ColinB

I have a Duchess of Montrose that I converted to two rail many years ago. I used new Wrenn wheels and pickups, they were still in business then. I managed to find someone on the web/EBay who did rewound armatures, that was only two years ago and I replaced the magnet with a neo magnet. The place I used to get my parts from has closed, so dublo-spares sounds like the place to get brushes etc.

What I did, was to use the instructions that RAF96 pointed you to, but instead of just adding a capacitor, I added a YouChoos "Stay alive circuit", it has a bit more protection than just a standard capacitor. I also found that you can read values in programming mode with it fitted, which you cannot with just a capacitor. It is fitted onto a Ringfield based Hornby HST 125 loco and it does make a difference.

It is funny I was originally going to buy the Bachman one, but it is all wrong, the back especially. Seeing as it is probably modelled by the firm up the road it seems really weird, they do all the other buildings round there and look correct, the Beck Hole pub is a great model. Hornby seem to have done a really good job, I have checked the model with photos of the station and actually looking at it when I was there and it seems correct. If looks like with the plaform I will have to model it myself. I originally bought a broken original Hornby station (chimney pots missing, they always seem to go), but when Hornby released the new one I sold the broken on EBay for what I paid for it and bought the new one. It is a station that oozes character. It is lucky Network Rail didn't run the line in the 80's they would have knocked it down and put a bus shelter in its place like they did to many of Brunel's Great Western Stations.

Yes, some of the modern leds are stupidly bright. Normally I always used to use values of 1 k ohm as a resistor, but with some of the tower leds I am using about 10 k ohm and still they are bright.

I think E.R just wanted to put a lamp at the front, he probably called it a headlamp because most of us understand what he means. By no stretch of the imagination would any of those lamps in real life have enough energy to act as a headlight, but it looks good on a model, even if sometimes in the case of DCC it lets the owner know the loco is receiving power.

Thanks howbiman, I never thought of doing that. There is absolutely no reason not to. I suppose the reason was I bought a second hand loco with it set the way, I was trying to do it, but that gives loads of issues if you want to reset the decoder. I will do exactly that, map them to two different addresses, that is much easier.

Actually I am not so sure about the comment unregulated DC on electric motors, lets face they are highly inductive so basically they effectively filter the waveform as for half wave, rectification the reason you don't use it is really inefficient. The bigger issue is without regulation you are endanger of getting high voltage peaks which could cause damage plus I think the peak voltage is 1.4 time the nominal voltage, so for a 12 volt supply you could get a peak of nearly 17 volts, that is what causes the damage.

On my one, everyone said it was a weak magnet, I even bought a new one, but it wasn't. Mine would hardly pull the other diesel end let alone carriages. In the end I measured the resistance between the 3 armatures on the Ringfied motor, one was open circuit. Someone on this site suggested that quite often the fine wire breaks off the armature and if you look carefully you can see it and reattach it. That is exactly what was wrong with mine, I did do that, but in the end I bought a rewound armature from Lendons for £13.00, it now works like a dream. I don't know if your one has pickup on all wheels but Peters Spares were doing upgraded bogies that include this. My one runs like a dream now.

@RAF96 I am not trying to remap the TTS, I am trying to remap the LaisDCC function decoder. howbiman gave me a link to the manual that explains everything, so I am all set. I think at the moment LaisDCC and Zimo are the only ones selling function decoders and for this case where I am only controlling cab lights and firebox glow, the LaisDCC is perfect (small and cheap).

@howbiman No, I hadn't, I just had the list of CV values, I will do that now. Thanks.

On my Hornby Tornedo steam loco, I have a function decoder in the loco to do the lights, and in the tender I have the normal DCC socket for the DCC decoder. Now when the main decoder was a normal decoder, there was no issue F1 turned on the auxilary function on both decoders similarly F2 did the same. I decided to change the decoder in the tender to a TTS decoder and of course F1 and F2 are different between decoders. Now I know it is possible by changing CV to remap F1 and F2 on the function decoder so they operate on different functions. So how do you do it? The function decoder is a LaisDCC, but I can handle what CV or in my speak register to look for, I just need to know what you have to do?

What I did with my locos was use the lamps supplied by YouChoos, they look realistic but are also reasonably easy to use. I bought some from another manufacturer and they were like working with grains of sand. Wire the positive side (anode) of the led via a suitable resistor (I use 1 kilo ohm) to pin 7 of the the DCC socket ( VRef) and the cathode of the led to pin 6 of the DCC socket, or pin 2 of the DCC socket (depending how your motor is wired). Be very careful soldering to the DCC socket, the gaps between pins are very small, it is very easy to short two pins together. Before you put the DCC decoder back in, do a continuity check between pins of the DCC connector to make sure you have not created and shorts. If you inadvertently short pins 7 and 8 together you will damage the decoder. If you have more than one led, it may be worth looking a resistor packs where you get a package, with 5 or so resistor wired together at one end, making the wiring easier and they are smaller than using lots of resistors. The leds from YouChoos can aready wired with the right colours so it makes it a bit easier.

I have just tried my brand new BR Princess Royal Class, Priness Marie Louise (the same one with the duff DCC socket, earlier post) and it is incredibly quiet all I could hear was it clomping over the gaps in my rails.

I am not surprised about Hornby not fixing damaged bodywork, I doubt they have any replacement bodies. Funny though when I enquired about replacing a pantograph on a Bachmann class 86, they offered to sell me the pantograph or the body with it already fitted and it wasn't one of their current models. I would imagine your local model shop would just replace the valve gear that is the easiest and most reliable method. I don't know how to replace a sprung buffer, perhaps someone on this site does.

I didn't even know there was a water tower. I have got the station, plus the two little buildings, the coal drop, coal ramp and goods shed. The coal ramp was the most difficult, they wanted nearly £100.00 for them on EBay, fortunately Hattons have an EMail service where they mail you if one comes up second hand, so it was a lot cheaper. I did originally start off with the Bachmann small buildings, but a certain firm near Goathland wouldn't sell me the Bachmann station unless I bought the two buildings that go with it although I originally bought the two buildings off them originally. I then found out about the Hornby Skaledale one, which is a much better representation than the Bachmann and they did do all the bits. Surely even a child wants a plaform that is longer than one piece, plus you cannot fit the footbridge on it.

@Going Spare I read the initial post but it was a case of interpreting what you see and jumping to the wrong conclusion. To get the wheels on the loco the right way round, the insulated ones have to be on the opposite side to the the motor drive wheels in the tender, or the same side as the motor brushes. The centre ones are sometimes insulated on both sides so obviously these don't matter.

Yes, I did a scan of EBay and that version seems to be very rare. If you find one, they appear to be priced about the same as what you paid. Why don't you phone/email Hornby and see what they suggest, I think they probably are still working from home, at least you will then know what to do. Email is probably the easiest at the moment, they normally take at least two days to replay, so it may take a week given the current situation.

I think I worked out you would need at least 3 or more platform packs, to make a decent station, very expensive way to buy a stright platform piece. I cannot think anyone would want the ramps anyway, they only go with the Hogs Mead platform. Perhaps I need to start looking at the platforms that went with the original Skaledale Goathland Station.

I have done a lot of these lately. The early Ringfields had the non insulated wheels on the brush side of the motor, the insulated wheels are the ones with the gears on these go on the drive side. The centre wheels seem to differ with each release some have a solid wheel on the brush side and insulated on the drive side, others have insulated wheels on both sides. The centre wheels also have half flanges, not as big as the flange on the driven wheels. The later ones had wipers on each wheel and from what I have seen Hornby used the same wheels all round, I may be wrong. From my experience Hornby insulated wheels always have the gear. The other issue you might get is if the tender has a pony truck like on a A4 or A1/A3, on early ones the non insulated wheel goes on the brush side, on the later ones with wipers the non insulated wheel goes on the gear side, although I am sure when they went to wipers on all wheels, I think the pony truck wheels are both insulated. So really the only way I can see you can get it wrong is if you get the centre wheels or the pony truck wheels the wrong way round. If you got the driven wheels the wrong way round you would have no drive.

This is an amusing one, does anyone know if Hornby intend to do separate platform pieces for Hogsmead Station in the future. No, I am not into Harry Potter, but it is Goathland staion so I bought it with the miniscule platform it comes with. I also bought the platform kit, again small one straight, with two ramps. I can probably make a longer platform out of MDF, but the pieces that come with the station are really good. Over the years I have accumulated all of the station, Hornby have modelled it all, but I have never seen platform pieces.

Yes, I am pretty sure I used the screws from Peters Spares, they are very thin and quite long. Most of my track has a about 1/16" cork underlay, but they stay in that and the insulation board. You normally have to drill holes in the point to take them, obviously they are not going to be that strong as they are going into a pretty soft material but they seem to work ok. I found that track pins on points didn't work very well at all because really you need to put them about every 5 sleepers of flexitrack, which you cannot really do on a point.

I think you can get them remagnetised, if you watch TV, James May did it in one of his programs about toys. Alternatively, you can buy a Neo Magnet off EBay, I don't know it they Ship to Australia, but it is worth a look.

I assume you are using Hornby track pins, use Peco ones they are twice as long, but very thin. My layout runs on insulation board, I use very thin screws to hold down the points. Peters Spares or EBay do the screws, in the case of EBay probably from China.

I actually changed the socket, yes electronics used to be my job so no problem. What it was, was whoever soldered it decided to solder the wires on the underside of the 8 pin DCC socket, they should be pushed in from the top to reduce strain on the wire. What they had done was to only strip about 1 mm from the end, and basically solder to the track not using the hole, so I suspect when they soldered it they probably soldered the insulation. So as long as nobody disturbs the DCC socket it sort of works. I come along and fit a TTS decoder which meant disturbing the DCC connector as I tried to fit it in. The annoying thing was it took a long time to find, as I checked all the connections on the tender very carefully, I just could not understand why it worked on the tester but not on the loco. I even measured the voltages on the pins of the DCC socket, but I suspect by pushing on it with the probes, made the connection. Anyway, I replaced it with one I was going to use for a DCC conversion, and have reworked the old circuit board so it does not have those individual push in pins. I hate to say it but those circuit boards are old hat, we stopped using that type in electronics years ago, too unreliable, you can get a decent "plated through hole" type one that would give far less trouble. Their one looks like ones I used to etch with ferric chroride years ago. The reason they have so many issues with shorting tracks etc, is if you look at the PCB the gaps between the connections are two small, they are using etching technology to make them, most modern processes use a deposit process where copper is deposited onto the board. Its cheaper and you don't waste copper and get thinner tracks. They are also easier to solder to.

Well I have just tested my City of Wells, I haven't run it for ages. Amazingly, it works with the cheapo power supply I got with my Pendoleno set. Normal running is about 300 milliamps ( 0.3 amps), the stall current is really high at 1.3 amps but the power supply didn't trip out. Really nice locos, shame I run DCC and I don't really want to hack it apart to fit DCC. The values seem a lot lower than I expected, that one must have a good magnet.