ColinB

I use a combination of 8 and 6 pin DCC sockets when converting my old locos. I always use a socket as it makes it easy to revert bact to DC if there is an issue with the loco. It also allows you to change between different types of decoder. I didn't even know they did 4 pin. If you want lights or extra features like smoke box glow or cab lights, then 8 pin is better as the VCC supply for the lights appears on a pin. As previously said with a 4 or 6 pin, you either have to create your own or solder directly to the decoder (never a good idea). I did find that some of the 6 pin decoders that were meant for N gauge got damaged when trying to drive an old Bachmann Jubilee loco (I chose them for their size), but I think that was an issue with current limit.

The purple wire is a function output, I use it sometimes for smokebox glow or cab lights. Yes, it has to insulated, I found from other users nail varnish works well.

I converted my Hornby ringfield based A4 Sir Niget Gresley. I bought the new motor housing that has pickups instead of using the axles on the tender and a uprated motor cover, which has pickups as well. Once I had done the conversion and added a DCC socket and added insulated wheels to replace the uninsulated ones (you need to do this as the chassis now connects to the ringfield gears side of the motor). I noticed that because of the traction tyres, that really having pickups on both sets of wheels on the tender doesn't do much, the model doesn't run much better as the traction tyres are a brilliant insulator. I suspect there is more to be gained by making the loco pickup on both tracks and using a 2 way connector between loco and tender. Has anybody else done this conversion? I wondering to not bother with pickups on the gear side of the motor as with the pickups it means changing the uninsulated wheels to insulated ones, which are getting difficult to find.

Actually, I suppose I was a bit stupid, I just assumed it would be in the instructions on the website or in the help menu on the application. I have covered this in an earlier post, having just updated a Fleishmann controller I just assumed it would be the roughly the same. I used to write applications to reprogram automotive modules in Dealerships, so I just assumed it would be the same (the "on screen instructions" tell you what to do). It is really easy when writing a "windows" app.

Just a word of warning. I used this app to update my Elite, it relies a lot on the computers speed, although there is a menu item (listbox in "windows" speak) to set it. Trouble is, it erases the memory then attempts to reprogram the Elite. In my case I didn't realise that you had to set the speed in the listbox, so basically I now had a brick as it had erased the memory. Once I realised I needed to set the speed/delay it worked OK. The thing that concerns me, is whether with the MAC, even if you get the USB comms to work, would you be able to set the speed/delay to be slow enough.

When I fitted TTS to my P2 I remember putting it in the loco because I had to buy a much smaller speaker for it to fit. I bought my one off EBay I remember when I was looking to buy one there were lots of different build levels. My one is definitely "Railroad" build level, but it was not labelled as such.

Just in case anyone else wants to do this and the lack of any useful answers, I searched the whole of Peters Spares wheels. The correct ones are Hornby X1341, you only need to replace the non insulated wheels.

I started to sell my original tender driven Hornby locos and was surprised how well they go. I am mainly selling them as I run DCC on a large layout so I like to pick up power on all wheels loco and tender. I was just about to sell my A1/A3/A4 locos when I found out you can buy better ringfield motor plates that allow the tender to pickup on all wheels. So I am going to convert a couple an see how they go. Most of my locos are in mint condition, so if they work ok then it is a cheap loco plus there are some that Hornby don't do anymore. The reason Hornby initially put the motor in the tender was there was more room to put the motor in although on all of mine you sacrifice coal load, as it has to be piled up, because of the height of the motor. I must admit I prefer the motor in the loco but it does cause issues with the valve gear, on two of my Britannias the nylon intermediate gear has split where the valve gear has locked.

http://www.lendonsmodelshop.co.uk/index.asp?redirect=&q=3+pole+motor&searchwhere=On-Lendons-Website&condition=or&highlighted=on

Lendons of Cardiff had some rewound ones. There was someone on Flea Bay that sent you a rewound one in exchange for your old one and some money. I bought a new one of Lendons, but it might be that the winding has become depached from the commutator plate.

@Going Spare Yes, did that first off, looked for latest ringfield type before they changed the chassis and motor. Unfortunately, the Service Sheet lists a set which incidently you cannot get anymore. The trouble is Service Sheets don't tell you the size, but there again neither do parts books for cars or motorbikes. Peters Spares sells individual wheels whose part numbers don't exist in the Service Sheets, as do a number of the spares they sell. Anyway by rigorous searching I think I have found the right ones and ordered a couple to see if they fit.

I did it on a few of my diesels, all I did was add an insulated Hornby Dublo pickup on the gears side, you don't need to insulate all the wheels. As I could get the parts to do it properly on the A3/A4 I decided to go that way.

Without criticising Hornby too much, if they had insulated the pickup on the gears side then there would be no need for the insulated wheels. I can see why they did it this way, it is slightly easier and it means that you don't have any issues with oil on the axles causing issues with connections.

Make sure it is a modern controller with decent smothing. I ran one of my DCC chipped locos with an old H & M controller and it fried it. With my newer one with smoothed outputs it is ok.

I want to insulate the wheels from the axle because if you fit the later motor back and motor front plate you get pickups on both sets of wheels. Unfortunately, what was the insulated side with the drive wheels now becomes chassis live, as the pickup is connected straight to the chassis. The mototor bushes side has pickups to pickup power from what was the uninsulated wheels but now this is the insulated side as the pickup goes to the plastic backplate. If I leave the wheels as they are, the uninsulated wheels are connected to the other wheels via the chassis. So on later Hornby ringfields both sets of wheels are insulated. Does that explain it.

Does anyone know what part number wheels I require to convert my A4/A3 ringfield based tender so that the uninsulated wheels are insulated. I found the parts to convert the tender to pickup off both sides of the track using replacement parts, but the way Hornby do it, the polarity of the chassis changes, so the solid wheels on the axles at the end of the driven wheels need to be insulated. I tried buying the later Railroad wheels, not realising that they are slightly bigger (obviously more to scale). Either that, or if anyone knows where I can get suitable insulater bushes to convert the uninsulated wheels.

I agree with everybody else. I recently sold a few of my old Ringfield based Hornby locos, the ones I didn't want to convert to DCC. I went onto the famous auction site and saw what the Dealers "Buy it now" prices were and also looked at what similar ones sold for, then adjusted my price to what I thought was reasonable. Ignore the recommended prices, they were way too low same again with the postage. Again it all depends on condition and whether it has a decent box. 3 rail Hornby Dublo fetch a lot less than 2 rail, which in turn fetch a lot less than Wrenns, funny as a 2 rail Hornby Dublo, is virtually the same as a Wrenn. Even with Wrenns it has to be the right one to fetch a high price, Battle of Britain or Royal Scots fetch the most. In the case of my locos, I either got what I wanted for them or more, I did get a couple of jokers that offered less than my minimum but sadly you will always get a chancer. The thing is, if they failed to sell, I would have lowered the price, but not until the auction was over.

Does anybody know where I can get decent very small drillls? The ones you get from that popular auction site are not very sharp and go blunt very quickly. I want some quality engineering standard ones.

Well howbiman all I can say is you have been very lucky, a couple of TTS units I did damage because of a faulty motor suppression capacitor, which incidently I didn't know was there. The other couple were basic issues with the unit, one worked OK as a DCC decoder but no sound (yes, I double checked the speaker and connections) and the other one didn't work at all. As for dirty rails, I stick by my original post and going by other peoples post, this does quite often happen. As with all electronics there will be a failure rate, generally in the first 50 hours, so getting a duff unit is not unusual. As I say, you have just been lucky and yes I know about handling procedures I am a professionally qualified electronics engineer. I used to work in electronic automotive diagnostics and yes the electronics on my car never went wrong, but I know loads that did, otherwise I wouldn't have had a job. I hate people that write posts like that, it is not helpful, I rarely get brand new broken locos but I know they exist.

Yes, I have had quite a few replaced, never seems to be an issue, they are very easy to damage. The other thing that is relevant, from my experience the Zimo DCC modules are more tolerant of missing the DCC signal, so if the loco runs along a bit of dirty track then the the Zimo will cope with it better than a Hornby TTS module. Also TTS is probably drawing more current, so more succeptacle to a bad piece of track.

Thae capacitor we are talking about is the one across the locomotive motor. If the loco has bad pickups you may well get the the ssame issue with a normal DCC chip but probably never notice, with TTS it becomes very clear when the loco loses power as you get the sound for the loco pulling away. Also the TTS will require more current that a normal DCC decoder, so the pickups on the loco are more critical, so this may explain why the issue only occurs with TTS. It also depends on which DCC decoder you use, I have found that they differ in what they do when they get a weak signal, one of the really cheap ones I used, even decided to drive the loco backwards when it hit a bad piece of track. So are you comparing the TTS with a normal Hornby DCC decoder, but even then we don't know if the software implimentation is the same in both. As I said in a previous post, I have had no end of issues with pickups on the Hornby Britannia, more so than with the Hornby West Country which seem pretty reliable.

I recently sold a few of my old Hornby locos that were mint. It wasn't that I was a collector it was just that they had been bought over the years and I never got round to running them. As I prefer the newer locos ( better pickups) as I run DCC and sound, I decided to get rid of my tender driven Hornby Ringfields ones (the Bachmanns I modified). I got slightly less than I paid for them, so although they are not a great investment (like classic bike parts, my other hobby), I didn't really lose a lot. So it seems that the only time a loco is worth more that its initial purchase price, is in the couple of months immediately after all the Suppliers have run out of them, unless it is rebuilt West Country Wrenn.

As I have said in other posts I bought some ex iphone speakers, they work really well. I didn't think the original Hornby ones were that bad.

It might be the suppressor was damaged anyway, the one om my class 66 from Hornby failed after 6 months. Looking at them they are really cheap disc ceramics, which I stopped using in Electronic design years ago as there was an issue with reliabilty, funny Lima used decent ones. They are very cheap though, hence why people use them.

The postage is going to cost the best part of £5.00 so £10.00 including the postage is quite cheap. An easy way to gauge it is, how much does a new neo magnet cost including postage. Unfortunately, nothing is cheap any more. The guy is obviously not charging for labour. Best way to sell the service is use Fleabay that is what I have seen other people do, there was someone on there the other day offering a ringfield rewind service. I assume Tay00 is just trying to get some work to pay for the purchase of the equipment.