ColinB

From my experience "shorts" on the track, don't blow decoders. The things I have found that blow decoders are inadvertantly connecting the rail voltage to any of the outputs of the decoder (usually happens when the DCC socket has a short, or that extra function lead touches the chassis), hot weather where the decoder cannot get rid of the generated heat (made worse if in shrink rap), motor or motor capacitor has gone short circuit and finally decoder cannot cope with the stall current of the motor. Unfortunately, I have killed a lot in those different ways but I am always fitting them to old pre DCC locos, so unless the manufacturer has messed up and you make sure the flying function lead doesn't touch anything you should be ok. Sound decoders are more of an issue especially Sugar Cube speakers. On some of these they have sprung connections which can easily short on the loco chassis, again bye, bye decoder and of course TTS decoder speakers that don't fit properly even when Hornby has made a location for them. I do have quite a lot of little issues with new locos, especially Hornby ones with the 8 pin DCC socket, I must had had about 3 so far where the socket doesn't connect properly with the DCC decoder, made worse by the dcc decoders having thinner than normal pins. I am lucky, I can replace the socket, but on one I did mail Hornby and get a new socket as I thought it was wrong that I use one of my sockets (and my cost) on a brand new loco. As to the original subject, stick with it, I must have lifted one piece of track at least 3 times. It got to the point where I now haven't ballasted it just in case it needs changing again. Then of course when you lift ballasted track, you need to vacuum up all the old ballast as the track doesn't sit flat.

If you look a lot closer at the coupling you will see that you can lever out the remanents of the coupling the triangle shaped bit. You may not realise but that triangle bit is part of the NEM pocket Replace it with a new NEM pocket then you can use any sort of couplings that fit in the NEM pocket. I tried the Hunt magnetic couplings, they seem reasonably good, or you could convert to the old Hornby/ Triange type. They all fit into the NEM pocket.

This is the stuff I use https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-roll-Ersin-multicore-solder-alloy-60-40-36Z-flux-20-SWG-500G-0-9mm-BS441/224098144318?hash=item342d4a503e:g:v~8AAOSwOrZfITO1

I have an Elite and with my Javelin it goes at a reasonable speed. I cannot remember if it has traction tyres, if it does that is the first thing to check. I know with my Pendolino that was an issue. If the traction tyres are slipping it will have a high pitched screeching noise.

As I have said before I got mine from EBay it was less than £10.00 for a large reel of Ersin 60/40 solder. Often on EBay if you are lucky, there are people that sell stock from firms that have gone bankrupt, so it was substantually cheaper than buying it retail. Sad to say but given the current economic position there is going to be more available as more firms go bankrupt.

They fitted these chassis on many locos, I have the Duchess and the A4s. I wondered the same as you whether it was for a smoke unit. because as you say it looks made for it. On the Duchess definitely, but I thought on the A4's it didn't line up with the chimney. On my Duchess ones I fitted the old 80's smoke unit and having it controlled by DCC using a Zimo unit (it has the current capacity to drive it), it works really well.

A few years ago you could go round a boot fair and pick up Weller Soldering Irons cheap as a lot of electronics forms used them . As the firms went bust so the Weller Irons became surplus to requirements. Trouble is EBay ruined that because people realised what they were worth. I have used one ever since I started as an Electronics Design Engineer, they are brilliant for working on circuit boards. The one thing I do a lot these days is change 8 pin DCC sockets, the manufacturers seem to use awful sockets that quite often give loose connections, so the iron is great at removing the socket without lifting the circuit board tracks off the PCB.

Got it today, it is great. Fitted it my Heljan as I didn't feel like converting it to 21 pins for the Bachmann. That will be for another day.

There was a new chassis on EBay for not much money so I thought I would buy it and do the comparison. The gearing looks about the same, the motor has two resistors in series, obviously a means to slow it down by reducing the voltage at the motor. The wheels are much finer but I would say that they are probably the same conrods but plated a dull black. The good news is that it still fits my Caledonian loco, so I have done an upgrade for very little money. I will now add dcc. I will add it does make my loco look a lot better.

In the diagram it is two of them shrink wrapped together wired in parallel (the single ones are half the price). I use the smaller ones, they are easier to fit and only one of them. They fit really well in Hornby tenders where the coal bunker has taken up most of the space. For TTS decoders which is most of mine (I do have a few Zimos), you can only use one. I recently fitted one in someone's Ivatt 2MT tender, with loksound decoder, it sounded really good. How are you suppose to insulate one of those sugar cube speakers with the spring terminals? If you use a piece of insulating tape over all of it you mask the speaker. Is nail varnish the best solution?

Unless you are going to do serious electrical work the less than £10=00 one is ok. Most times you are just checking if you have 12 volts or a short circuit. So as long as it does volts and resistance you should be ok. If you want to measure current most locos only use at maximum 1 amp as for true RMS I was an electronics engineer for 40 plus years and have never used it. Unless you are into power engineering, I am not sure you will ever need it. I do have a state of the art Fluke as well, but I just bought that as a nice to have, the cheap one works just as well, the only thing the Fluke is good at, is it switches itself off when not being used, saving a fortune in batteries and the leads are better. Generally I use the multimeter for measuring point to point connections, short circuits, restances and to check whether I have a voltage on the rails. The soldering iron is probably a lot different, the better the soldering iron generally the better your soldering will be and you won't melt so much pastic soldering to tracks etc. I suppose it is a bit like the difference between an Aldi drill or a Dewalt one, they both do the same job.

The one really big plus point with iphone speakers is they are a lot easier to insulate. I recently had to fit a sugar cube one in a tank engine and it was one of those that has the spring terminals. These are a nightmare to insulate and you know for sure once you lower the body down those spring terminals are going to find somewhere to short and blow up your sound decoder. So far my best solution is to coat them in clear nail varnish after I realised a piece of tape across then was muffling the speaker. All the iphone speakers I have bought have been 8 ohm. I think 8 ohm must be a sort of industry standard as the 4 ohm ones "YouTube" does are two 8 ohm speakers in the same enclosure, connected in parallel. Chinese electronics are very variable even the stuff RS and Farnell sell is generally sourced from China. I was looking at some integrated circuits and even they came from China. That seems to be the issue globally, the West has sold off most of its production to China, your good old iphone is virtually designed there.

Just had a mail from Hattons to say they are Shipping the class 47 TTS decoder, so obviously it is now released.

@RAF96 I know if you go onto Farnell's web site they are literally loads. I had one from when I worked on radios and that is a completely different footprint. There are are also differing pulses per revolution and number of idents and differing PCB footprints. I mailed Flesishmann hoping they can tell me. For the moment I ordered some cheap ones from China. They work on two pulse trains as it says in the specifification, if you look at both waveforms at the same time it represents a "Gray Code", by looking at the states you can work out whether it is going backwards or forwards. Unfortunately, if you miss a state the software can think it is going backwards instead of forwards, which is the issue with my Fleishmann. When I worked on radios I wrote a load of code to cure it, so it can work with a real rubbish one, so I know all the issues (and yes this time I do really know).

Sorry didn't notice this post. Yes, they work perfectly.

I am pretty sure the ones they use in the Elite and Fleishmann twin track are the really cheap type, which is really is switched type, the magnetic types are tons too expensive for this application. The actual "digital encoder" just gives a switched output which the software interprets to work out how quickly you turned the knob. So dependant on the software interpretation the value can increase or decrease. If you turn it quicker then the software notices the distance between pulses has got smaller and knows that the value has increased. Some of the old car radios especially those in a Ford used the same type of encoder. The ones on my Fleishman are causing issues so I have been looking into them a lot.

You don't need to with the Caledonian, the body is the weight.

There is enough room in mine for a 6 pin socket at the front under the chimney, so that is what I will do. The wheels and valve gear look a bit chunky, but looking at all the chassis and valve gear in the 2020 catalogue, they look about the same. I must admit looking at the gears on Peters Spares site they looked about the same. Trouble is if I ordered a set, I imagine my one is based on imperial sizes whereas I assume on the new one they will be metric. I will just put the DCC socket in, it isn't worth changing anything else. Fortunately my one has a metal based loco body so is quite heavy. The really good thing is the motor is quite quiet, not like my old 0-6-0s with the X03/X04 motors.

I have a really old 1980s version of the Hornby Caledonian Loco, I was looking to upgrade this to DCC, so I thought I had better put better wheels on it. The motor looks reasonably modern is quite quiet, a Scalextrix type motor. As I searched through the Service Sheets and Peters Spares, it looks like Hornby have not really updated it from my version. Is this true? Also I know these were obviously used as shunting locos, where on earth did they get their coal? There is no tender and unlike tank engines no obviousl coal bunker.

If it is a Hornby, probably as "Going Spare" said the worm drive gear is worn, or alternatively the screw holding the motor in has come loose.

I just did a search on EBay, 60/40 solder. I got a big reel of very thin solder exactly the same as my 30 year old stuff from my old electronics days, that finally got used.

It would be interesting to find what their minimum order quality is. It should be literally blowing data into the memory. I suppose the question is who does it for them, they are not an electronics firm so I wonder who they sub it out to and what their minimum quantity is. From watching James May I know they create their own sound files. I assume they are programmed by a bed of nails, that is why there are all those pads on the pcb, so really it is how long it takes to setup that determines the price and the minimum quantity. I have just sent a damaged class 37 decoder back to them under warranty, they have currently run out of them, so I wonder will they program a "one off" or give me my money back. Germany/Austria seem to be the experts on DCC sound so I wonder if they use a German firm? Either way, it looks like you will have to wait for you Class 08, like I am waiting for my Class 47.

I obtained replacements from Bachmann when I was converting miy A4s to DCC. I am sure it was in the last year. The one at the rear I replaced with a nylon screw, square nut and nylon washer as to me a self tapper didn't seem strong enough.

I suppose the issue is, as I am always being told, they probably don't know the level of demand. Most of us look around for the part whether be a TTS decoder or perhaps a base plate for a loco, realise that the suppliers have run out and then start looking at the second hand market to canabalise another loco. I suppose also to organise a sub contractor takes a lot of effort and I suppose they don't have the staff to do it. The thing that does surprise me is that there are certain items in their catalogue that never seem to get released (R3632 BR Merhant Navy Class), but then they seem to find the resource to produce a special version of something really quick. I suppose it comes down to what will make the most profit, for little outlay. In the end they have a business to run.

Unfortunately, as you are always telling me, that doesn't answer my initial question. If I want to know about reflected waves and audio I could have asked my friend who seems to have spent a lifetime researching it. I could even searched through the loft for my degree notes, I am sure we must have covered it, but that is not what I am interested in. My initial question was anyone had issues with the supplied speaker, if you look on EBay it appears to be supplied with all the Loksound kits available on there.