ColinB

Yes, I have tried it with the sound off and it runs a bit better. What I am going to do is replace the 4 ohm speaker with an 8 ohm. The Road and Rails ones are better for sound and being 8 ohm will draw half the current. I am also looking in to adding pickups to the bogies as on some Hornby models. I won't be returning it to the manufacturer so it doesn't matter what I do to it.

I recently built an 0-6-0 from spares. I far as I can tell all the 0-6-0 wheels are the same, except on some the middle wheel has traction tyres and some have bearings on the back wheel. I just did a search of 0-6-0 wheels on the popular Hornby spares suppliers website, got the part number of a suitable set and then did a google on that part number. 0-6-0 wheels seem to be hard to come by most of the normal sites are listing them as out of stock.

I will fit a Zimo one later and see if that improves it. The LokSound with sound in my experience have always been suspect when the signal is bad. Zimo decoders seem to be more tolerant of bad signals. The front and back bogies just bolt on so I am going to do a test with some Hornby ones that have pickups. If it doesn't work I can just put the old ones back.

Just tried it on DC by taking the decoder out and it works loads better.

I know fixing it will invalidate the warranty. I have already sent it back once and they adjusted the pickups. Looking at the wheel arrangement even if the pickups on the wheels were perfect it will never work that well because of the geometry, unless the track is perfectly flag. It needs pickups on the front and back bogies. As I say I just wondered if anyone else was having issues.

Dearie me there is so much false information on this thread. The crank pins push into the wheels as I have found when many have decided to move out of the wheel. What you need to do is look at the spare wheel sets provided by the spares suppliers and pick the cheapest set for any Pacific loco. Avoid the Tornedo and any locos that are derived from it as it uses smaller corn rod screws. When the wheels arrive push out the crank pin and reinstall it in your broken one, use a dab of super glue to hold it in. The screws normally break because the pin in the wheel has pushed out slightly so when you try to tighten the valve gear to to slot, there is no slot to engage as the pin is not far enough out. That is the way I do it. Why Hornby don't do them as spares, or even Peter I will never understand.

Yes I have watched Sam's video sadly a long time after I pre ordered it. Yes, the pickups are an issue they definitely don't work very well. At the moment I am wondering whether to get my money back or put extra pickups on the front and back bogies. It has already been back once but it doesn't run any better. I suspect it is my track but I am not going to change it for one loco when the others all work perfectly. That is definitely the down side of pre ordering I doubt I will be ordering anything else off the company that made it.

I know it is not a Hornby product but seeing as I will probably get a sensible answer on this forum I will ask the question. I recently bought a Fell loco with sound, it is dreadful, stopping and starting all over my layout. Now my layout is partially to blame but I don't have these issues with any of my other locos even the 0-6-0 ones. I just wondered if anyone else was having the same issues.

Remove the NEM coupling plus holder to reveal single tender screw. Unscrew screw, lift back upwards to release hook at front of tender body.

The other issue you also run into is Hornby didn't always wire that 4 way socket consistently. Sometimes they swap the connections round so lets say pin 1 goes to loco left pickup, pin 4 goes to loco right pickup, but on some pin1 goes to right pickup and pin 4 goes to left pickup so if you just swap tenders you get a short. Duchess and Britannia seem to be the main offenders.

What it might be is a short on the pickups that only occurs when it is on the track. I had an issue with a couple of my A4s I was building out of parts. It is possible for the pickups at the back of the loco near the pony truck (on these it is fixed) to touch the chassis and cause the fault. It only happens occasionally when the wheels move in and out. I noticed on DC when I was testing before I added DCC. What happened with mine was the protective paint had worn off, so I repainted the offending part. If the loco has pickups on loco and tender, lift the loco off the track but leave the tender on the tracks and see if the short disappears. I have also had issues with connector between loco and tender if it is the pin with connectors on but on this model I assume you have the 4 way connector between loco and tender.

Thanks 96RAF.

It sounds like you have a broken decoder. If one of the elements of the H bridge which is the output of the decoder, is broken you get this effect. I bet if you turn the decoder plug around in its socket, the loco will only go forwards.

Any idea what Service Sheet covers the Hornby N2 R2214B? I have searched the Hornby List both here and in the New Modellers List but I cannot find it.

There wouldn't be a delay Yelrow, I don't know what speed Hornby use on their XBus but generally as long as you don't transfer tons of data, you wouldn't notice a delay.

I use an Excel spreadsheet. I have 200 plus locos mainly from my ability to buy broken ones and fix them. As I run DCC I have a need to allocate them all a DCC address, so Excel gives me that flexibility. I also do the same with my carriages.

The other thing to look at is the "Train O Matic" 8 pin decoders, they are very small and have shorter leads. They work quite well as well.

The was a thread on this subject before. Contrary to a lot of answers, in Hornby speak DCC ready means they gave you a socket, quietly forgetting about the module and more importantly the mile of wire. I think a Hornby one will fit, I will check on my one later, to see how I did it. I sometimes buy a 6 pin Zimo wired one and rewire it to 8 pin as the decoder is smaller and there is a much shorter length of wire.

Trouble is though with Hornby, which Christmas?

Trouble is though with Hornby, which Christmas?

I originally fitted a TTS P2 one which it seems would be alright if it was the rebuilt one. I eventually bought the one from Road and Rails, they were slightly cheaper than Zimo, especially when they are doing a 5% off deal plus as 96RAF said they include a free speaker. I use their speakers for virtually all my locos so that is a plus point. The only downside is you don't get the super glossy list of commands but a printed sheet with them on. The sound is completely different to the TTS P2. I forgot to add, Road and Rails do free postage on something like this so that is another £5 or £6 you save.

On the other hand it could be that the locos I fit the 21 pin ones to run better, who knows? I do know they have a tendency for "DCC runaway" but then do some of the others. Just lately I have been using "Train O Matic" ones who sponsor Jenny Kirk and they seem alright.

Yes Rog tried that. I used IDC ribbon cable, trouble is because these cables are generally crimped rather than soldered, they use lower melting point PVC as insulation, so when you try to solder the wire a lot of the insulation burns away.

So why don't you just buy a bigger power supply.