ColinB

As I said before you can have any colour, I use red for positive, black for negative and green for common, because the point is switched positve and then negative. So the red and black wires are feeds and green is the common return. I did used to use yellow. blue and green so I didn't confuse it with power feeds, but found I needed yellow and blue for switches attached to the point motors, with white as common. It really doesn't make much difference. Trouble is as I have said before, there are an awful lot of people that don't understand electrics, so really there should be a universal standard for all manufacturers of point motors. From all this data that is probably what the guy that posted this original article is doing wrong, mixing up the green and black wires, that would explain the point only switching one way.

Obviously, two different people (I won't call them Engineers) working on it. This probably dates back to the 60's and Triang, and probably developed at different times. You would have thought they would standardise on a set of colours, by now, it would save on confusion and documentation.The thing that really anoys me about this, yes, I can work it out, but there are a significant number of people that model that can't, so make it as easy as possible. I always seem to be knocking them, but them and that place in Devon really need to move into the 21st century as far as electrics go, perhaps they should "outsource" it to that firm in Settle, Yorkshire (I know their name) who seem to be going forward into the 21st Century, with parts that are better designed and modern.

Actually I didn't know that, why use black it is not as if it is positive and negative. So what colour do Hornby use as the other feed, surely not green, that goes against every convention. To be quite honest you could use any colour, as long as you know which is which, but I assume Hornby in their intructions clearly identify the colours, so I suppose you need to stick to convention. I usually always bring mine out to a 3 way "chocolate block connector" and it it is so easy to sometimes get the central connection wrong, especially when you are crawling under the baseboard. It is funny with points, they all seem to try to improve the motors and seem to make them worse. I think it is gaugemaster, that added the screw on terminal to their equivalent of the PL10, so that now you can no longer mount it directly under the point without making a huge hole, perhaps one of those micro connectors would have been a better choice. Oh, and because of the connector you can no longer add a switch to drive a relay etc. Personally those lever switches of Hornby and Peco are horrible, not always working reliably, something out of the 1950's, especially if you haven't used them for a while, at least Peco do not use those push in connectors that fall out all the time. I tried using them because I thought they were a visual indication of the points, but gave up. Biased switches seem to be the way, and there are poeple that even make PCBs to mount them on, which for 7 switches is cheaper than the manufacturers ones, they also have screw terminals. I normally do my own wiring, but these were so good that I now use them. There are even people that make LED display boards to show where the points switches are set.

I think I know what you might have got wrong, you have got the green wire in the wrong place. I only use Peco point motors but they are are all roughly the same. The motor is two coils, of which one end of each coil is connected together or they should be, the green goes to this commoned bit. If by chance you put the black or red to the commoned part and green to the other end, then only one coil would operate. The other thing is you don't say which points you are using. With Peco point motors you have to connect the two common ends of the coil yourself, I don't know if Hornby points have this connection made already, if not this may also be an issue. If you got any documentation with the point, find out which are the right connections. Green should be common, red is power one way, black is the other way. As I say I haven't checked lately but the middle connection is not always the common one. Hope that helps. Sometimes it is useful to use a 12 volt bulb or led with a resistor. A multimer is not always that good as sometimes the filtering within the instrument will not show a quick voltage change, with a bulb you should see it flicker. If if isn't attached to the point, check the motor works on its own, then at least you know it works. Then if it doesn't work when attached to the point it is probably an alignment issue. The other issue is if you are using a capacitor discharge system, wait a bit of time before you flick the point one way then the other. Sometimes it takes a bit of time for the capacitor to charge up. Hope this helps.

When I said more I meant more of the ones that have run out. I am assuming that they are digital technology, so I would have thought the hardware is the same. All they do is put the signature in the ROM, probably Flash these days. Perhaps they rely on the Supplier to do this, hence the issue. I am pretty sure that is what the rest do, because whenever I have bought an expensive one they say we just have to program it. I could understand it with railway stuff that requires investment in moldings, but digital is generally always the same, just the digitised waveforms that are different. They already have these, I saw the guy on James May's program collecting them.

I don't know why they don't do more. Compared to the other sound decoders, they are a bargain. OK, not as good as the expensive ones, but good enough. Probably add class 67 to the list.

Class 37 and 47.

This is probably too late. What I use is short "stick on" LED strips off a popular auction site. The cheapest ones come from China. They come with the resistor wired in and just a black and red wire. They use SMD LED's so they small but bright. I think they will take 9 to 15 volts input. I also used them in carriages. In resin buildings I found I had to paint the insides matt black to stop the light shining through the resin. If you are not into wring they are the easiest option.

if someone sensible made them Like this? https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/cobalt-tiebar-labels-12-pack/ Unfortunately, these don't have the holes preformed, that is the difficult part.

You could, but it would cost you a fortune. I hate to say it, but there is no comparison with buying a couple of preformed plastic pieces with building a complete layout. I have over 60 points, and yes I have made card inserts for each one, if there was a preformed piece it would be a lot easier. I suppose you make your own points from fuse wire. Sorry, I was trying to make the creation of a layout a bit easier, there is enough to do just doing the scenery and all the wiring, I am just fed up with stupid answers. I know I can make them out of card, I said that in the original post. Actually, I was talking to someone today that didn't think it was such a stupid idea, using 3d printing he could possibly make them for 40 p each.

Already done that, it is just a pain lining up the holes and cutting the slot for the pin. Life is too short to make everything, plus given todays technology, if someone sensible made them (rather than the certain firm I was complaining about) they would be only about 50p each. I can get a relay board off Ebay cheaper than I can buy the bits. I mean if you want to waste your time scrabbling under your baseboard lining up point motors then so be it.

I have one of these, has anyone converted it to pickup from all the wheels? As with all locos of this vintage the front bogue picks up one supply, the other bogie the other. I know when I converted my railroad Tornedo, this site pointed me to actual Hornby spare parts that would fit. Incidently, when I converted my Ringfield motor on the Stowe, it had the "Shorting Screw". I removed it and tapped the hole to be the same thread as the other brush holder (I think it was 2.5 mm). I then used nylon 2.5mm, screws for both, this stops you accidently getting them mixed up if you take it apart again. If you are using DCC and you don't insulate the brush holders, you can damage the DCC chip. This has actually happened to me on a DCC ready loco, that had a short between motor and pickup from new, which you would not notice on analogue.

Ok, I am confused, why would a power supply kill a loco motor, unless it was giving out a voltage higher than that required by the motor. Half wave rectification, just means that the whole signal is not being used, and generally the motor should filter it, so it should be a lower voltage, unless I am missing something. In electronic power supplies, we use full wave rectification as you don't need such a large smoothing capacitor. From my experience of model railways, other than the advent of better motors and DCC, the basic electrical stuff from the major suppliers doesn't seem to have moved on a lot. Peco still sell a slider switch that fits under a point motor, that puts extra load on the motor, and when they do redesign it to a supposedly better one, it is too large and falls apart if you look at it. The joke of it is, the basic Peco point motor is brilliant, it is simple when fitted under the point, and because it is direct, works well, the thing that they got wrong, is not selling a piece of card to fit below the point so you don't see the gap or better making an adapter where the motor fits below the point, which the point fits on top of. There miniture microswitches on EBay that are much better and more reliable. The biggest issue with old controllers seems to be their overload protection, if the tracks short out, there is no visible indication. At least with the ready old Hornby ones a button used to pop out. I would imagime the cost of a large transformer is the reason they are not made any more.

Does anyone know if anyone make stickers that I can put on my boxes with "DDC fitted" on them? I know I could write on the boxes, but that defaces them, I would just like a quick way to know which ones have been converted. It is also useful (dare I say it) if something happens to me, and someone has to sort out the locos.

I fitted one of these to my Bachman EMU and found it worked perfectly. The only issue I had was initially installing it, but that was more to do with the 21 pin arrangement, I am more used to 8. I am using an Elite. I did have issues with fitting one in a Hornby Schools, where I didn't think it had sufficient drive to power the motor, but I think that it was more an issue with the loco.