ColinB

I agree with 96RAF the article with Sam was a waste of time. It was also misinformation, raising the voltage to 20 volts should not blow the "breakers" in a domestic house supply. I am even more surprised by Sam lowering his credibility by doing it. More likely that the variable power supply that Sam was using had an internal mains fault. As for the guy trying to fix the EMU it didn't look like he knew what he was doing. Generally to get those bogies out, I normally carefully pull in the top tabs with a pair of long nosed pliers and push down, but you have to do it very carefully, levering against any bit of plastic on a Hornby loco is bad news and he should know that. I often wonder if these events are staged for TV, like when I was watching the Brooklands program and the guy didn't know which spanner to use. Trouble is events like that put me off watching the program.

I have a Peco double slip on my layout, in fact I have two. I bought them because the Peco crossover has too much plastic in the "frog" area which is probably why you want to use code 83 track because I assume that crossover has less plastic. I thought the double slip would act as a cross over but it doesn't seem to on my layout, if only seems to work on one route. I can understand Hornby having a lot of plastic in their "frog" area on crossovers but why Peco have the same defeats me. Interestingly on their code 75 track the crossover is much better designed, why they couldn't move that same design back to code 100 track. I suppose they assume that code 75 is the future.

I don't know how Hornby works but watching the program on the "Yesterday" channel I just wonder if they are putting their efforts into their core business of making decent locos and rolling stock. I imagine from the posts I see on this forum with issues on DCC, that perhaps they think it is better to get people started on analogue and then they can decide themselves whether to go DCC. I imagine trying to support DCC is a lot more customer intensive.

I have some of those old Hornby locos fitted with smoke generators. The trouble is the hot element eventually distorts the loco body even though Hornby put in a foil shield to try to avoid this. YouChoos do Seuthe smoke generators but as with the Hornby ones they can distort the loco body. I did fit an old Hornby one to an old tender driven Hornby Duchess controlled by DCC, and that did work quite well plus it was mounted on the diecast chassis so less chance of distortion. When I converted all my Duchess locos to loco driven, the smoke units got removed.

On a modern oscilloscope it is probably not an issue connecting the earth but if you are using a really old oscilloscope it can damage the circuit you are testing. In the old days you frequently had to remove the earth to the oscilloscope, modern ones are double insulated so not so much of an issue. I can't remember if with DCC both wires are active, definitely with CAN they are. If they are then that is another reason for not doing it. Either way for normal day to day use an oscilloscope is not that necessary.

I must admit, I wouldn't have thought you would want a oscilloscope to debug DCC issues. I bought myself one when I retired, but I have never used it to debug dcc issues. I have found most times a multimeter is perfectly ok for most faults. Now if you want to get into designing your own circuits then yes you need one. I think the only time I used mine was when I was having issues with the lights that I had fitted on my carriage weren't lighting up properly. When I used the scope is was obvious that it was because the Hornby power supply that I thought was DC was in fact pulse width modulated. If I had realised it was a PWM power supply I needed not have bothered. The other issue with model railways is the two rails are live, with an oscilloscope you have a probe and an earth, so not always a good idea to connect it across both tracks.

I know it is not always that easy but have you thought of replacing the TTS decoder with a DC header and see if the fault disappears. At the moment you don't know if it is the loco or the decoder. I have a lot of A4s fitted with the TTS decoder and I must admit I have never noticed this sort of symptom and I would have as I notice it on all the Bachmann diesels I fit with Hornby decoders (fixed by setting CV150 = 1). It could be the decoder, but generally they either work or they don't. I did have one that was distorted in sound, but generally the only issue I have had with them is overheating and blowing up. It could be an issue with the gears that you only notice at low speed. One loco I fixed, the gear on the drive axle had split in the past and someone had glued it back together, but it made the tooth gap slightly bigger causing a jerking at low speed. It took me ages to find it.

This how I did it on my EM2s. The right one has insulating tape to stop the wheels touching the pickups. I thing I used Hornby King Tender pickups as they were the cheapest and easy to obtain, they also had holes for the screws. The wheels are standard Hornby. I can't remember whether I got them from a pack or used the special coach lighting ones.

I did this to my EM2, I think I found a way of doing it with Hornby standard spare parts. Later to day I will have a look at my EM2 to see what I did. I know for the drive I used a modern class 66 bogie. I know the purists will moan at me for doing this but I had two of them, so I kept one standard and modified the other one. The old Triang EM2 had a habit of the copper parts shorting against the motor taking out my expensive DCC decoder. I also added lights at the same time. I was really pleased with the result.

Thanks Fishmanoz, I didn't realise Hogwards Express was old enough to have a ringfield. Mind you I purchased an A4 recently mainly for the loco and tender bodies and was really surprised how well it ran ,infinitely better than the old 1980s ringfield locos I had. It did seem a shame to strip it. Without looking at the tender wheels it is nearly impossible to tell a late ringield motor based loco, from the later loco driven one. On the one I purchased the valve gear looked virtually the same.

Surely the first thing to look for is a cable from loco to tender, if it has one, it definitely is DCC ready. If it doesn't that is where the problems starts because it could be DCC ready with the socket in the loco, or not. Generally on most Hornby loco the body is held onto the chassis by a tab at the front or back and a corresponding slotted screw at the opposite end. So you unscrew the screw and lift the other ends tabs out of their respective slot. Alternatively some like the streamlined Coronation Class locos they have a slotted screw back and front with no tabs. I don't think a service sheet is going to help much with getting the loco apart, it probably will tell you if it has a DCC socket, but it sounds like you don't have the loco number so opening the loco up is the easiest option.

I must admit it looks a bit small, even comparing the door heights, but it looks too big for "N" gauge. It is about the same size as the tractor shed I have.

This thread was all about the high prices on EBay for R3971 General Steam Navigation. To be quite honest most people would have realised that this would be a sort after model, so it probably is one of the models you need to pre order if you really want one. The distribution of this model seems to be better than the previous Dublo loco the Duchess of Atholl, in that retailers did have spare ones after the release date. It could be that they didn't come with a limited number certificate, so not so desirable. I must admit I am rapidly going off the pre order idea, the Hornby Dublo locos being the only exception. The W1s are probably another, although I had already pre ordered it ages ago. Anything else I will wait for it to be released and take my chances.

You can get caught out with the practice of buying two of a model assuming that the price will rise. I managed to buy two of the "East Asiatic Company" Merchant Navy loco purely by accident. I originally pre ordered it from Rails, then got told they were not dealing with Hornby anymore, so I moved the order to Hattons. Hattons kept cancelling all my pre orders, so I thought this one will be difficult to get. So I pre ordered from two retailers, unfortunately I never got chance to cancel the second one. I thought wait six months and I can sell it for what I paid. How could I have been so wrong, everywhere I look it is on offer for less than I paid for it, even at the Bluebell Railway they were doing it cheap (their prices are always RRP). So buying two doesn't always work. I agree it is a "Supply and Demand" market with EBay. I must admit it has to a very special loco for me to pay more than £100 for a second hand one, even though the new ones are nearly £200, but there again they are new at £200. I could write a book about some of the supposedly "new old stock" locos I have bought on EBay, sometimes there is a reason that they are mint, they didn't work that well from new. Generally if you wait long enough, what you want appears at a reasonable price.

Seeing as decoders are mainly used for lighting, it might be an idea to use a decent decoder for the motor control, and then those cheap LaisDCC ones for all the other ones.

This one is the easy one, you don't have to split the chassis, you do it all with nylon screws, so no taking it apart. Fortunately Mainline used proper threads rather than self tapping screws as per Hornby up until recently. So you can buy nylon screws with exactly the same thread. Screwing parallel thread nylon screws into holes that previously held self tappers quite often risks the screw breaking as in the case of Ringfield motors with nylon screws (I do it differently).

I have not really had any really bad experiences with EBay selling, so I have probably dealt with the 95% of the public that is ok. As to prices, I don't mind paying a reasonable price for bits and generally I price my stuff the same. I generally sell stuff for what I think it is worth, which is generally more than I paid for it but a lot less than the scalpers, I usually want to get rid of the excess stuff. I did get the odd Buyer offering me amazing low prices for parts because EBay had added the offers box and set it ridiculously low, but you can always say no. As to the high prices, I know the price of of a new part also because I am always scanning the prices, when the price of a body with a buffer missing is nearly as much as a second hand complete loco in good condition they the price is too high, quite often the part is not even rare. There are sellers on EBay that sell stuff for really high prices and if you follow them over a couple of months they generally still have the bits.

As to DCC decoders to drive this, you want one with a maximum current of over 1 amp. Zimo do one, a guy on EBay was doing a 2 amp one quite cheap.

If it is Wrenn I suspect jt is a BA size. Probaby 6 or 8 BA. I admit it is only a guess, but Wrenn are of a vintage before metric became popular.

This always happens, at least with this model there were more about at normal price. There is a guy on EBay that sells secondhand parts at amazing prices, it always amazes me that he sells anything but he does. Sometimes people pay more expensive prices on EBay than what they would if they did a simple Google search.

I think Peters Spares had some unpainted body shells. I don't Know where you get your "scrapers" on EBay, most of the ones I see are really expensive.

I just watched the Youtube that Bulliedboy recommended, it was really interesting. I was looking at it as I have a couple of the latest Railroad Tornado / Mallard chassis and the motors on these are only 3 pole, plus one is broken. I assume Hornby use the same chassis for the latest Railroad Flying Scotsman. The thing that intrigues me is if the guy in the video is right, which I assume he is, why is it that a Pendulino motor can be bought for £7.95 whereas the King motor is the same with the shaft shortened (if he is correct) but cost over £20.00. The only thing that the guy did get wrong is to get the flywheel off I had to grind down an old puller to get it to fit between the flywheel and the plastic mounting part. If you were to hammer it as he recommends, you would break the plastic mounting plate. Still a really good video.

I use flat clear heat shrink for all my TTS decoders to make a sleeve. I don't shrink it down, to allow air to pass over it.

Sadly I haven't got that one, I have the barn and that is about normal size. If you have an oo gauge tractor that might give you an idea. I have the tractor shed well I think that is what it is, it is a bit small but the tractor fits in it. I just checked on my layout and all my farm buildings are pretty big only the tractor shed is small, even the farm house is at the larger end of the scale. One that is quite small is the early school. There is a shop that is pretty small, I always put it on its own so it doesn't look too obvious.

Ok which one is it, I have a whole village of Skaledale buildings. There is one that is incredibly small for OO scale, I can't remember what it is. One of the water towers is amazingly big, it is possibly modelled on the one at Settle. The Thomas the Tank ones are pretty big as well.