Newly Purchased 1980’s Hornby HST

[itydog]

I made a post about the use of stay alives for this model and received several replies.The model runs really well (most of the time) but stalls on Hornby points. It has been suggested to me that instead of a stay alive I should look at adding extra pick ups to the power car. If I was to do this I would buy the commercially available pick up kits. I have hard wired a Hornby 8 pin decoder to the model. Can anyone give me advice on how I would wire the additional pick ups to the Ringfield motor. I would probably be getting the Dcc pick ups.I am a real novice at wiring so detail about exactly how the wiring should be done would be very much appreciated.

[37lover]

itydog,

You do NOT wire the additional picks directly to the Ringfield motor, you need to add them to the existing live feeds going to the decoder, ensuring that you keep the polarity matched. If you have already managed to hard wire a decoder then adding the additional feeds should be a doddle!

[Chrissaf]

If you have already fitted an 8 pin DCC socket, then any additional pickups you add are simply wired to the 8 pin socket where the decoder Red (pin 8) & Black (pin 4) wires go. Be sure to get these connections the right way round, else you will get a short circuit. Typically, the Red (pin 8) would go to the right hand side wheel pickups, right hand from a drivers point of view facing forward.

I remember this by R for Red is also R for Right. But this assumes that the 8 pin socket has been correctly wired to this wiring convention. But be sure that the wheels you add the pickups to, are isolated electrically from the chassis.

EDIT: 37L posted whilst I was typing.

[Going Spare]

The HST non-powered bogie has a large metal chassis block and both wheels on one side are insulated from the axle by a large plastic gear forming the central part of the wheel. The additional pick-ups on those insulated wheels will need to be insulated from the chassis block and the pick-up wipers will need to be positioned to make contact with the metal wheel tyre while not snagging on the gear teeth.

[ColinB]

I did exactly this to my one. For the bogie containing the ringfield motor it is not really worth adding an extra pickup as the rubber traction tyres mean that you would very rarely pick up any current from the wheels. The best solution is to add extra pickups to the dummy bogie. Originally you could buy a dual pickup that attached to the bogie, but you cannot get these any more. What you can buy though is one for a class 90 electric loco. I bought one of these and shortened the length. It actually clips onto the bogie to easy to install. What I also did with mine was fit a later 5 pole ringfield motor which does have pickups on both sets of wheels, although because of the traction tyres it only really picks up on that side when the loco goes round a bend.

[96RAF]

Have a look here - scroll down to the dummy bogie modification where it talks about using the later HST part.

http://www.halton96th.org.uk/article10.html

Then have a look here to see more clearly the later Class 90 part used if you can’t get the HST part mentioned above.

http://www.halton96th.org.uk/article6.html

Note also that you can replace the traction tyred wheels with solid wheels as the dummy bogie wheels have the necessary gears attached to use on the motor bogie.

[itydog]

Thanks to all who responded. Feeling happy now about adding additional pick ups. Advice is much appreciated.