ColinB

I am surprised they wrote their own, I thought everyone used the "off the shelf" stuff. That explains the lack of spell checker and "real time" updates. Even so, that is still a lot of work to maintain the site.

I can understand Hornby's philosophy but again they are not consistant, why supply axles for one gearset and not for the others. I suppose they might have realised the axles wear after they released the parts for the previous model so included them for the next update. I must admit if someone is replacing a gear it is generally a good idea to supply the axle. You never know what state that might be in and it is a moving part and prone to wear.

Funny that, my other hobby is building classic motorbikes. Quite often round autojumble you see the "chancers" trying to sell tat for stupid prices, over the year or so you notice they quite often still have the same articles plus usually a layer of rust where it got caught in a shower. I think as you say they rely on people that are desperate for parts and have more money than sense. Then of course you have the other extreme where someone has something up for a reasonal price and they still try to knock them down. I stood behind someone in a Charity Shop trying to get a discount on an item that cost a £1.00.

I did wonder if that was the case. The class 66 ones X9671, contain them and they are quite cheap, so are they the same size? The alternative is to buy some steel and make my own.

I have been upgrading my old ringfield based class 86 locos to the newer Hornby chassis. I have managed to buy the chassis and all the bits. The issue I am having is the sub axles that hold the gears. Unfortunately, you cannot get the power bogfie complete so I am having to make one out of parts, so I use the side frames X6413 and the gear set X9461. The trouble is when you order these parts they don't come with the axles for the gears to run on. For the moment I am using the shanks off some 1.6 mm drills, but does anyone know how you get them, they have no part number. I did email the parts supplier where I bought the bits, but so far I have had no response. I notice the gears for the class 66s do come with axles so why don't these?

Yes, EBay is a pain, you have to photograph the model think of a suitable listing and then worry if the Buyer does cause agro. I recently sold a 30+ year old loco, I tested it on a straight piece of track and stated that in the advert, but when the guy tried it on his layout it stuttered. He complained to me, but the reason I was selling it was it was a tender driven loco, which if your track is not perfect won't run very well. It was still in its box and original, otherwise I would have modified it to run better. Anyway he cleaned 30 years of grime off the motor and it ran ok. On the other side I made £300 selling about 8 locos, which I was very happy with (ok I have to pay EBay fees). Selling to a Model Railway Dealer is like selling your 2 year old car back to the Dealer. The other thing about selling on EBay is you realise what it is worth. As for Model Railway Dealers not responding, I have put in 4 requests for information about articles to buy and technical queries over the last 3 months. Not one reply, obviously don't want any business. I put one into that firm in Liverpool about axle boxes on their class 66s and they were incredibly helpful.

You can do it by adding some extra transistor logic that works using the green, white and yellow wires. I did work out a circuit because I only wanted the cab lights to illuminate in the direction of travel, I never got round to trying it out.

Yes, you absolutely right. I don't know if you know, but I used to write software to reprogram the electronic modules in a vehicle. So if a particular module has a software issue the Dealer can fix it by updating the software. I quite often had to fly over to Germany to fix some reprogramming issue on a Customers car, my friend still does it (I retired). When my Fleishmann was doing its update I have never been so worried as I said to friend where I used to work, it is different when it is something you paid for. Fortunately, it worked ok, it even writes on the screen what it is doing and the progress, so I assume your System will be the same. If your system is based on the Fleishmann it probably uses similar software. As with my systems there are usually "failsafes" to stop you being left with a brick as we used to call it. Generally, if it fails it should start again. The most difficult part for me was getting the PC to recognise the lead and assign the right port number.

I bought some of those motors from China, nothing wrong with the motors biggest issue was getting the worm gear off the old one. As Going Spare says, very minimal clearance between motor and worm gear to get the puller in. I broke two pullers getting the worm gear off one old loco. Of couse it it is not helped by the Puller Manufacturers making the pins out of metal that resembles cheese. In the end I drilled out the end in a lathe and put in a cut off shank from a 2mm drill, that seemed to work. The other issue I had was sourcing the worm gear. On one of the motors it was badly chewed up and on another loco I was adding the motor to a loco built out of bits. In the end I managed to get a second hand ones, but nobody seems to sell them new. I had difficulty finding them on EBay, I think you need to put '12-24v', 'DC motor' and '5 pole' in your search.

It doesn't have to have FTDI although generally that is the most common RS232 to USB (or USB to RS232) converter available, it just defines the "chipset" in the cable, a friend of mine wrote his own using a PIC. I have found it is a very good idea to source the cable from a reputable UK source as I found that the cheap Chinese ones don't have PC drivers that work. The other thing that is important is whether the RS232 end is true RS232 with the correct voltages or just a 0 to 5 volt signal, I have been caught out with that in the past. Either way, if the user hasn't got one I am sure the manufacturer will tell which one is the best. I can't remember how I decided on the one I bought, I do remember it was about £15.00 which quite expensive for this type of cable, but it came with a guarantee.

I don't know if you have said cable, if not what one is it? To update the Fleishmann I had to buy a USB to RS232 cable. Once I had got the computer to recognise the lead, the process was pretty easy.

I wonder if they are a bit swamped with orders. I ordered some Scalextrix cars and powertrack for my son and it took ages for them to come. Same with a couple of spare parts I ordered off of them. Now I don't want to go into the Brexit debate, but perhaps they are a bit worried what our Continental friends might do with the mail, if we do not get a deal. In the past (many years ago) the French have been known to be very petty if they don't get their own way.

I bought all the parts to build my class 86 motor bogie, sadly you cannot get the complete item anymore, using class 86 and 87 parts. The thing that I couldn't understand I bought all the parts identified in the service sheet, but none of it came with the axles for X9641. I managed to make some out of 1.6 mm drill shanks, but where do you get them? I notice with the same item for class 47, X9671 that they come with axles.

No wonder I couldn't find it. On the Hornby site they miss out 436, as do virtually all the other sites.

Going Spare you are right the Alstrom is plastic, my mistake, must have been the lighting in the loft. It definitely looked like metal but I think that was probably because it looks like it has been painted. It definitely looks different from the one in the Phoenix. I looked at the Service Sheet for what I assume is the new one and it doesn't have the central motor, but I may have found the wrong Service Sheet. I would have thought that seeing as the new one retails for about £170 it has the central motor, but that is why I was asking. The other thing of interest, I was looking at Service Sheet 381 and it lists the part number for the gear pack as X9461, but when I do a search on that part number I get a front bogie for a N15. The same part for a Class 87 is X9641. I wondered if the Service sheet has mixed up the two middle numbers?

I had issues with the lights on my class 50, but they were the top lights.I would suspect the decoder, if possible check it in another loco. I have had two decoders one TTS and one ordinary where the reverse light channel has been permanently on or failed. The top lights fail as the PCB plugs into the main board when the body is screwed together, on mine they weren't in line, but from what I saw it is very difficult for any of the other lights to go wrong, other than not light at all. The other thing to check is that you haven't an issue with a "short" or the rear lights shorted to supply which could be blowing up that function output (I suspect that is what damaged mine)>

I have been upgrading some my older ringfield motor based loco chassis to the latest Hornby ones with different motors, mainly so I can fit TTS decoders and have more reliable pickups on all wheels. I suppose in the case of class 86 TTS is not really on, but the new motors seem to run better. Anyway on my early class 86 Phoenix it has a plastic chassis with a 3 pole motor, but on my R2414 86233 Alsom Heritage it has a diecast chassis and a 5 pole Ringfield motor with pickups on all wheels. The new chassis I received that takes the new motor is plastic. So any idea when they reverted back from diecast chassis to plastic? So in my my case it would be a retrograde step updating the R2414 to the new chassis ( I have already converted it to DCC), but with the class 86 Phoenix it is probably worth doing. Unfortunately, the Service Sheets do not identify if the chassis is plastic or diecast. I keep thinking about buying one of the new Hornby class 87s, so does that have a diecast chassis?

I run a Hornby Elite and the Fleishmann twin track, and I must admit both work ok with all decoders I have used. The issues I do have, especially with the Elite is writing CV values, especially if the decoder is not set at the default address of 3. Hornby TTS and normal decoders work ok as do Zimo ones, but I have had issues with Gaugemaster ones, DC Concept ones and recently a LokSound sound decoder. The Fleishmann does seem to program these although it is hard to compare as the Fleishmann doesn't make writing to CV values as easy as with the Elite. I know from my previous profession that writing values to non voltile memory can cause issues (when you write a CV value), where it can get corrupted (normally caused by removing the power while it is still writing), so I wonder if this may explain a lot of the issues. On my programming setup I have an Elite connected to a metre length of track via twisted pair wires, so unless the unit has got some stray capacitance inside, the unit should be reliable. It could be that something goes wrong when writing the default CV values in the plant, I wonder if blaming it on the controller is a bit of a red herring, I have seen it happen so many times in the car industry when someone cannot explain something.

The big advantage of Sundeala it is easy to cut holes for PL10 point motors. I am about to build a small extension to my railway and I must admit I was thinking of using it because it doesn't weigh that much. My layout is built into the roof rafters and I worry about the weight of anything hanging on it. Surely when you seal it with pva glue and water, doesn't that make it expand. So what extra precautions do you need to take?

Looking at the Uhlenbrock controller (assuming it is the same one I found on the internet) it looks to be derived from the Fleishman twin track controller I have. I may be wrong but the shape etc. look exactly the same except with extra press buttons. So I don't know if they carried over the software or wrote their own, but my Fleishmann works perfectly ok with the TTS decoders. I have had a few TTS decoders that have not worked properly but they have usually failed on both my Fleishmann and my Elite. I have noticed of late that the Elite has had issues writing CVs to certain makes of decoder, so I think with some makes there seems to be a timing issue. I seem to have no issues with Hornby and Zimo decoders. The trouble is with a lot of these decoders you never know how old they are, so a newer batch may be better. I seem to have a lot of issues when the decoder address is set to a different address other that the default value (even a Loksound decoder did it the other day).

A lot of people on EBay do that. That is why it is usually a good idea to do a Google search as well.

Thanks RAF96, they are quite a reasonable price as well. The one on my Elite has started to play around, surprisingly it is not the encoder part that is causing an issue it is the switch, but that may well be because I use it mainly for reading and writing CV values.

If it is the one where the top of the boiler lifts off, you can mount the socket just under it.

If it is the one with the "can" motor, if so I did the conversion on mine about two weeks ago. If this the one where the whole of the boiler lifts off, then there is room to fit an 8 pin socket. It is a relatively easy one to convert. I did find however that a standard decoder wasn't "man enough" to drive the motor, so I used a decoder with a 0.8 amp current limit.

I use Zimo MX600R, it is virtually the same price as Hornby (if you ignore the normal Hornby discount). I also found that the Zimo seems to handle dirty track better. I am surprised it even works with a Hornby decoder, mine tended to blow up. I suspect you have the 5 pole motor, which is probably why. I don't know if you used a socket, but if you did take out the decoder put in a DC header and see if the loco still works as well, that will prove that you didn't disturb anything doing the conversion. That is generally one of the first tests I do when I do a conversion.