ColinB

You should have said it was an HST, they are one of the easier ones. So first you have to isolate the motor feed, there are articles on how to do this on the web but I think with this one it is relatively easy. When you do it, it is a good idea to use a socket, it is then much easier to convert back to DC if you ever have to. Once I had converted mine the armature failed, I was lucky enough to get a later 5 pole motor which are much easier to convert.

When you powerup a microprocessor you have to set the default states of the output ports. The lights are driven by two of these, we call them functions, for some reason on virtually all the decoders I have if the loco has lights, they are on until the Loco receives a DCC command that is relevant to it. Regularly on my Elite when you power it up the loco I am testing has the lights on, once you send the loco a command increase speed the lights go out and don't come back on until you press the function F0. If you blow a decoder up you will find that the lights work, but nothing else does. Must be something in the way that circuit works. It is not a problem, it is good in some respects it tells you that you inserted the 8 pin header the right way round. It is normally always the front ones.

I am amazed, I have loads of TTS decoders that has never happened. Loksound ones, I have had issue with them doing it and retaining the last set speed, but have never seen a TTS decoder do it with the Elite or Fleishmann controller. On most diesels the lights come on as soon as as you power up the Elite, but that is because the TTS decoder doesn't initialise the ports (Functions in DCC speak) properly.

I must admit if you use the tower leds, for some reason they are incredibly bright. I found I had to use 4.7 kilo ohm resistors otherwise they look like halogen headlights.

Speakers are great, just not sure it will fit. Mind you Road and Rails who sell them seem to think it will. I used a sugar cube for my P2.

I don't know if this is any use to anyone. I am always fixing locos or converting them to dcc, so although I run DCC, I need access to a DC supply. Normally this means going to my Pendolino set and using the power supply that came with it. This means unplugging my DCC controller, plugging the DC supply in and rewiring my metre of track to the new controller. I suddenly came up with an idea, rather than all that messing around why not use one of my old decoders. I also had a 8 bin dcc pcb that is too big for most locos, so I wired pins 1 and 5 to the track and 4 and 8 to dcc controller. It works a treat. The other thing is, because it is an 8 pin socket I can test whether the decoder I am eventually going to use, works with the said loco while it is still set at dc. Obviously, the DC current is limited to that of the decoder, but a much easier solution for me.

I did my ex Lima class 47 with individual lights. I either use a 1 k ohm SIL commoned resistor pack, look on EBay you will see them, where 1 pin is the common and the other pins connect to the resistor. So if you have a 9 pin SIL you have 8 resistors commoned at one end, where you put the blue wire. Alternatively the guy on EBay that sells LaisDCC decoders does a small pcb that has 8, 1 k ohm surface mount resistors, again a neat solution. I used tower leds they are 2 mm diameter.

I see, sorry about that, I just assumed it was the same as the Crosti one. I am pretty sure that one went in the tender. In that case I would use a sugar cube one under the smokebox, that is how I did it with the Railroad A4 Mallard, I added sound to.

That is really good, thank you for the information.

I use either a sugar cube speaker or one of those very small iphone speakers that the guy (Road and Rails in Leeds) sells on EBay. The thing I like about the iphone ones is that they are very thin and give good sound and are pretty consistent with their quality. I had good and bad experiences with sugar cube speakers, some work really well, others I can hardly hear anything. I think the small iphone one should fit across the tender, if your tender is the same as a lot of the others a lot of the room is taken up with the depth of the coal bunker.

I would have bought them for that price as well. It nearly costs that much to change the plastic wheels to metal ones on an old Hornby coach.

It sounds from your description of motors whirring in the tender that they are old Hornby Locos with ringfield motors. On top of checking what Chrissaf said, check the connection between loco and tender, it might be a good idea to pull them apart and put them back together again. Any oxide on the pin causing a resistive layer gets wiped off by the pulling them apart action. Remember that with these locos both the loco and tender have to have a good connection to the track. The other thing that also happens especially if you have gravel in between your tracks, minute pieces get stuck in the gears on the wheels effectively stalling the motor. The other thing that can also happen is the brass/alloy gear on the end of the motor shaft quite often falls off its interference fit on the shaft and so the motor moves but does nothing. Finally there is my good old friend the traction tyres, sometimes they fall off so you just get a whirring or they have gone hard, so the wheels move but just spin on top of the track. Obviously if it is not tender driven then ignore all I have said. This was always happening to me with my old 80's locos, one of the main reasons I have been slowly replacing them.

As a side note as I only just noticed this update. With the B of B, I am assuming yours is the one where the decoder goes into the loco rather than the tender as with the later ones. Assuming that this is the unrebuilt one, this is one of the few locos that has lots of room for the decoder and sound although you will have to use a sugar cube speaker because of its better shape. The other big advantage is the valve gear is quite simple on these, so less chance of damaging it.

I know it is not the right attitude and I too get carried away with the detail, but when it comes to it if the price was right would you notice it that much when they are running around the layout. If I had paid full price for them then a big issue, but it you got them at a decent price then not so much of a problem.

Do you know virtually all the tenders I pull apart to fit the DCC decoder, I have difficulty getting apart. I don't know if the preparation of the paint/print on the tender leaves it tacky when it is assembled, but they are always difficult first time. After that they are easy to get apart.

I agree with Chrissaf from my experience TTS decoders are much more susceptible to track voltage. I have quite a number of them and I have never noticed them take a long time to start moving but I have noticed they stop on pieces of track where my Zimo decoder fitted locos have no issue. I have a couple of DCC Concepts decoders and they definitely suffer from this and the slowing down, so in those cases I suspect it is a case of CVs 3 and 4 being set.

Thanks Chrissaf, I will leave it at that.

As per my original post, it is beginning to happen. I have just posted a response to "R3602TTS Coach Compatibility" its position in the list is unchanged so basically you have to scan all the posts to see the ones that have been updated. It is probably going to get worse as given a few new entries, this post will go to the next page so nobody will see it to update it. Every other forum I use, has the list in order they are updated. It needs fixing.

You can get cranked couplings. I don't know if they would help.

I am not so sure about that. It is not going to work very well in its current form.

That is weird, looking at the photos it looks like they may well have been like that from new as the paint has not cracked, perhaps they were ones that didn't pass QA. I agree with 96RAF (I am sure that was RAF96 before the update) there is a lot of stuff on EBay that is advertised as "New" or "mint" when it is not. One example was a Hornby class 50, I was thinking of buying, advertised as new. When I asked if it had been tested, I was told by the Seller that she found it in their loft when they bought the house, it had all the labels etc. so she assumed it was new. She knew nothing about model trains and just put it up for sale.

Just a suggestion but it appears that as an item is updated it does not appear at the front of the list, it appears to retain its original position. Now that would be ok if there were only a few items, but given the amount of posts ranging over many years, that is not going to work. So for instance if I added something on a post about 8 pages down, nobody would ever see it.

Yes it is. I will refrain from any other comments.

I have been doing a lot of research into this because I wanted to upgrade my old HST. It appears there is no Service Sheet as is stated on the New Modellers Site. I found out that the motor bogie is the same size as the class 73, distance between wheels being the same (actual measurement taken by me). Peters spares has displays of the individual parts, although most are "out of stock", so you should be able to get the part numbers from these. The bodies on the later locos have different clips to the 1980s Hornby ones and the drivers seat unit is different as my one didn't fit the newer dummy chassis.

I have never done it but looking at that tender, I suspect you will need a different speaker than that supplied with the TTS. I am not into Great Western locos so I will let someone else advise which one is best but a TTS decoder will physically fit and I suggest you look at iphone or sugar cube speakers. The tender looks very much like the one on a King and I know that fits as I fitted my own (I liked the shape and colour of the loco)..