ColinB

I bought some Hornby MkII E Virgin ones with lights in. They were old stock when I bought them about 6 months ago, so they were virtually the same price as the ones Hornby have in their current range. I agree with you the factory fitted ones are much better. Hornby seem to have made a few, a couple of years ago as they did with the Virgin ones. All I did is trawl all the old model shops on the web for them. Hereford Models seems to be a good place to get old stock at original price.

Yes, I had this issue, I think when I looked there were 4 types. When I talked to that well know supplier of spare parts they weren't that helpful. I gather the best idea is to count the number of teeth, then contact the spares supplier. Also check it the intermediate spindle (just above the drive wheel) is locked into the frame or free moving. In most of all my cases of gear issues, it is the gear on the wheel axle that splits, so check that first. Unfortunately, you have to buy a new set of wheels to get that gear. The motor itself is shared with loads of other models, it seems to be pretty standard across the range. The tenders on my Merchant Navys/ Battle of Britain locos are held on by either two screws mid way towards back of tender or in one case a single screw in the centre. The tender top hinges at the loco end before you can pull it out of the slots. Watch out for the handrails on the tender and the water control post. The other thing to check is that your chassis hasen't got "metal rot" which is causing issues. I have just relocated the DCC socket to the tender on my Rebuilt Merchant Navys, so I know a lot about them. Watch the valve gear it is very fragile.

Surprisingly, seeing as they are very cheap, not that bad a device, better than an awful lot I have used. I found that they are not very tolerance of a bad DCC signal like the Zimo products, but a lot better than other products. The 21 pin versions work the best, but that is probably because I fitted them to Bachmann diesels that have loads of pickups. They are also incredibly useful for DMUs where you need a decoder for the "dummy" end to drive the lights, so why waste money putting an expensive one in, if it is only driving the lights. I do a lot of DCC conversions on my locos and they are exceptionally useful for doing the final test. The big advantage here is if there is something wrong you have killed a £10.00 module, rather than an expensive one. As to the Chinese copying other peoples products, if businesses didn't "outsource" their products to China, then they would have nothing to copy. They know that when they "outsource" that China ignores any copyright laws. They should accept that this might happen. If it is true that they copied a certain manufacturers product, they definitely did a better job, as they seem to be better than the product they copied.

Ok, Fishmanoz I didn't want to get too technical in my reply, that is why I try to use simple answers. The capacitor acts as a low pass filter, the amount it filters depends on the frequency of the signal. So effectively any high frequency pulses will get removed and the lower frequency pulses will get rounded which will mean that the processor in the decoder will not see a clean edge. So that is why you still see a signal, with any digital comms network which DCC is, it only has to lose a pulse to completely upset the data. It does in effect attenuate the signal by rounding off the edges. Either way the DCC signal is not going to work that well. Why do you think the capacitors are there in a DC power connector, to get rid of those high frequency motor spikes that interfere with the TV.

It is called electronics and software, it has this amazing ability to do horrible things if it doesn't get the right signal. See how your TV copes with a bad signal, it misses a bit or freezes the screen. Generally once you fix what is the issue, it will ok. If you do have the wrong powerclips, then the DCC signal will be either attenuated by the capacitor in it, or disappear completely. There are some decoders that are worse that others, Hornby are perfectly ok, so are Zimo and surprisingly LaisDCC. Generally when you buy a new loco with a decoder in it, try it "standalone" with its default address of 3 on your layout to check everything is alright before you start changing addresses.

Although they are out of stock, it doesn't look like they now come with the plastic saddle.

Great,thank you Going Spare. I have several locos with these on and I just bought a spare chassis as I needed a new weight as mine had the mazak rot issue. It also has the plastic saddle, so I wondered if it came as a spare. All of my locos, about six, have it sprung loaded.

I have looked at the Service Sheets and I cannot see listed the piece of plastic that houses two springs, which spring load the third axle on a Merchant Navy or Battle of Britain Loco. Does anyone know what the part number is ?

I needed to fit a decoder in mine so I ordered a Zimo MX616N to see if it will fit directly without the need to wrap wires. I will keep you posted. I didn't realise the Hornby 6 pin is more expensive than the bog standard Zimo 6 pin.

On mine I have never bothered with the front coupling, the tender coupling is NEM. If it is like mine they are always falling out. The firm that makes Hunt couplings has started to sell NEM couplings, so fortunately you don't need to bother with Hornby who vary rarely seem to have them in stock.

I have an Elite, but generally I can run virtually any decoder. Chrissaf is right, one of your issues may be the power clips. If you are using the normal Hornby ones, these contain a capacitor which upsets the DCC signal. I connect the wires straight to the track. I don't know a great deal about the Select, but the symptoms you describe, I don't think a Select could do, even with out of date software. The other issue you might have is the Dealer will have a straight piece of track, probably perfectly clean, you probably have a layout with bends and bits of dirty track. How you tried running each loco on a metre length of straight track. The clicking sound is probably either issues with the valve gear or possibly a broken gear, it is probably coincidence that it started happening when you bought the second loco. Also going round bends on your layout may have dislodged something. In my experience most of the issues you get with controllers is trying to program CV value and accessing function above the number 4. There seems to be some fake messages going around about Hornby controllers running certain chips. In my experience and I have tried very many of them, they all work with Hornby controllers, some have issues with programming CV values, but generally they will all run. I must admit I use Zimo decoders for most of my locos, unless they are sound, mainly because they have a higher current setting. I have had no issues with them at all, other than ones of my own making. I suppose the only other thing may be that you had to reprogram the address on the second loco, it may be that you inadvertently set the acceleration rate by mistake or your Select did.

I just looked up R3848. It is exactly the same as mine. I suspect you got the same cheap deal off Amazon, so there should be a printed Service Manual in the box which shows you how it fits.

It wasn't the Service Sheet it was the manual that came with the loco.

I am wondering if the Zimo MX616N will fit. It is only 8mm long so I think it might plug straight in. The only issue is it is £32 as opposed to £20. I will have to take mine apart again and measure the DC header that is in there at the moment.

I have just bought one of these. Taking it apart it appears you need a 6 pin decoder with leads rather than the direct plug in one. The Service Sheet recommends using a 6 pin wired one and wrapping it above the connector. The 6 pin direct plug in one I doubt will fit there is not enough room. The Hornby one might fit, but in mine I am going to use the Zimo MX617 as it is slightly shorter than the Hornby one. I think it will fit much better.

Actually 96RAF that is a good idea, you could take something like the Zimo MX617 which is quite small, put a double sided edge connector on it and that would work. Dapol is probably the firm most likely to implement something like that, they seem to be a bit better at electrical. Seeing as you talk to Hornby have you not mentioned it to them.

As Hornby at the moment have run out of stock, I have seen some disreputable people on EBay selling the single packs for the same price as a dual one. I am pretty sure my MTU one came with round speakers, the only one I have seen at the moment with rectangular speakers is the class 66. Hornby though may have changed the specification since I bought mine.

I suspect that at high speeds the valve gear on that side is occasionally touching the chassis, not long enough though to trip the controller. I assume the side that is sparking is the side that has insulated axles.

The Next 18 was for information only, I only found out when I bought one for a Bachmann loco. Generally the advantage of using an 8 ohm speaker is that the current is lower so I try to use them all the time, especially as I tend to use iphone speakers a lot. The loco I took the LokSound v3.5 out of was a City of Sheffield about 2010 vintage. Looking at that web link it looks like Hornby were fitting TTS from at least 2016 onwards. It is a shame Hornby stopped fitting those 21 pin sockets, in the tender they are a much neater solution. I fitted them to a couple of locos I was converting to DCC (I got the PCB from scrap tenders).

I don't have a Railroad Black 5 so I can only offer general advice. I am assuming either you broke the tender pickups or it never had them. Looking at the service sheets it looks like the tender uses the Ringfield motor based tender with the motor removed. So if I am right you want the pickups that screw on each end of what was the motor housing. If you desperately want them, the easiest way is to buy a Henry drive off Peters Spares https://www.petersspares.com/hornby-x9105-henry-motor-drive-unit-green-wheels-extra-pickups.ir which will cost you £19.99. Rob the pickups and then sell the rest of it on EBay. You will probably get £15.00 for the armature alone. If your tender is the more conventional type, then look up spares for the normal Black 5. I think they also used that same tender on the Scot, Duchess and Princess locos, but you would need to check. If so then lookup spare parts for them to see if any are what you are looking for.

Yes 98RAF I know that, all I was saying was that generally with this decoder loudspeaker impedance is not such an issue. Hornby I gather did fit Loksound decoders, but the one I took out from a Hornby loco was version 3.5. It depends whether it is an 8 pin socket or a 21 pin socket. If 21 pin socket, then Hornby fitted it. Either way if it was mine, I would first reset the chip, I doubt it would have any effect but you never know. Next I would try another loudspeaker, 4 ohm or 8 ohm doesn't matter, it just wouldn't be so loud with 8 ohm. If none of these work then consider getting a new sound decoder, which if you get a new for old off Loksound (South West Digital), will be £30.00. I don't know if Loksound are the same as Zimo, but with next18 decoders the loudspeaker impedance is 8 ohms, 4 ohms will damage it.

Correct me if I am wrong. If it was a Loksound 3.5 then it needs a 100 ohm speaker. As far as I know Loksound 4.0 can use 4 to 8 ohm speakers. So generally as most speakers are either 4 or 8 ohm, then no issue. Even if you put a 100 ohm one in, all that would happen is you would hardly hear anything. Now if you fitted a 4 to 8 ohm speaker to a Loksound 3.5, then you would blow it up. Similarly if you fitted a 4 ohm speaker to a TTS decoder again you would damage it. Generally speakers are 8 ohm, definitely the one that come with TTS decoders are 8 ohm. I looked into Loksound decoders when I was repairing one. If it is 4.0 or over Loksound do a deal where they will give you a brand new one for £30.00. South West Digital do this deal. As to Hornby they haven't fitted Loksound decoders for years, so I doubt you would get much joy, but by all means try. I very seriously doubt they have the means to repair them. Either way it would cost more than £30.00. If it is the decoder, it probably something wrong with the amplifier that handles the sound, but either way it is a replacement. Initialling do a reset on the decoder see if that cures it.

I think you can get funny effects with speakers if there is something mechanically loose. The weird noise sounds like positive feedback. I must admit the decoder is my favourite, but the speaker is cheap and easy to change just in case. In my case I have loads of old ones out of TTS decoders.

I have a Zimo one in mine which is about the same price. If you can afford it, it is definitely a lot better than TTS, but on the other hand you can get nearly three TTS decoders for the same price. The Zimo ones seem to be a bit more reliable than TTS decoders.

To me it sounds like something is wrong with your decoder. You could try changing the speaker, it might be that.