ColinB

Car batteries cannot give you shocks not the 12 volt type anyway. Their biggest issue is fire risk and of course the battery acid, if while you are testing your loco you accidentally touch the two leads together you can easily get 60 amps plus, which will probably melt the metal your Wrenn body is made of, or create a fire. Really old Wrenns do consume a lot of current but half the time it is because the magnet has lost its magnatism, I think mine when I last measured them were about 0.6 of an amp, if the magnet has gone, easily over an amp.

I have one of these, the Blue Circle one, I cannot remember there being any issues, I think I bought it with DCC fitted as I hate fitting DCC to these small locos, so it must be a Hornby decoder.

I did read it, I just saw the bit where it said it accelerates, so I assumed he meant it was moving, but reading it again he was talking about the controller. Then from that the chip is probably dead, I have had that happen with TTS decoders, normally followed 5 minutes later by a burning smell as the bridge rectifier over currents. He also didn't mention if the loco lights turned on with a function, or they were on permanently. From my experience when you fry a module the functions are default to on, as they do when it first powers up (well on an Elite, not on a Fleishman). So do Loksound do a replacement service, like Zimo via YouChoos? It is a Bachmann class 66, putting sound into one of these should be quite easy, there is even enough headroom room in one of these, to put a Hornby TTS decoder with an 21 to 8 pin converter. If I remember when I did mine, I don't think there is anything for it to short out on unless they didn't put the speaker in the plastic sound enclosure, unless of course it moved during transit. I wonder if it might be the same fault I had with my Hornby class 66, where the suppression capacitor across the motor went short circuit and took out my TTS decoder. I know this a Bachmann but they have suppression capacitors, it could even be the motor. I got exactly the same fault. Anyway just a thought.

If you want to keep the loco, then first thing is, it might be the speaker, it may be worth changing it. Normally if you blow up the sound, it blows up everything, so it might just be the speaker. If it isn't, then it sounds like decoder is working but the sound is not. I don't know if Loksound do the same as Zimo, but you can return the sound module and for a price (about £30.00) they give you a replacement. I must admit that is one of the reasons when I can't get a TTS decoder for a loco, I buy a Zimo one. I would have thought Rails would have tested it, they seem quite a good organisation.

Check the connection on the non powered bogie, it has a habit of snapping off. Unfortunately, you generally cannot see it, so if you look from inside the body all looks well. If it is the same as mine the bogie is held in by spring clip.

Be careful with old Hammant and Morgan ones if you have any locos with DCC compatible decoders fitted, the regulation on these old controllers is a bit suspect, means it can damage any electronics. They are OK with pure DC locos as the motor copes with the irregularities of the the output, it appears the electronics cannot. I permanently damaged a DCC decoder on my H & M, yes it was supposedly DC compatible. As to the huming, I tried out my brand new Hornby Princess Elizabeth this morning and yes it hums with the controller. I think the PWM frequency is too low, when I used to use DC I built my own PWM controller, I used a PWM with a frequency of 10 kHz which makes less noise.

Reading this I am assuming your Flying Scotsman is tender driven as the tender drives on its own. I don't know if you have already done this but from what you are describing I would say either you have a "short" in the loco wheels or if you bought the loco second hand someone has wired the loco the wrong way round. I assume it is a late ringfield based Flying Scotsman, so it picks up on all wheels of the tender, hence why it runs without a loco. The trouble is the driving wheels have traction typres which are a wonderful insulator, so on the straight it is probably running on its traction tyres, on the bends its flanges touch the rails so it picks up power. So it stops on the straights because it isn't getting power. You need to check the loco with your multimeter (not attached to tender), check resistance between a pair of wheels, check resistance between wheels on left of train with those on right. Usually what it is, is someone has put one axle back in, back to front so on one axle the live wheel is on the insulated side. Look along each set of wheels and check that one side all have insulators. If none of this works, connect loco to tender on the track with no power. and check for a short circuit between the rails.

It may be that one of the trains is drawing too much current, does it trip out if you only run 3.

Well after watching "Sams Trains" video you do wonder why Hornby even fit 3 pole motors, we have got to be talking about saving fractions of pennies. Now where I used to work where we were shifting100s of thousands to millions I can understand saving a cent here and there, even then not always worth it, given the warranty risk when changing a part, but Hornby's numbers are nowhere near that. Incidentally I ordered 5 as spares, cannot believe they are so cheap.

@bulliedboy I watched Sams video on cheap Chinese motors, really good. I didn't realise you could get so cheap. As Hornby seem intent on exitting the spare parts market, very relevant. I am not surprised probably the same motors that Hornby use, one of the penalties of "outsourcing" you can be undercut by your Supplier. Thank you for the link.

In theory a 5 pole motor should perform better than a 3 pole motor at low speed. With DCC and modern electronics you do get better performance from a 3 pole motor, but a 5 pole will always be better. The disadvantage is you do not get the same top speed. I looked into this a lot when I was updating my ringfield based HST, but in the end a 5 pole motor was virtually impossible to get or in one case more expensive that the loco so I stuck with the original, and surprisingly it does work well at low speed. I don't know if the Flying Scotsman has the same issues as the Tornado, in that Hornby only put pickups in the loco, not in the tender, I found by adding tender pickups I got much better running. If I could find the service sheet I would compare the parts. I would have thought the 5 pole motor should just slot in, my issue would be if they changed the gearing, so you might have to change the intermediate gear.

I attach then directly to the point, you get much better alignment. Also, if you have sat under a baseboard trying to get alignment you will see what I mean. I got a guy that sells 3D printing parts on EBay to 3D print covers that cover the hole (I have no business interest in the product), I just thought it was a good idea, life is too short to try making them out of card or plasticard and his line up directly with the point. I did initially make them out of card, believe me the 3D printed ones are much better, but some people like the challenge. So you put the cover on before you attach the motor. It also means if the point goes wrong you can lift the whole lot out as one. You can also get low power versions of this type of point from another manufacturer, which is better when using a capacator discharge unit (takes less time to recharge).

They do seem very good, I had an issue with my Adams loco where an smd inductor burn out damaging the PCB. I emailed then about a replacement and the cost, they sent me one free of charge. Eventually I found the initial fault, the wheels were touching the motor connections on curves, due to a heavily soldered joint.

@Abeginner I did that with my Duchess of Sutherland and the plastic light guide just disintegrated as I pulled it apart. I think the light is driven off the front bogie and it is a small bulb, so I suggest cleaing the front bogie wheels. I think all my trains make a buzzing sound when they start up with that controller, the pwm frequency Hornby use is quite low so perhaps that is the issue, trouble is when any motor starts up there is a buzzing sound as the motor brushes pass the current to the motor at slow speed. On my one I even added one of those Hornby 1980's smoke unit, it worked quite well although a bit messy. Because I could mount it to the chassis no issues with the body warping with the heat.

Those ceramic capacitors that Hornby use are a liability, the one on my class 66 actually went short circuit as the loco was running round the layout. I wouldn't have minded but it took out the DCC decoder and its replacement until I figured out what was wrong. I imagine the capacitor must be at its voltage limit so any unforseen event can damage them (at inductive spike of voltage on the motor can be up to 200 volts). I worked in electronics and remember reading an article years ago saying not to use them, they were popular on cheap Japenese radios in the 70's. Lima used to use better ones. As to soldering and irons, "lead free" solder if I remember melts at a higher temperature and it is much easier to get what we call "dry joints" where the solder doesn't flow properly. One of my jobs was on car radios and because of enviroment issues and legislation, we converted to "lead free" solder in production and for the first year had no end of issues with soldered joints failing. As to a soldering iron, I use a Weller temperature controlled iron but that is only because I acquired it from one of my previous jobs, they are super expensive but good. I recently bought a cheap iron off EBay (£10), which I needed to solder the new temperature sensor in my Weller that was broken and I was really surprised it worked really well. I think you can now get reasonably priced temperature controlled ones. The big thing about soldering, is place the soldering iron on the thing to be soldered, and flow the solder onto it. That is what I was taught at Marconis, but don't leave the iron on the job for very long, else other things will melt. Where a lot of people go wrong is they melt the solder onto the iron and then dab it on the job. I use Ersin 60/40 very thin solder, it is what I have used since I worked at Marconi Avionics, I bought some recently off EBay, it was surprisingly cheap.

Well I did a google search R7229 and it looks like a basic controller, it appears to have a 14 volt uncontrolled DC output on the back. Now I don't know if Hornby use the same technology on all their controllers, but I took the one I got free with my Pendolina set and took it apart to see what was in it. The 19 volt DC input feeds a bridge rectifier made of SMD diodes, so obviously it doesn't need to be a DC input. This then generates a PWM of 55 Hz . Now I used this controller on my Hornby Fowler 4p made in the 1980's and yes first couple of goes it buzzed and tripped out, as it hasn't been used for 20 years, but once it had been up and down a couple of times it worked OK. The Bachmann definitely shouldn't buzz with this controller. I use this controller to test all my locos before I convert them to DCC. I have just tried my really old Fowler 4p again (I did the previous test a week ago) and sure it buzzes when it starts to move, but I am sure it always did that but once it is moving any noise is drowned out by the motor. I have a Smokey Joe I bought it the 80s/90s, just tried it, works perfectly, didn't even trip out the controller. The Smokey Joe I have has a can motor. I agree with RAF96 return it to Hornby, I suspect something is wrong inside.

If you say the controller needs 19 volts DC (funny value) and you are supplying it from a transformer with no rectification that would probably explain it, perhaps the voltage to the track has an AC element to it, that would make them buzz. If they were Wrenns or really old Hornbys X04s, they could lose their magnatism, but not a reasonably new Bachmann. Find a 19 volt power supply if you can't, to test it, you could use a car battery charger, if you can set it to trickle charge, not full charge, but only use it to test it. It appears some laptop chargers are 19v dc. Sorry just looked at my dc controller, you cannot use a battery charger as you need the right plug on the end.

You can get some thin paper clips that would work, I am sure I have bridged pcb sockets with them in the past, but they have to be small. I usually use single core wire with the insulation stripped off. Any 8 pin blanking plate will work, the Flying Scotsman doesn't have lights. As I said I have a big bag of them and the only time I have to worry is if the loco has lights. It is frightening looking at the bag how many have, although quite often when you order an 8 pin socket to convert an older loco, it is cheaper to buy the socket and plug rather than just the socket. So some of them just came with the sockets. The thing is with Hornby they seem to label the same electronic part with different part numbers. Surprisingly with different prices. If you look up 8 pin dcc socket on Peters or Lendons site, you will find the socket with different part numbers and prices. I have looked at the PCBs and they basically look the same. Similarly for 4 pin sockets, different part numbers and different prices, admittedly some include a screw.

Well if it is any consolation JJ, I won a loco on EBay, it turned up and I ran in along the track to check it worked. The motor turned but no motion to the wheels. Eventually took it apart to find the plastic drive gear was split and Hornby have no spares left. Fortunately, they use the same gear in other locos so I managed to get one from a spare set of wheels for a West Country, which I had bought just for the valve gear(again Hornby had ran out of spare parts). After a mornings work, I got it to work, but then the question is "did the Seller know it was broken before they sold it". The question you can never answer. The Seller did say I could return it, so I assume they didn't know.

You are right Chrissaf, that would be a good start. I have got an old H & M controller that went legs up, when I opened it up I saw a wire wound potentiometer ( I haven't seen one of those since I did physics at school), which was not working properly, if they have got one of those it would expain a lot.

Only time will tell, but hopefully it was just the 4 pin connector not pushed in fully. It has happend to me, it is so small and modern locos are so detailed that you don't want to push too hard in case you break something. I bought a Heljan EM2 off EBay, it was brand new and never run. I tried it and it wouldn't run. Sending things back is a pain, so I opened it up ( I would have to do this eventually to fit the DCC chip) and found the DC blank board wasn't pushed fully home. So if in JJs case it wasn't pushed fully in, it would occasionally make contact. Either way we will have to wait and see. Trouble is model railway locos are difficult for the non engineering based person, I remember when I was a child my dad was useless at anything electric, so if the loco went wrong I would have to get one of my uncles to fix it (they were all electrical engineers).

Well if it is buzzing it is definitiely getting power. It may be it is not getting enough. I assume none of the locos you have has a DCC decoder fitted, like ordering a new Hornby loco with sound, but then again the loco wouldn't buzz. I suspect the controller is not giving a full 12 volts, so check that you have wired the track properly, I don't know if your controller "trips out" or current limits, so check the track for short circuits. A good idea may be to get a length of separate track and try each loco on it separately, at least then it rules out anything wrong with your equipment. Sorry just reread your post, looks like you only have a couple of lengths of track, so the first thing to do is check there is nothing wrong with your controller. Take your loco and touch the two wires from your controller directly on the wheels, one to one side the the other wire to the other side, do the loco wheels spin?

What sometines happens with connectors is they get covered in oxide and become insulators, so by pulling them apart and putting them back together it scrapes off the oxide. I must admit for this connector I doubt if this were the case the loco passes too much current, but quite often on computers it does work, but you never know. When I was quite young I remember going round computer boards with an ink rubber getting rid of oxide on connectors. Hopefully it was just not pushed fully home. anyway we will see. The trouble with intermittant faults you cannot send it back to the manufacturer because all they will do is say it works ok. On my late wife's Renault Clio when it was new it occasionally would not start, it was only 3 months old, I thought I will take it back then I realised that they are never going to find it. I then remembered when I worked on fuel injection systems for Ford, if a certain sensor didn't work the car wouldn't start. All I did was pull the connector to it off and push it back on and it fixed the issue. Its been ok ever since.

OK put it back together as in my earlier post, don't put the bodies on. It might be that the connector was not pushed fully home, or had some dirt on it. Pulling it apart and putting it back together might have given you a better connection.

Make sure you insulate it, nail varnish seems to work ok. I have blown a couple of DCC decoder up where this stray wire accidently touches the chassis while you are fitting the decoder into the body (trouble is it moves around as you fit the body) .The only thing you know is when you first run the loco and you get a buzz and the decoder doesn't work anymore. Some people platt it into the decoder wiring harness. I also cover the decoder with a sleeve of heatshrink that isn't heatshrinked, so that air can flow through it, but provides insulation. If you are into computers they are really "open collector output ports", the function is really what controls them, but all the DCC decoder manufactures call them functions.