MERG related courses

If you know about any other relevant courses not listed here, in particular those in other areas, please add them.

Note that you do not have to be a MERG member to come on these courses.

These courses are organised by a group of MERG members for the benefit of other MERG members and railway modellers in general. Your booking is directly with the course organisers, not with MERG itself.

See the list of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in any course for 2023, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next courses are scheduled, but note that we will only run courses in 2023 for which we have received sufficient expressions of interest.

POSSIBLE COURSES FOR 2023

For 2023, we are publishing a list of our Northamptonshire courses and inviting expressions of interest. We will then run a selection of those courses for which there is most interest.

We will not run any courses unless we have received sufficient expressions of interest - so if you would like to come on a course, please send us an email of your interest.

Here are the possible courses we have thought of so far, we could run up to 6 courses that generate sufficient interest:

General kit building workshop weekend

Introduction to CBUS development

Programming PICs

Programming Arduinos

Our usual Intro and More CBUS courses

Our usual 3 JMRI courses, Intro, signalling/logic & automation

Introduction to DCC

Decoder Pro

PCB Design

3D printing ++

Introduction to airbrushing

Weathering

Build a MERG DCC system in a weekend

Templot

Automatic uncoupling and coupling

++ Subject to finding a tutor

The courses would take place at one of our venues in Northamptonshire.

More details of some of the courses we could run are listed below.

If you are interested in one or more of the above, and would most likely come if we ran that course, please drop an email to eastmids@merg.org.uk

If you are interested in a course that is not on the above list, please also send us an email, we may well add it to the list.

Missenden Railway Modellers Spring weekend - 3-5th March 2023

The Missenden March weekend 2022 has now been scheduled, and bookings are open.

See the website for more details:

Missenden Railway Modellers weekend

Introduction to CBUS

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next course is scheduled.

For those just starting out in CBUS, this weekend course will take you from first principles through building CBUS kits to setting up CBUS operations.

This course assumes no previous knowledge of CBUS.

Click below for more details:

Introduction to CBUS weekend course details

JMRI Decoder Pro – Programming DCC locos and managing the roster

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

What this space for when the next course is scheduled.

This is a weekend course on making use of JMRI Decoder Pro software to program your DCC locos, and how to make use of the features of the loco roster.

A familiarity with basic DCC concepts is assumed.

Click below for more details:

Decoder Pro course details

More CBUS

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next course is scheduled.

This course is for those already familiar with the basics of CBUS, who would like to take it further.

Particular emphasis on configuring CBUS in FLiM and using the universal CANMIO firmware.

This course assumes that you have attended the Introduction to CBUS course, or that you already have a good understanding of the basics of CBUS, building modules and getting them working.

Click below for more details.

More CBUS weekend course details

JMRI Part 1 - STARTING OUT WITH JMRI PANEL PRO

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next course is scheduled.

JMRI is free software that you can download to control your model railway.

The course assumes no previous knowledge of JMRI and takes you through from first principles.

Click below for more details.

Starting out with JMRI Panel Pro course details

JMRI Part 2 – Blocks, Routing, Logic and Signalling

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next course is scheduled.

This is part 2 of our three JMRI courses.

This is a weekend course for those already familiar and competent with the basics of JMRI.

As a pre-requisite you should have attended our introduction to JMRI Panel Pro course, or be fluent with drawing a layout diagram in the Layout Editor, setting up turnouts & sensors, turnout feedback, linking from a Layout Editor Panel to the physical layout & the basics of train detection.

Click below for more details:

JMRI Part 2 – Blocks, Routing and Signalling course details

JMRI Part 3 – Automation with scripts and the Dispatcher

See the list, above, of possible courses for 2023, and if you are interested in this or another course next year, please let us know.

Watch this space for when the next course is scheduled.

This is part 3 of our three JMRI courses.

This is a weekend course for JMRI power users who want to take it on to partial or full automation.

As a pre-requisite you should be a fluent JMRI user, having attended our Introduction and part 2 courses, or be comfortable with setting up panels in the Layout Editor, blocks and train detection, pathing and signalling.

Click below for more details:

JMRI Part 3 – Automation with scripts and the Dispatcher course details

Missenden Railway Modellers Summer Retreat - 30th July to 5th August 2023

The Missenden summer retreat is 7 days of uninterrupted modelling. Although there is not usually specific electronics content, there are generally some modellers working with electronics and experts on hand to assist with whatever you are working on.

See the website for more details:

Missenden Railway Modellers

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