ColinB

If you go the pnp transistor route there is a dual pnp pack called BC847BPN. You can get them off ebay, I didn't check the size but I assume they are quite small. I think I might try this on my diesel cab lights.

I have the old one with the "iffy" connectors, I use the Zimo decoder but I have never touched any of the cv values.

I went and measured my one. The station building plus the other two buildings measure 15 inches (approx 38 cm) if you add the platform it is 17 inches (approx 43 cm). Using the standard setup for Hogwarts station the booking office etc exit past the end of the platform. I modeled Goathand station so I also have the coal drop and the rest, but if you have these you have to worry the way it sits (I had to lower just the coal drop section of my baseboard). I like the platform it comes with, I just wish they did separate pieces to finish it off, in my case it needs to be much longer (I know they do the additional platform pack). The issue is the moulded in ramp which makes the platform too short, so in my case I would have to saw it off. I am also looking at making a platform, sadly I doubt it will look as good as the one Hornby supply.

If you want to do this you need you can make a circuit with a pnp transistor driven by the blue wire and switched by green or purple wire, this then feeds the cab light and uses the white wire as the return. There are a few extra components you need, but is the general idea. I looked into this when I wanted to have independant lighting in a diesel. I think they do pnp transistors in dil ic packs so it could be a quite neat way to do both leds. Oh I don't know if you already know this, the green and purple wires are what are called open collector circuits meaning that you have to pull them up with a resistor, normally this is the led and its feed resistor, but if you decide to use the pnp transistor you have connect a resistor (10 k) between it ( the base connection) and the blue wire.

It is, I bought it because I wanted a quiet one, the previous one was an old Triang, it looked alright but made a horrendous noise. I even asked Hattons before I bought it, if it was quiet. I was amazed when I got it to go to the required position via dcc. Like you I love to press the button and just watch. Funny after all this time I still get a buzz when something works. The other thing that is fascinating, is how it slows down to get to the final position.

It is, I bought it because I wanted a quiet one, the previous one was an old Triang, it looked alright but made a horrendous noise. I even asked Hattons before I bought it, if it was quiet. I was amazed when I got it to go to the required position via dcc. Like you I love to press the button and just watch. Funny after all this time I still get a buzz when something works.

I suddenly realise you don't need the track outlets to check the dcc polarity just check the positve dcc rail with the one on the deck. It was wired the wrong way round so reversing the deck wires made the display flicker, but if you reverse 3 and 4 connections the flickering disappeared. One day I will take it apart and find out what is wrong, it is out of guarantee so I have nothing to lose. My bet is two of those pins are wired wrongly, but I assume they are on a PCB so that seems unlikely.

Normally when I have had a fire, the heat shrink wrap on the decoder melts, a certain make does it very easily. Seems weird though he has obviously used it since January, so if it was wired wrong the fault would have shown up long before now. There again my HST just failed running round the track on a hot day and yes it did overheat, but I put that down to the TTS decoder was driving a ringfield motor so it was near its limit for cooling. If I had continued to put power on it they usually burn the input diodes off the board. In his case no motor, so it is not that.

@Gitter no you were actually right, I did some more tests on mine. I found if I turned the dcc wires around it didn't get any commands, so obviously that is not going to work if I need to reverse the dcc wires. So I then connected up as the manual and there is the flash, but it is now more of a flicker. Turntable works ok. I then left pins 3 & 4 the same and swapped pins 1 and 2 so effectively reversing the dcc on the deck. No flicker and turntable works. The deck is not connected to anything, so I don't know what is going on. I did email Heljan to see what they say. The thing is the flicker is not that noticable so it is not a big issue, I suppose I am more critical than others because if the flicker was on one of my circuits it would indicate I had got something wrong, or worse case something is wrong and it is going to fail. Anyway when I put in the input and output tracks ( I need to get some code 75 track, I found just converters won't do) I can work out if the dcc connections to the track are right. Thank you for questioning me, there was that thing at the back of my mind thinking I maybe wrong, that is why I did a load more tests. As to why it does it I haven't got a clue.

These are the Skaledale ones excuse the mess, the last one is a combination of laser cut one with Peco sides and a resin support. and /media/tinymce_upload/f388b05c6d86bd02fe989bc2203f8910.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/e951e4b279d43e06593957aa8ffeb577.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/f66901dec0ebccf7b92a463610c986f6.jpg

I used the bridges from the Scaledale range, a bit expensive but really look the part. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MODEL-RAILWAY/283842009266?hash=item42164d58b2:g:-jIAAOSwRQdejvnW https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HORNBY-SKALEDALE-OO-SCALE-R8570-RAILWAY-BRIDGE/284001277021?epid=1523180159&hash=item421fcb945d:g:nYgAAOSwFkxfU5fT or there are these which look pretty good https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Large-OO-Gauge-Model-Railway-Girder-Bridge-with-Stonework-Effect-Support-Piers/402229496940?_trkparms=aid%3D555021%26algo%3DPL.SIMRVI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20190711100440%26meid%3D3ef44f46041646a0b7f8527ade474d35%26pid%3D100752%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D15%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D284001277021%26itm%3D402229496940%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplRVIAMLv5WebWithPLRVIOnTopCombiner&_trksid=p2047675.c100752.m1982 Skaledale did another bridge which was really good, but again expensive. I can't find any pictures on EBay.

Yes, the loco runs on and off deck and loses connection as it passes through the half way point, as it says it will do in the manual. I was using a sound loco so it was easy to see.

Next time you do it, this board looks quite interesting. I wish they were around when I converted mine. It cost me nearly this much for just the socket off Hornby. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HO-OO-Gauge-Directional-Light-LED-Distribution-Power-Board-Model-Train/254703455025?hash=item3b4d824b31:g:xJEAAOSw889eKKu2

I know you are only trying to help, but you don't appear to read the post. It is flashing when it powers up, no command being issued. You get the Heljan start up message and then it defaults to "Tr 1", then the display starts to flash. I am sure it wasn't designed to do this, unless someone decided it was a good idea to show it is working on DCC. As I said I have sorted it, so for me no issue, a flashing display means it is doing something like moving the deck, so it shouldn't be flashing when it is standing idle. All I wanted to know was if anybody else had seen this symptom. I could take it apart trace out the circuit and work out what they have actually done, but as I say for me it is working. Yes, it is moving to the required position, I setup five and yes it goes to all of them. I will try moving the loco on and off. If there was an issue with DCC, when the turntable has gone full circle it would short out my DCC, which it doesn't. People on this site get upset when I say what I used to do for a living, so just lets say I do know what I am doing in the electronics/digital field.

No, I didn't I read the initial post, sorry. Obviously a couple of wires touching. As I said I had many decoders smoke, but normally i can smell them before it gets serious. So he must have had some electrics in it to smoke. As I say mine only smoke when I put them into old Hornby ringfield or Bachmann split chassis locos.

No, not got that far, just checking it works at the moment. Pins 1 and 2 supposedly supply power to the track, which will be DCC so I see no issue, but I will try it.

Yes, they will come on together as they receive the same signal. If you give the dummy a different address they will be separate, as the dummy is not powered I don't think you need the consist, assuming you didn't put a motor in the dummy.

Yes, I have had a few DCC decoders smoke, on one loco it looked like a real steam train. If you put some DCC decoders onto old Bachmann or Hornby locos you can get them to smoke. Generally, it is because the decoder cannot cope with the motor current. Just looked at the photos, that is impressive. I bet that was a Ringfield motor and the decoder was a Hornby one. Use a Zimo next time they seem to handle the current better. The Hornby decoder current limit is awfully close to a Ringfield motors normal current drain, if the loco motor stalls the decoder smokes. Sadly, it has happened to me many times, with different decoders, fortunately not as badly as that.

I know I read the wiring diagrams, in fact I initially had it set to the analogue to check it worked, then converted to DCC as it says in the first post. If it was in analogue mode it would not reply to the DCC signal. If I set 3 turn out positions it will move to them. If when I power the unit up with no DCC commands, it should not flash, after the Heljan "Welcome Message", it flashes when it receives a command to move. This was flashing in it's idle state. As I said it is working perfectly with the accessory commands fired from my Fleishmann Controller. I just wondered if anyone else had seen this issue, it could be that that one of the capacitors in the unit that is supposed to create a filtered voltage from the DCC signal is not working properly.

When I connected my Heljan Turntable to DCC connecting pins 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 to DCC as per the manual, although the turntable worked perfectly the display flashed at a rate of about once a second. So I only connected pins 1 & 2 to DCC, pins 3 and 4 connected to 15 volts AC the same supply that feeds my DCC controller. It now works perfectly with no flashing. Now I was led to believe pins 1 and 2 were for the deck only but obviously not. Has anyone else had the flashing issue? I am using a Fleishmann to power the DCC. As I say no issue I was intrigued why it would do that.

Oh thanks RAF96 that explains it.

Anything at this moment in time takes a long time, a response from them takes about a week to two weeks. It is probably because they are all working from home. To receive a refund it probably takes a lot of people to approve, so that is probably the reason why. I know it is frustrating, but be patient it seems it takes ages for them to do anything at the moment. The thing that surprises me is that they were wrong, that is really poor quality control, I thought bad wheel spacing was a thing of the past.

My one I changed the wheels to Romform ones, that was way back in the eighties, when it was easy to get the wheels. I must try it out and see if it still runs. It suffered a lot of abuse when I was a child.

When I program on the programming track you sometimes hear the loco buzz. If you have a tester unit there is a led that tells you when it is doing it. The Elite seems to do two operations to read the Manufacturer Id. I have had issues where some decoders don't work from new, so now I tend to put them in a tester and try and read the Manufacturer Id, that at least tells me it does something. I then fit them in the loco, it saves taking the loco apart to find that decoder doesn't work.

As Margate-Richmond said it is a capacitor, they looked like that in the sixties, I have a Nellie in the loft but I think I removed that or it broke. It will not stop your loco working if it is missing, I think they were about 100 pF but I am not sure. TVs are still susceptical to interference from model railways, I notice on mine, it misses the odd frame even worse if you are recording something on a box.