ColinB

Do you know, I think the old Triang/Hornby couplings seem to be the best for staying coupled, they may not look great but they work.

From what you are saying it is a tender driven loco, same as my Duke of Sutherland. If it is a tender driven Ringfield the tender top should just unclip. You might have to help it along a bit by inserting a knife between the tender top and bottom. Be very careful though. If it is a tender driven then you need to add a DCC socket and modify the motor. The way I did it was to put the socket in the loco and then connect to the tender using the Hornby 4 way connection system. I think you will find there is very little room in the tender to fit a socket.

I have just checked mine on a length of track in the kitchen at incredibly slow speeds (no bar on the Elite) it is a little jerky but nowhere near as bad as other locos and to me perfectly acceptable, most of my other locos wouldn't move on that setting. Perhaps you just have a bad motor or bad TTS decoder. It is definitely a lot better than the Bachmann G2A that had a serious issue at low speeds (later traced to a bad Bachmann decoder).

I will check mine again, but I am pretty sure it is quite good at slow speed. I am sure it uses the standard Hornby motor which generally is really good at slow speeds. I must admit most of my locos with jerky movement I have put down to the DCC decoder, but the TTS one is usually good. When the weather here cools down a bit I will try mine out in the loft (hot weather has a habit of killing Hornby TTS decoders). I must admit the only issue I have ever had with mine is the front bogie derailing. With a TTS decoder you get PWM control of the motor, so unless there is something wrong with yours it should be ok.

I am glad that I am not the only one that has issues with the Hunt magnetic couplings. On my Bachmann Birdcage coaches they just simply pulled out. I did try the trick of using black tak and they lasted a little longer. In the end I placed them in boiling water to allow me to bend them out a bit. After breaking two it did finally work. I keep meaning to EMail them, a really brilliant idea sadly let down by poor detailed engineering. If they just made the tails out of the same plastic as the NEM couplings, they might work a bit better, the ones I have, have little or no spring.

Yes RAF96 you are right. I am sure when Chris initially said it could be a split gear, I found it had happened on both of the faulty Britannias. It even got to the point where I asked New Modellers whether split gears on this model was an issue. Anzac is a much later model than my two, so I would have thought if they did have an issue with split gears then they would have soughted it. As I said I literally spent hours getting the two to run right and even now, one is not that good. I bought a special editon Britannia in black, second hand, that runs like a dream, so they don't all have issues. The valve gear on this model is pretty complex and very frail.

I like DCC because I use a lot of sound. I have found that not all decoders are equal in performance, so be careful which ones you use. I could write a list of the ones I have had issues with, but I probably would get told off, needless to say juddering I have found to be generally due to the DCC decoder. Slow speed movement is better with DCC although DC is a a lot cheaper.

I have two of them both purchased recently in the last two months As far as I can tell nothing wrong with them. Having read this, I will have another look. As to the DCC decoder, what you do is buy a wired 6 pin decoder, in my case a Zimo MX617, buy an 8 pin header. Cut the lead as short as possible of the wired 6 pin decoder just so it will be possible to wrap the decoder so about 2.5 to 5 cm of wire. Then wire the cut 6 pin decoder to the 8 pin header. There is just enough room for it to fit perfectly with the decoder sitting on top of the DCC socket with a little bit of space for cooling. If you shortened the wire on a Hornby decoder it would probably fit, but the MX617 will probably be better and it is a better decoder for approximately the same price.

I have one of these and I must admit it never struck me as going slow, but there again they made a few different versions. I had a lot of issues with the front bogie derailing, but there is a separate post curing it. I retro fitted a TTS decoder and again I don't remember any issues. It might be worth inspecting the drive train, worm drive, crown wheel, driving wheel to check that they are running freely and of course the valve gear, it might be catching on certain curves. As to changing the motor, I bought some of those cheap Chinese motors that "Sams Trains" tested and yes they work perfectly, I am sure they are the same as the Hornby ones. The big issue is they do not come with the worm drive, so you have the issue of either obtaining one (not very easy as no part number) or pulling the one off your existing motor (again not always that easy). Oh, I forgot, if the motor has a suppression capacitor across it, remove it, they seem to cause no end of issues. If you are running DCC you don't need it and they fail.

There is another post on a subject like this. My one was always derailing itself with the front bogie falling off. I read a post on this forum that suggested adding a bit of weight to the front bogie, which is exactly what I did. I added a thin sliver of phosphor bronze I bought at an autojumble (my other hobby is building classic bikes). Needless to say it cured the issue. If you watch the front bogie as it goes along it is so light that it gets into oscillations and eventually pings itself off the rails. The Railroad A1s suffer from the same fault, in their case you add a better spring to the front bogie.

I don't know if this is related. I had a lot of issues with my Britannia pickups, I have 3 of them, one of them is ok the other two are always having issues with pickups. The TTS Decoders seem to be very susceptical to poor signal, reseting themselves where normal DCC decoders don't, perhaps it is the increased current draw of sound decoders. The clicking is probably the valve gear catching, again 2 of my Brits had this issue, I even had ro replace the valve gear on one as it broke.. I also had an issue where the crown gear on the driving wheel, split, that would definitely make a clicking noise. Needless to say I have had lots of issues with my Britannias, funny the one that is good, the special edition one, I don't seem to have any issues with.

I had issues with a tender driven loco when the flexible magnet wasn't in the right position. In my case I had taken it out to drill out the brush holder screw and I got its orientation wrong when I replaced it. Ran perfectly one way, rubbish the other way. Just an idea.

Yes Rana, you are right that motor seems to power all the 0-6-0, I only mentioned Thomas as it is probably the only one you can get spares for. The only thing that concerns me is did they change the work drive? Hornby carried lots of parts, between locos trouble is knowing which parts. It is always easier to adapt parts rather than develop them from scratch and I suspect Hornby are no different. I recently found that the drive gears for a Fowler tank (which you cannot get) are the same as for an A1 (which you can).

Funny, I had virtually the same issue with Peco Electrofrogs. On those, the fix was to isolate the frog and power it separately. It must be something about the spacing of Rinfield based locos tender wheels. It initially did it on a Railroad Mallard which basically has a Ringfield motor tender but with no motor, and a Bachmann Class 47 loco. By the time I had converted my ringfield motor locos, I had put the fix in.

Unfortunately Chrissaf, on this thread it doesn't say that. I assume this thread is transferred from another one, where it does. So it isn't the issue of the short around the Peco Electrofrog, so I will shut up.

I don't know why your post was removed, but that was exactly what I was saying he should do.

@ChrisBeadling you aren't using PECO Electrofrog points by chance when you get the E0 error?

Ok, it probably is the Select but I had a similar issue with my Bachmann G2A where it stuttered at low speed. In the case of the G2A it was the Bachmann decoder that was the issue and this was not the only decoder where I have noticed issues. I have also noticed certain decoders are better at coping with dirty track and slow speed running. I don't want to list them as some people probably like them, but sometimes it is a good idea to try a different make of decoder and see if the issue disappears. It is funny that some Bachmann decoders are ok, it just seems to be some of the early ones. The G2A actually came with it, you would have thought they would have noticed. I did put a post about issues with another Bachmann decoder where it stuttered and buzzed (again a very early one) but that eventually failed big time, so perhaps it always had a fault.

I must admit I have more issues with double slips getting them level, powering them and working out which way the loco is going to go. The only reason I use then is the Peco diamond crossing has too much plastic in the frog area, which since 1980 they have not improved. The code 75 is much improved so why did they not retrofit it to the code 100 system. It also seems that the more plastic in the frog area of a point, the more likely it is to distort.

@RAF96 With one of the extractors I broke, I had to put it into the lathe drill a new 2mm hole and then buy a length of 2mm silver steel, I think the original pin was made of some cheap alloy. I think the wrapping it in a very hot bandage is the best idea. The guy on the web that sells motors suggested it and then I remembered to shift tight pistons on my classic bike, that is what I do. The advantage of the hot compress is it does not melt the plastic. The big issue is alignment, all the extractors they sell assume that you get it perfectly aligned then it doesn't take much effort to pull it off, so they seem to be made of cheap alloy. When I did eventually get the worm to move, I heard a sharp crack, indicating they it must have been really tight. As I said previously, the plastic ones come off quite easy.

I am sorry perhaps I could word it better, experience is the ability to have seen the issue before, so someone who only posts once may have the answer. I regularly measure the back to back measurements on my locos when I have an issue and as I say, it generally occurs on old locos where you can push the wheel anywhere on the spindle and you can hear it as it clomps over the points, if it doesn't derail. That is definitely the case with Peco ones. It can easily happen on carriage and wagon wheels as again you can push the wheel anywhere on the spindle. Most of the Hornby front bogie wheels are capped so it is extremely difficult to push them any further on the spindle. As I said in my first post, I actually saw this fault on a large radius point, it took me ages to figure it out, it is a difficult one to figure out. Peco obviously noticed this as an issue as their older points didn't have this feature. Perhaps it only happens with electrofog points, which is why I see it and others that use Hornby track don't.

I use Peco Streamline Electrofrog curved points. I can't say I find them anymore of an issue than normal points. In reality they are not much different to the large radius points. You do have to line up the curve properly. I do get issues with locos sometimes shorting on the frog but that can be cured by isolating it. Of course getting them level is an issue.

Yes, getting the worm off is an issue. I broke 2 extractors doing one of mine. The plastic ones come off quite easy, the brass ones I think you need to wrap them in a boiling water bandage and then try (the brass expands more than the steel). Alternately buy a Thomas the tank engine one off Peters Spares/EBay, they have a blue plasic worm that comes off quite easy with an extractor.

Sounds like you are on top of the software bit, you need an analogue to digital input channel on the Arduino to process the potentiometer value, I am sure it must have one of these. Or as I said previously use a rotary encoder that outputs pulses on two diigital channels to tell you direction and speed, your software then has to effectively add or subtract pulses to give you a value, that is what is on the front of the Elite (2 of them in this case). So really the bit you want is how to mate the stepper motor to the turntable. I assume there are libraries of software on how to drive the stepper motor.

If you are using Peco code 100 track or the Hornby equivalent and your locos are not earlier than the 1980's then you don't really have an issue, Peco haven't really changed their track architechture since then. On some of my early 80's Pacific locos I did change the front bogie wheels as they are a bit finer, but the old ones worked ok. It is the early Triang loco wheels that seem to be the biggest issue. If you are running Peco code 75 then you do have an issue. The thing that you do have to worry about though, is the back to back wheel spacing, on early locos it is really easy for it to be wrong as it is easier to move the wheels on the axle.