cheap get cheap
JOHN

[VonRyan]

[eric220]

I don't claim to have an electrical engineering degree, but it's more complex than "it's the amps that get you." Very high voltage at relatively low amperage (resulting in high wattage) can still do damage. 15A at 120V is plenty to easily kill you. Don't take this stuff lightly. The time it takes for electricity to kill you is a small fraction of human perception/reaction time, so there's no possibility of correcting once you hit an "oops."

[Scottl]

Eh, it's the Amps that get you. Having been hit by 15A 120VAC (that was somehow live to a metal junction box) while working on an ancient lighting circuit in a book shop in West Chester, the zaps that the applicator was giving me weren't any worse.

If the applicator were to require 277vac, I'd never even consider static grass. You can shake off 120/240 but 277 hurts like hell. I've seen what a couple seconds of 277 does to someone's skin. It ain't pretty.

Get a plastic water bottle and redo this.  At the very least, you are bleeding current through your body and it is reducing the efficacy of the  entire project.

[davefoxx]

Like these other guys are saying, "Don't be stubborn" or "Don't be lazy" or "Don't be stupid."  Take your pick and fix your static grass applicator.

DFF

[Lemosteam]

I thought I hid that selfie of me away forever! How'd you get your hands on that!

[wcfn100]

To have something to compare to maybe, I took a video of my static grass applicator that I built from the original Grassinator parts list.

I'm curious how it may compare to yours and really anyone else's that's built one.  Mine's hands down better than the fly swatter version one I built.  I'm starting to wonder if I just got lucky on the ion generator with the recent forum misfires.

Jason

[Chris333]

Neither of mine do anything like that. I ordered 2 new ion thingies so I'll try it again.

[wazzou]

I'm curious how it may compare to yours and really anyone else's that's built one.  Mine's hands down better than the fly swatter version one I built.  I'm starting to wonder if I just got lucky on the ion generator with the recent forum misfires.

Jason

That's the same result I get from the one I built as well.

[VonRyan]

Just in case the ion generator is somewhat fried, I'm going to put a call in to a local place that deals in electronic components and see if they carry a 12v ion generator.
They were the only place (other than the Internet) where I could find a 1k ohm potentiometer when I was building a 9v battery throttle a few years back, so hopefully I'll get lucky again.

[VonRyan]

I found a piece of reasonably sized PVC pipe in my basement last night. New plan is to cut a few excess inches off and try and use it as a new handle for my static grass applicator. I also will be adding some heat-shrink tubing to the nicked areas of the ion generator wires to hopefully help curb any voltage leak.

I'm at my girlfriend's place right now to make up for the fact that I'll be spending all weekend at the Atlantic City N-Scale Gathering, so I'll have to pick back up on working on club and Nn3 projects once I get home from classes tonight.

Wednesday is out for working on projects cause I'll be in Crumpton, Maryland at an auction, hunting more inventory for my display case at Ideal Blend Antiques & Collectables in Hammonton, NJ.

Wednesday night and during the day Thursday will be for re-packing all my Camden & Amboy Models stuff as well as some personal sales stuff, making sure my tool-chest is properly packed and stocked, and I'll probably be packing my layout into it's box as well.

[VonRyan]

So the layout made it to the show before any C&A stuff has. I just finished repacking the various bins of sorted "seconds" castings. I just need to adjust the prices so that I won't have to make any coin-change.

The layout is running. I had to use a dental tool, specifically a hoe, but I don't remember what numbering it was, to clear the flangeways at my road crossings. Track was then cleaned and my little 0-6-0ST was content to make the rounds. I still need to dig up some potential extra lighting for the layout. The fluorescents can be very unkind to what's left of the scenery.

As I had no time this week to even attempt to rebuild the static grass applicator, I ended up taking the layout as-is.

My Jaguar was pretty stuffed yesterday morning. Not as stuffed as it was with my auction haul, but still pretty stuffed nonetheless.

[VonRyan]

The unofficial report from Gathering, at least in regards to narrow gauge, is that my layout ran well once the road crossings were cleaned up. I just need to retouch the rails inside the crossings and add some stripwood to give the large flangeways some plausibility.

But for now, the layout will stay in its box.
I need to start cleaning up the studio a bit if I'm to maintain peace within the household.


As for the zappy device, I'll probably eventually scrap it and start fresh.