Since I have been using my old HP 2000 laptop to run JMRI and DCC++, the boot up time is extremely slow, taking minutes to boot up into JMRI which I have configured to autostart - so I decided to install a SSD I had lying round.  First I had to take a backup of my current .jmri folder and also export the roster so I could then bring it into the new JMRI. Removing the old Hard Drive from the laptop is very easy.  Took me about under 5 mins.

Once the new SSD was installed, I booted into a Linux USB image which allowed me to install the Linux (Fedora 34) distribution.   After downloading and installing the latest production version of JMRI, I had to then download Oracle JAVA - JMRI didn't link the default openJava.

Following this I made some configuration changes e.g. I like to see the date, time and day on the desktop clock and also assigning custom short keys for example to shutdown the laptop at the end of the day - then I did an update on the OS to keep the system up to date and rebooted.

Now JMRI comes up within 30 seconds compared to previously when it took minutes and it shuts down in 5 secconds.

I am very pleased that the Walker RM does not derail on the section of the layout that I pulled up and realigned.

I haven't run the Y Class for a while.  I noticed it would derail at certain sections of the layout.  Running No.1 end, No.2 end bogies would derail.

I think the Y Class has a broken gear on the No.2 end bogies but I really didn't want to pull up the bogies - so I used my hand made wheel gauge and noticed that the wheels were about .5mm too wide - so using a flat head screw driver I pushed the wheels together and gave it another few laps on the layout and quite amazing - no more derailments!  Very happy.

One of the Tortoise point motors that I had to move from last week, the actuating wire came out of the point hole - I knew it was just not long enough - so I used some aircraft lever wire that I had bought sometime back to replace it.   Had to shave off some of the material on one end to fit into the tortoise point motor hole which was done using a small hobby drill with a drill brush - worked a treat.  

Arduino Coding Made an adjustment to the automatic signalling - previously after a movement completed two inner laps, the Automatic signal would be set to a Yellow aspect, but if the movement continued again into the inner lap, the signal would stay at Yellow once the movement went passed the signal.  It now displays Red (so the detection is now working).  I usually run a movement like this - Staging --> two inner laps --> station --> staging, however when I am troubleshooting things, or when the guys come over, I will let the movement run like this: staging --> two inner laps --> station --> two inner laps --> station (and on and on) until I set the switches for the movement to exit to staging.

I still have to work on the signalling on the UP end of the yard.  The code needs to be cleaned up - the DN end is working beautifully.  I can enable the signalling on this section to be "manual" or when running continuously, the HOME signals to be in "auto" mode.