Will new hornby TTS chip & speaker kits fit ringfield tender drive loco's?

[Percybigun]

I have large fleet of 70's and 80's tender drive loco's, if the new TTS chips & speakers will fit it will be a big help with them being half the price of alternatives!

i've got some modern dcc ready loco's aswell, but am keen to convert some of the old ones because they're all mint and run perfect, and the hornby TTS range (when released) will cover most of my various loco's with near enough the right sounds.

one last question, do all hornby TTS chips for LNER 3-cyl loco's have identical chuffing & steam sounds (e.g. A1 peppercorn, A3, A4) albeit with different whistles, and all 4-cyl LMS loco's have identical sounds, Gwr's 4-cyl's and so on?

[Howbi]

I doubt you would be able to install a TTS decoder and speaker into a tender already occupied by the Ringfield motor in which case it would have to be fitted into the loco body with 4 wires, 2 from tender pick-ups & 2 to the motor fed between loco & tender.......also it may be difficult to securely fit the TTS supplied round speaker into the loco body so a suitable sugar cube speaker would be better..........HB

[2e0dtoeric]

Will the chip fit - yes, most of the time, but you'd have to 'hard-wire' it, watching out for chassis isolation problems. Will the speaker fit - no, most of the time, as with the Ringfield, the motor is in the tender, and takes up most of the space.

You might manage to squeeze in one of the smaller 'sugar-cube' speakers, but they don't come with the TTS chip, and you would have to buy them as well.

[Percybigun]

Thanks for the replies, even with the extra cost of a sugarcube speaker its still less than half the price of the alternatives, and i can use the spare hornby speakers elsewhere. 

[96RAF]

Usually a tender drive loco has plenty of room in the loco, depending upon if the body is moulded same as its loco drive equivalent or if it has big weights in there.

 

If there is enough loco room then installing TTS is essentially the reverse of installing a tender version. I would wire in a socket rather than hard wire the decoder, its just as easy to do and if you have problems with the decoder it is easy to swap it out.

 

There will already be wires from loco pickups to the pickups and motor in the tender and these will need reconfiguring to suit a loco mount decoder. Your biggest problem could be if half the pickups are in the tender and the other half are in the loco.

Rob

[ff2nd]

Another problem to consider is current. The TTS decoder has a max current rating of 600ma (?), and if your Ringfield is a heavy draw, it may cause the decoder to fail with just one spike.

[ff2nd]

Went back and read your other question. Sorry! Not all the sounds are the same. I think that the only ones that copy another one are things like the P2, where for some reason, it's a bit difficult to get a recording of the original. 

[Fishmanoz]

Correcting ff2 typo, max current is 800mA not 600.  Brochure for them shows that clearly.  That should be fine for a reasonable ringfield  should always do a stall current test to be sure as older ones with weak magnets can draw a lot. 

[Forum-1211528]

 Yes you can put a TTS sound chip inside a tender drive Ringfield motored Hornby loco  as theres plenty of room in the locos body for the chip and the speaker and they run well its a good idea but avoid Triang loco dive XO4 motored locos you are asking for trouble its best to leave these on Analogue!

[Fishmanoz]

If I may beg to differ Colin, there is no reason not to convert X04 motor locos to DCC, in fact they are some of the simpler to convert.  However, they do draw more current than modern locos, particularly if the magnet is weak, so you should do a stall current test first, as I said above. That said, the 800mA capacity of the TTS chips should b adequate if they are in reasonable condition. 

 

So yes, do the stall current test and they should pass.