ColinB

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.

@RAF96, I don't really have an issue with the the TTS speaker not fitting, I have the suitable skills to fit one in all my models. It does seem to be a bit of waste of resource to design a slot for a speaker to find it doesn't quite fit or foals the wheels, but I don't run the Company so not my issue. So no, I will not be contacting Hornby, because it is not my business. I was just pointing out to the community that quite frequently the speaker doesn't fit. It is just that I always try to think of, as I call them "the little man" (could be probably woman, to be PC correct) who is not an electronics and computer expert, trying to fit them. If you don't want excessive warranty, I was told in many seminars, you try to prevent the customer from doing anything wrong, electronics is incredibly easy to damage, but as I say it is not my business.

There is a new class 47. I know that it has probably been released before, but it is new for this year. I hope they don't stop selling them, even though I complain sometimes, they are extremely good value for money. I do have some of the more expensive ones made by other manufacturers, but for the money, they are good enough for me.

I agree with RAF96 and invoke their no quible guarantee. I assume you have left the iron on the pad too long and it has lifted. If you are careful you might be able to see the tracks where pads are attached to and basically follow it through, and find somewhere to attach them to be, but I suggest using a thinner tip iron.. If it is under a year old send it back to Hornby, they are very good.

Books have always been expensive, try doing an engineering degree and buying your books and you will see what I mean. Before I retired I was a software engineer and the price books on particular software languages are out of this world, unfortunately you normally need them to do you job ( a book is faster and easier that the web, it is quicker to flick through). As for model railway books, they just don't shift that many books so the cost of printing, marketing are covered by a small customer base. If it is a best seller then they become cheap because they sell so many. Also books on specalist subjects are very rarely discounted so you are paying the full price unless it is Amazon where they will do the odd discount. Go buy a workshop manual for a classic bike and you will see what I mean. Go to the US and you will find the price of books and magazines are out of this world, some of them are at least double what we pay, although technical books seem to be cheaper.

I bought the whole setup by a lot of web searching and careful purchases on EBay. When hornby released the new station, I replaced my very damaged one that I got off EBay with the new Hornby one. The only thing I wish, was that Hornby did extra station platform sections, the one they supply is too small, even for a childs layout. I suspect I will have to make my own. Bachmann did do the station, but the Hornby one is much nearer the actual one at Goathland, the Bachmann one is missing all the below the platform detail at the rear of the building.

If I remember I had issues with one Britannia TTS decoder, eventually I got it changed. I had also had a lot of issues with the Britannia itself, mainly pickups. It is funny I have 3 of them, two caused me lots of issues, the third one a limited edition black one, was no problem at all. I keep saying this but that is where I found the tester I bought really useful, you can test the decoder on its own.without worrying about loco pickups etc.

I gather from posts on this site that Hornby don't heatshrink them as they are concerned about the flow of air over the components. Zimo heat shrink their modules and they use similar components. I use heat shrink but only lightly shrink it, so some air can pass through. As for speakers, I did wonder about the sugar cube ones, I once used I really small one and could hardly hear it. On my diesels I use iphone speakers that work well.

I agree with RAF96 a DCC tester is a really good piece of kit. I in the past have had some duff TTS decoders (about 2 to date), putting them on the tester before you put them in the loco gives you a really good feeling. It is one of the best pieces of kit I have bought, it is also good for doing the basic checks, you don't need a piece of programming track. It is like when I was adding "stay alive" to a TTS decoder where I was worried I might damage the unit, I could control it in a defined setting with known inputs.

I was intriged by this. I looked at the service sheet, I think you might just get it to fit in the tender if you use a sugar cube speaker. The TTS is about double the size of a Hornby TTS decoder, so it might just fit. The best idea is take the tender lid of and start looking for space. According to the latest service sheet it does not have a ringfield motor. A good idea is get a piece packing cardboad (thick stuff about 4mm thick, cut a rectangle 27mm by 19mm and see if it fits. Allow a bit extra for the wires, but that is a good guide. I have a broken TTS module that I use, but the cardboard is cheaper.

Looking at on the videos it looks like the really old Hornby 4-4-0 tender driven locos made by Hornby in the 80's. If you are into wiring I suspect the easiest solution is put it into the loco and use a 4 pin connector between the loco and tender. Effectively, do the same as Hornby do, except the opposite way round. It all depends on the size of the weight in the loco, if it is anywhere like my old Stowe or 4-4-0 LMS locos, there should be some room below the chimney. I don't have one of these so I am guessing. Sarahagain is right about the synchronisation of the chuffing, but it is Thomas the tank range so is anyone going to notice. I fit TTS to a lot of my locos and I am just interested in the noise. You will need to use a sugar cube speaker though and you will have to do the normal fixes to the motor in the tender to isolate it, but it is do able. I did look into doing this with some of my old Hornby Ringfield based steam locos, but in the end decided not to bother.

I am so grateful Sarahagain. I ordered some m2 as they were the smallest I could find and found they were too big (should have measured the shaft). I then spent an hour surfing the web trying to find smaller ones, but to order 10 would have cost me £18.00 as site had a minimum order charge. These look perfect, thanks.

I hate to say this but I have great difficulty in believing a 5 amp supply instead of a 4 amp supply would cause damage, unless there was a fault on the input stage of the Elite. It should draw only what it needs. Generally current limiting is done via a sense resistor in the output, that triggers a circuit to feedback to the regulator to disable the output, I have designed these in the past. Generally, you limit the input current because it means you can use a cheaper transformer. I also have difficulty believing that 16 volts instead of 15 volts would cause damage, but I bow to your better judgement. If it was 18 to 20 volts I could believe it. I suspect the person who blow up the Elite was probably using an unregulated 16 volt supply, possibly from China, that would definitely do it.

Actually in automotive, at least for Ford it is Keep Alive Memory, as it keeps the memory powered even when the ignition is off. It is more relevant for RDS radios where you need to keep a lot of data in memory and EEProm is too expensive. It is also used in the engine control module to remember important data, that is why if you disconnect the battery the car runs really rough for a little while. I suspect it is used in a lot of other modules but they were the only two I worked on.

Someone on this site, indicated that there is a better place to attach the kam. If you look under the TTS decoder board, at the opposite end to the connections there is round black circular disc, I suspect it is the sound IC, but I don't know. Anyway above and below this are two rows of 7 solder pins. This is as RAF96 post @RAF96 https://www.strathpefferjunction.com/download/hornby-tts-decoder-stay-alive-installation-instructions-cob-side/?wpdmdl=1087&refresh=5d6919565b46c1567168854 It is a bit easy to attach the wires at these points. I did this and used a YouChoos LifeLink Circuit board, it adds a bit of isolation so you can read CV data in programing mode. If worked perfectly on my Ringfield based HST loco.

Sorry forgot not working on cars, KAM - Keep alive memory, should have read stay alive memory. A big capacitor that helps the DCC keep its supply over dirty track ( a very simplistic description).

If you do want to fit lights, then use one of the other 6 pin DCC decoders, some of them come with the blue wire on a flying lead, making it much easier. The one thing you might need with the rocket is KAM as there are not many wheels to pick up the power, unless Hornby are going to use the tender wheels as pickups.

Great thanks.