Chinese puzzles

[AlloAllo]

Sorry to be a bit naive, but why is a UK built model of a loco different from a Chinese built loco, when they look alike? I have two tender models of the same loco, but they are not interchangeable.

[Going Spare]

Can you be more specific as to why they are not interchangeable?

[ModelerXYZ]

Different manufacturing methods, different tooling, coming out of a different factory. Older Hornby stuff was made in England, then they outsourced it all to china.

XYZ

[AlloAllo]

The tender of one model does not electrically connect with the body of the other, and vice versa.

[AlloAllo]

They are Golden Plovers.

[Going Spare]

That is down to the continual process of upgrading specifications, often linked to the growing adoption of Digital Control where connections need to be more positive and tenders play a more important role in accommodating electrical equipment such as decoders and speakers and have pick-ups on their wheels to minimise the chances of the loco stalling.

[Topcat1707821625]

@AL

There are many different versions of locos with tenders.

Some are British made, the motor is in the tender. There is one electrical connection from the loco chassis to the tender and one connection from the motor to the tender chassis to the track.

Some are Chinese made, the motor is in the tender. There are two electrical connections from the loco to the tender and for some reason another connection from the tender to the track.

Some are Chinese made, the motor is in the loco. There is no electrical connection to the tender.

Some are Chinese made, the motor is in the loco. There is no electrical connection to the tender but there is provision for a loco to tender plug and socket for a sounder decoder and speaker in the tender

I'm not sure exactly how many variations there are, but few if any of these locos will work with the wrong tender. Obviously no undriven loco will work with an undriven tender (no motors), and no driven loco will work with a driven tender (too many motors).

[Bulleidboy]

I have R2340 A4 Golden Plover. Introduced by Hornby in 2005 and China built. DCC Ready with everything in the locomotive. It did have tender pick-ups, so the two brass/copper fingers on the loco/tender coupling. There must have been an earlier version if there is anything in the tender?

[AlloAllo]

The Chine Ringfield is 5 pole... which is why they are not compatible. Duh!

Neither model DCC ready

[Topcat1707821625]

@AL

Whether or not a particular motorised tender will work with a particular unmotorised loco has nothing to do with the number of poles in the motor. The electricity going into the motor doesn't care if the motor is 3-pole or 5-pole - Duh!

The only factor deciding compatibility of a particular loco and tender is the connections.

[Going Spare]

I have been able to track down only two versions of Hornby's A4 Golden Plover. The first was in set R1024 released in 2001 soon after the transfer of production to China and was tender-driven with a 3-pole ringfield motor. The second is the loco mentioned above by Bulleidboy, made in 2004 and powered by a 5-pole motor in the loco. Both locos have the same electrical drawbar top & bottom connections to the tender chassis. So both locos should couple to the 'wrong' tender but, as Topcat has already pointed out, one resultant pairing will not have a motor whereas the other will have two. And also as Bulleidboy mentioned, the 2004 loco should be DCC-ready with a decoder socket on the loco chassis.

In view of the incompatibility and lack of DCC fitments, I am wondering whether one of the locos is not carrying its original identity.

[81F]

There can even be difficulties with what look like the same tenders. I wanted a small tendered Knight of St Patrick but couldn't get a spare 3500g star tender, so I bought a Railroad Hall with a view to simply swapping the tenders (in real life the 3500g tenders on the Hall were the same as the star.

All looked very promising until I put it on the track and there was a short. Seems like the Star's and Halls tenders are wired the opposite way round!

[AlloAllo]

The UK Golden Plover is probably from the 1024 set - it came with three pullman coaches but no box. Both the loco and the coaches have Queen of Scots logos - as does the Chinese tendered loco. Both locos have identical sets of identifying characters underneath the chassis

[AlloAllo]

And sorry Topcat - my understanding of electricity is poor - hence the duh!

[Topcat1707821625]

I have a substantial number of tender-driven A1s/A3s and A4s, both British-made and Chinese-made, and I did notice that Hornby swapped the wiring around, i.e. which side of the loco was connected to which terminal on the drawbar and what the connections in the tender were. I seem to recall that some British locos would work with Chinese tenders and vice-versa. Unfortunately I can't give any definitive answers about this as most of my locos were bought second-hand unboxed so I don't know the model numbers and in any case I paired the best British locos with the best British tenders and the Chinese locos with the best Chinese tenders.

[ColinB]

Yes Topcat they did but there was a valid reason. They added pickups to both sets of wheels on the tender drive as opposed to the earlier ones which had a pickup for one side in the loco and the other side in the tender. It was virtually impossible for them to continue with the same system as it was difficult to insulate the pickups on one side of the tender, so that is why they swapped it. If you have ever tried to add extra pickups to a earlier ringfield tender you will see why.

[LesXRN]

Actually, as per my post in the DCC section, some are interchangeable. For example, I've fitted later chassis to earlier bodies, along with later tender chassis with all wheel pickups.

The loco's in question are a Duchess & a Princess, now both DCC sound fitted.

To sort the tender to loco connections, I ran wires between the two.

The only thing I'm needing is a longer screw to fix the Duchess chassis to the body at the cab end.

[Topcat1707821625]

@ColinB

British made tender drive locos didn't have pickups in either the tender or the loco. The loco connection was from the wheels on one side (I think it was left), through the axles to the chassis then through the contact on the drawbar and into the tender via the pin and thence to the motor.

The connection from the tender was from the motor to the chassis (via the female spaced terminal) then from the chassis to the axles and thence to the right-hand tender wheels.

I have always found that this system worked well provided everything was kept clean and it had no delicate phosphor bronze wheel contacts or contacts on top of the drawbar to wear or get damaged. I have rarely found a Chinese loco with undamaged contacts on top of the drawbar.

Any problem in the British locos was often in the contact between the loco chassis and the drawbar as you sometimes got corrosion where they joined. A good clean and some switch cleaner usually solved the problem.

@L3

I've never been keen on permanent wiring between loco and tender. It's very unwieldy when you are trying to get the loco and tender onto the rails and a nightmare if you want to take either the tender or loco apart. And what if you need to replace the tender? Airfix did it on their locos and I felt it was a retrograde step when Hornby did the same on some of theirs. Now of course we have plugs and sockets so that sound can be put in the tender.

[LesXRN]

Re the loco to tender connection, I do agree. I did however buy some micro connectors from Amazon, but, I found them really difficult to solder to and I wasn't confident in them being reliable, they were also difficult to join together, male to female wise, hence going the hard wire route.

My loco's will spend their time on a large layout so I'll see what transpires in due course.

[ColinB]

Yes, I know that they pickup from the axles on the early ones, when I said pickups it was a term to refer to the pickup of power. I have fixed a great many, I was just trying to clarify why Hornby changed the polarity, perhaps I shouldn't have bothered. Everyone tells me that they work wonderfully, sadly that wasn't my experience and it appears from the Hornby program Simons didn't either. I spent many hours preventing them from sliding around the layout or stalling on bad bits of track or points. Eventually I sold the nice ones in boxes and converted the others to loco driven. If you want to connect loco to tender you can buy pairs of connectors ready wired from China via EBay or "Road and Rails". Incidentally Hornby also wire up the 4 way connector differently on different locos, I think the Brit is wired the opposite way round to a Duchess. So if as in my case, to test if you have a duff connector you connect a Duchess to a Brit tender you get a short.

[Topcat1707821625]

@ L3

Are you familiar with JST connectors? You can buy these pre-wired so you don't have to solder to the connector. I consider myself pretty good at soldering but I think I would have difficulty soldering to these tiny connectors. I think the contacts in the pre-wired ones are crimped.

@CO

As regards tender-driven locos sliding, this can be a problem with any tender-drive loco irrespective of how the power is collected, though I have never found it a big problem. Again I think it's question of maintenance. Remember that any tender-drive loco is now quite old.

[P-Henny]

Are you familiar with JST connectors?............ I think the contacts in the pre-wired ones are crimped.

 

 

@TC Yes factory terminated JSTs are crimped as are the pre-wired versions on ebay. When I make up my own JST plugs at home. I crimp the terminal pins. Yes it is fiddly, but certainly doable. I wouldn't even contemplate trying to solder repair a broken one or construct new with solder.

[LesXRN]

Thanks for the tip. JST's duly ordered and I will modify my connections.

Cheers chaps.