ColinB

Actually LT&SR_NSE it isn't, LaisDCC do one that is substantially smaller. They are the components Hornby chose to use. Thank you for the information 96RAF, trouble is not knowing what is driving these pads and a device at £60.00 plus, it is probably not worth experimenting. I did find with one loco, using surface mount tantalum capacitors in parallel was much easier to fit in a small space but that only works with a Zimo decoder where you just add a capacitor.

When mine arrives I will give it a go. The advantage of HM7000 is I can take the HM7000 out of one of my other locos, reprogram it as see if it works before making the investment in a new one.

It is ok, I eventually found a pretty informative review. It appears the ones on sale do. Really good price for this model.

Does anyone know which HST models have working fans? I read in the Hornby Magazine that some do. I can't find this feature listed under the technical specifications on the Hornby website, but perhaps I am looking at the wrong models. There are are quite a few HST models on sale at the moment and I would like to know if these have working fans as it is a feature I would like to have.

Some of their locos come as DCC fitted, which is what I said, although it is only a few locos they do that with. The Peckett I have, came with DCC fitted. A lot of their newer locos come with sound fitted, but as you say Hornby don't offer a fitting service. I don't think the original post was asking that, what they were asking is the same question I ask is it cheaper to buy the loco with DCC fitted or to get it fitted after. In most cases if a manufacturer offers the model with DCC fitted it is cheaper than you buying the decoder and paying someone to fit it. Lendons do offer a service that if you buy the loco from them, they fit the decoder for free, well they were last time I looked. So that is another option.

If they sell it with it already chipped, it is always cheaper. If it is sound fitted it seems with all Manufacturers it is cheaper. With Hornby it is substantially cheaper and you don't have the hassle of taking your brand new loco apart. On a sound fitted 9F from Hornby you save about £40 by buying it "Sound Fitted". Even with Bachmann, Accurascale and Dapol you generally save about £10. So yes always better to buy it DCC fitted or DCC sound fitted.

I did the conversion using the PCB from a 0-6-0 Peckett loco, using a 6 pin Train O Matic decoder. It also gives room underneath the decoder for the LaisDCC Stay Alive (not fitted yet). I removed the two dropper resistors.

Well it should be an 8 pin. If you don't want sound I would use a Zimo MX600, if you want sound then it is LokSound, Zimo or Hornby HM7000.

Oops, reread your initial post and you have checked it on DC, so it has to be the decoder or the decoder pins.

Oops, reread your initial post and you have checked it on DC, so it has to be the decoder or the decoder pins.

The loco is from a modern Hornby set so unless the motor is seriously faulty I suspect something is wrong with the decoder. So the first thing to do is remove the HM7000 and test the loco on DC. From my experience these locos are one of the more reliable so do the test and check it works perfectly on DC. If the loco runs ok on DC then I suspect there is something wrong with your HM7000. The maximum current for the motors in these locos is less than 500 milliamp (1/2 Amp) as if they were greater all the old Hornby decoders would fail (they will only source 1/2 Amp). The other thing to do is switch off the sound if you can do that on Bluetooth, and see if it runs. I forgot to add I had a HM7000 work with a rubbish power supply supplied with a Pendolino set, ok the sound was distorted but it had enough power to run a West Country loco, so your power supply should be more than sufficient.

Thinking about this a bit more you are going to have issues with the placement of the decoder, for the firebox flicker and smoke the decoder needs to be in the loco but the motor is in the tender. You are going to have to consider running the motor wires to the tender. What I did on mine was to use the Hornby 4 way connector or a suitable alternative.

Yes 96RAF those last two sentences are referring to you adding stay alive to lets say an 8 pin unit where you would have to solder to the decoder pcb, which makes sense. In this case the HW7000 will be connecting to an external "Stay Alive" wired across the 21 pin socket. So those two sentences are irrelevant in this instance. There is the more practical result in that is virtually impossible in this case to prove that the "stay alive" caused the issue as soon as you remove it from the socket, the evidence is gone.

Yes, I did a conversion for one of these. I must admit I removed the smoke unit in mine as I found it was distorting the body. The Ringfield when I tested it had a stall current of about 0.8 amps, so I used a Zimo MX600R which has a higher current rating than a Hornby decoder and very many others. It is about £25.00. It also has current limit on its ports/function outputs and will drive your smoke unit. You can use function 1 for smoke and function 2 for firebox flicker, or vice versa.

I was hoping someone more familiar with HM7000 would answer this but I will have a try. I assume Accurascale have adopted the more proven method of attaching the "Stay Alive" between the common voltage and ground, which is quite easy to do on a 21 pin decoder socket as the ground and common voltage are wired to pins, as opposed to an 8 pin decoder where you have to connect to a pad on the decoder PCB. So if you just connect the HM7000, I can't see that there should be an issue. I can't see it blowing up the HM7000 but perhaps someone will correct me if I am wrong. Unless you really want the Bluetooth capability I would try and buy the class 37 with Accurascale's sound already fitted, it is vastly superior to any other sound used for this loco. I have the sound fitted class 37 and it sounds wonderful. Then you have the issue of lighting, with the HM7000 you will not be able to access all the lighting functions. I think it will cost you about £20 to £30 for the ready fitted loco over adding HM7000 and if you can afford it well worth the extra.

It easy to fix if you are ok unscrewing things. The front bogie is held on by a screw just in front of the front driving wheels. It is either an M2 or M2.5. Unscrew it and the front bogie comes away, it literally is a two minute job. The bigger issue is finding the nut that has come off, but if you have it, then with the bogie off it is quite easy to fix.

Generally you can't get the tender wheels wrong except for the centre ones as the gears wouldn't work. Probably the loco wheels are the issue, unless you got the wiring wrong in the tender.

I must admit when I did the same to my class 29 I had no such issues but there again I used a CD drive from Horns and Whistles workshop. I used Zimo decoders as I wanted to add "stay alive" because of the shortage of pickups on the tyred wheels. The only issue was the noise, quieter than a ringfield but still noisy. I watched charlie's video on Chadwick Model Railways which recommended this one. It is a lot more expensive than the cheap ones but works a lot better and the guy seemed to know what he was doing. It is a 12 volt unit. What I did with my class 86s with ringfield motors was to convert them to the latest Hornby specification. The old body fits the new single driven bogie chassis and you can buy the other bits as spare parts, it works much better. I couldn't do that with my old Hornby class 25 and class 29, as Hornby don't seem to have ever rereleased them.

All I was pointing out is the sound fitted option is great value, compared with the non sound fitted option. Even if you bought the non sound 9F and a non sound decoder it would cost you nearly as much. Then at some later stage if chuff rate annoyed you could upgrade to the more expensive sound decoder. The Hornby would still be worth £30 second hand. To be honest I have an Eventing Star with a Zimo sound decoder and the Hornby sound fitted 9F, there is a difference but the Hornby one is perfectly ok. At full price for the Hornby HW7000, then perhaps not but for £30 increase over a non fitted loco then to me it is a good deal. My Zimo sound decoder was £120 not including speaker.

The thing I have noticed is the difference in "stay alives" and the relationship with the decoder. I found using the same LaisDCC "stay alive" on a Zimo and a Train O Matic decoder on the same 0-6-0 loco, the loco ran longer on the Zimo decoder. I must admit I was surprised

I assume that looking at the post, you haven't bought the 9F yet. Hornby do a 9F (R30132TXS) that is sound fitted which is extremely good value for money because you effectively get the sound decoder for about £30 more than a 9F not fitted with a decoder. If you bought the Hornby sound decoder it would cost at least £60.00 and it saves all the hassle of fitting it, a normal decoder is going to cost at least £20 plus.

Great thanks. I wanted to know for when I am searching for second hand chassis.

Does anyone know when Hornby changed their 0-6-0 chassis design to remove the rear axle springs and fit bearings?

I don't remember it taking long either.

I agree atom3624 they are the ones I normally use.