ColinB

I must admit on the few occasions I have bought a loco from a model shop, they normally inspect it for me. When on holiday I buy railway stuff at Monks Bar at York. When I buy a loco from them, they go over them with a fine toothcomb, run it up and down the track, but they are an exceptional model shop. It seems weird that two were cracked, it is not that it is a cheap loco. It is very worrying, perhaps with Covid they are not doing the necessary QA inspections. It puts you off buying them from Hornby. On all the locos I have bought in the last year, generally the bodyshells have been ok, one though I had to refix the motor, on two others replace the DCC socket as they were faulty (I even got a replacement socket, when I complained). I only buy Hornby steam locos, so perhaps that is why I have had no issues.

What I have is an old 9 volt power supply that I added a 1 kilo ohm resistor in series with the positive feed to test leds and two croc clips. Even if the led has a series resistor, it will still light up with a 1 k resistor. Either way it appears a class 56 is off my second hand list, the only thing is, did Hornby use the same system on any diesel/electric other locos? I was thinking of buying one of their expensive HST variants when they come out, but now I am wondering if they have have used the same system on those. Fortunately, the steam locos don't have lights, so they can't really mess that up. As I said it appears without the light issue it is a good loco, so as someone said if it cheap enough it is worth the risk.

I must admit I quite like the lights and I would be really upset if I had paid a premium for a model because of this feature and found that they didn't work. Even one of the ones advertised on EBay has a comment highlighting the issue with the lights. It wouldn't be so bad if Hornby realised that they have an issue and kept the relevent spare parts to fix it (surprise, surprise out of stock). It also appears that they are glued to the chassis which make replacement a bit difficult anyway. Shame it appears it is a nice loco.

It appears it is a common issue. Just been watching Sam's Trains and his one fell apart as he was taking it apart.

After buying Hornby's class 66 I was bittery disappointed, after all the hype I expected it to be better. No lights, not much different to the Lima, just a better motor and paint job. Same with the class 59 although that was a Railroad version, so I was being a bit optomistic.I am surprised your class 56 had lights. I must admit although they are a lot more expensive, I only buy Bachmann or Dapol diesels now, they have nice circuit boards and wires that you can solder. They even have either the speaker fitted or a nice location to fit it. Other than the odd bent pickup, even the second hand ones off EBay have been ok. I have found with a lot of Manufacturers that they take no account of you having to take the thing apart to fit the DCC chip, even the Hattons class 66 which is a nice model, you have to be so careful as bits of pipework fall off when you are trying to get it apart to fit a decoder. Similarly the Bachmann steam locos seem to suffer from the same issue, the IVatt with tender being a prime example.

Great, thank you.

I am upgrading my old Triang EM2s. Does anyone know what lights it should have? There are four white dots on the front and back of the loco which I assume were the lights. I have looked at photos on the web, but the preserved locos retain their Dutch lights, which I gather were different. I even checked on my Heljan EM2 but its lights are different.

Actually when I was having issues with my Duchess not working,because I added real coal (it leaked out all over the tender wheels), I did exactly that. With the mutimeter it measured low impedance to the track, but the loco didn't work until I cleaned the wheels which removed the odd bits of PVA glue. It even passed current because you could see a small spark as it touched the wheel, but it still didn't work. So yes PVA glue has some weird properties, the issue is when it dries, it is clear so difficult to see. Perhaps it has some weird dielectric property that acts as a capacitor, not my field so I don't know.

Nope, it doesn't when it is dry, well I don't think it does. With my issues, it was the dry PVA that was causing weird issues and I suspect it was the same with the ballasting.

I think when Sootei raised the topic he just assumed the ballasting had caused the issue. It effectively did, it seems the excess glue did something to the Elite that it didn't like. Why it would do that, seems very weird, but as I have noticed recently PVA glue does some weird things to electrics.

THank you "The Duke 71000" that is really useful to know. The catenery looks good as well.

I suppose the important thing here is how many trains and what DCC sound decoders are they running? The other thing to try is to run them along a length of un ballasted track. So possibly buy a length of flexitrack, or use old track and see if the sound works.

I had the same issue with EM2 pantographs, they go for silly money. It looks a bit like an early class 86 pantograph, have a look and see if it looks similar. I know Bachmann did keep spares of the pantograph as I bought one for my class 86, about a year ago. I even kept the old broken one, because I thought it might be useful for spares. It was a bit expensive from Bachmann, but it was a lot cheaper than the prices I was paying for EM2 ones, and the one fitted to a Bachmann is really nice.

Thanks howbinman, I didn't even know they existed.

Sorry 37lover, I didn't realise that is what you were thinking of doing. It is not such a bad idea, the back emf is the issue, I don't know if you fed the motor feed from Zimo to the TTS via two 1 kilo ohm resistors whether it might work. Trouble is, all the voltage references would be wrong and the TTS is not the most robust piece of electronics, so you could end up blowing both of them up. I would still go with the proper decoder, I know it is expensive. I know the problem, I have a TTS on my Duchess of Gloucester that keeps losing sound, I have checked literally everything and have come to the conclusion there is some weird reaction between TTS and motor, it even does it on my spare TTS decoders I tried. I think I know what it is, but it is something I cannot fix. Anyway, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion I will replace it with a Zimo, I am just fed up with it, but again it takes a lot to justify the extra £70.

Sorry, that will not work. The issue is the current to the motor is limited to 500 mA, then generally the device burns out. The Wrenn motor at a rough estimate takes at least 600 mA which has to be sourced by the decoder, so unless you can split the feed to motor from two TTS, which you cannot it is never going to work. The TTS is marginal at the best of times, I don't even fit them to my ringfield motored Limas or Hornbys as I am concerned about the current drain.although the specification says 500 mA that is a bit on the optomistic side, assuming decent cooling, which is why you will see posts on this site where they have blown up on a hot day. Anyway if we look at it from a logical point of view two TTS will cost about £80, a decent sound decoder that does exactly what you want will cost you a £100. I know it is £20 difference, but you are getting a decoder that meet your requirements exactly.

I looked at this a while ago, if you don't know you need to isolate the brush holder that has no isulation, which involves making the brush mounting hole bigger and inserting a sleeve. When I looked, Shapeways did a suitable insulator, which requires fitting. As for decoder you probably need nearer to a 2 amp decoder, Zimo do one, which is about £35.00. When I was talking to YouChoos I think they had converted a Wrenn. I know one of my converted Ringfields has the 2 amp version as I was unsure what the maximum current was, so I fitted the one with the biggest current. In the end I didn't want to devalue my Wrenns by messing with them so I gave up on the idea of conversion. As for sound, you need to look at the more expensive suppliers, again Zimo, I don't know about the others, people use them for O gauge so they must exist. Forget TTS for this, as Chrissaf says they are only any good for 500 mA.

Ok, thank you Chrissaf.

Sorry Chrissaf, I think we are a bit at cross purposes here, the latest software on the Elite is V2.44 or V2.45, which is what mine shows at power up (V2.45). Now what does the 1.4 x refer to?

I know after I read your post, I noticed I read it the wrong way round. I just assumed it was the Aussie ones that were giving issues. I normally use the read address feature on the Elite to read the address, although just recently I have been having issues programming a different decoder and was playing with CV1 to see if it worked any better. I use my Elite for testing and the odd cv read and write, generally to reset the decoder, I have a Fleishmann I use on the main layout. I must admit the Elite is generally reliable on Hornby decoders, although it does seem to have the odd occasional "bad day", is your Elite at the right software lever V2.44 or V2.45. Occasionally I get a bad read, but generally it is ok, but doing it on all of them seems unusual. Does it read the Manufacturer's Id (CV 8) reliably? You probably know this, so ignore it if you do. You do know that on a Hornby decoder you have to use the programing terminals on a length of track, to read the cv, which you don't have to on a Select, from what I gather (don't have one).

Zimo do a Next 18 decoder, I have just bought one for my Rails Terrier. From where I got it, it was roughly the same price as a Hornby one. Seems to work perfectly.

I stopped buying Hornby locos second hand because generally they have broken pickups, then to find Hornby don't sell them as spares any more. They are very fine on modern locos so it is not surprising they break. I have done the same, soldered bits of phosphor bronze, or used bits of old pickups that you can still get as spares, trouble is they are never quite the same.

They probably have stay alive on their decoders, that seems to upset things.

At last it appears, someone is doing decent DCC sockets. Plated through holes, thin tracks so you don't short them out when you solder. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dcc-decoder-socket-8PIN/224107516228?hash=item342dd95144:g:8BwAAOSwSv1fJw6l

@RAF96 funny that was what I was thinking it might be, but thank you for the advice. The decoder also must have an issue with its recovery strategy, in that it comes back with no sound. I will run it around the track for about half an hour an see if it recovers, if not I will try one of my Zimo sound decoders in it and see if I get the same issue. They have a much higher current cutoff, so the issue might disappear, in which case long term I will replace it with one of those. Trouble is, I probably only tested over a length of track when I bought it so it could always have done it. This is one of the few occasions where a small capacitor across the motor might help.