ColinB

You are not going to believe this Brew Man, I think I have posted this before, but when I was having issues fitting the decoder to my OR Adams Radial I mailed OR to get some advice. They came back with one of those really small US ones, which at the time were very expensive and nobody in the UK had them. Then by accident I found the coal load came out, I think because I noticed the speaker holes in the base. I had even bought a small footprint Zimo one to fit because I couldn't get any others to fit. Once the coal load was out I think virtually any decoder would have fitted. Why though do Oxford, who made the loco not know, or at least put it in the instructions. As I found with my old designs writing it down makes it so easy to remember even if the original designer leaves.

I think the move to 21 pin will help matters as it means as the footprint is bigger you do need to do a bit of design. That still leaves the issue of taking the loco apart to fit it. Hornby needs to get into its Corporate head that people will want to fit a DCC decoder, currently they don't make sound decoders for all their models so people will be taking the loco apart to fit one. So when you do the design try wherever possible to allow the loco to come apart. In the case of loco speedos there is no reason that they couldn't have a thin strut on the chassis that it connects to, that when the body is on you cannot see it, other manufacturers do this. Then there is the case with this loco with the brake handle they could have supported it top and bottom, ok the rivet counters on RMWeb would complain, but so what if they want it without then cut it off and fit your own. At the end of the day if you give the public means of breaking your product there is a more than even chance that you will get it back on warranty.

I suppose you have checked but are you sure it is not the gauging on the front bogie which is causing the issue. I suppose the only other issue may be whether it is put together right, these things contain stepped washers and nylon washers (which are so thin you cannot always see them), so sometimes if they are not assembled properly it cause issues. Sam of Sams Trains did a review of this model and I am pretty sure that there were no issues and he has second radius curves, so I think the basic design is sound.

By that time, the loco will be back into its original colour and most people will have forgotten about it. I was talking to someone last week and they wanted one purely for its resale value. I am not sure one of the new Hornby Dublo locos wouldn't be a better bet, at least you are getting a die cast loco body.

It is very difficult not to be cynical 96RAF with my answer. I think the answer is they spend all their design time on counting rivets and making it look perfect but don't bother with the practical things. Generally fitting DCC is a nightmare as half the time they have not allowed space for the long wire on 8 pin DCC decoders. Even with the modern locos where they make space for the speaker, frequently they run wires though the same hole so the speaker doesn't fit properly. Then on others when you fit the speaker in the right place and screw down the weight you will find that it is slightly under tension because they didn't design the gap to be big enough. If they are going to continue with small pieces falling off when you fit the DCC, they could at least offer them as spare parts. Personally I couldn't care about the rivets, I have better things to do with my time as I am sure many other people do. On the W1 why didn't they make the front steps an "add on" like they do with all their other models so that 50% of them didn't get knocked off on platform edges. There is an issue on another model with the handbrake wheel shaft, why did they not support it top and bottom with clips so it is not attached to the tender, trying to fit the decoder with its mile of wire and trying to line that shaft up with the tender bottom all the wire being super careful you don't scratch or break anything.

I know Bulliedboy, on one of my locos it "pinged" off never to be found. I know it is probably not economically viable, but why does nobody make these as spare parts.

i found on a lot of the tenders the print/paint acts like a glue to hold it in place when the screws are out. I must admit I have taken the tenders apart but never the loco. Hornby also forget a lot of the time to tell you you to remove some piece of trim, whicj also stops it coming apart.

Generally when my valve gear "locks up" it is a case of one of the rivets getting jammed with another moving part of the gear. With the loco upside down look at the valve gear and move the front wheel side to side and see if any of the links can touch each other. Also check the rivets that hold it together, sometimes they need squeezing up to make them a little bit tighter. You don't say which loco it is, the valve gear is different between the Railroad and detailed locos. Also check the cylinder block, I have had issues where that can cause issues. The other thing is it tender driven or loco driven, I was always having issues on tender driven locos with the valve gear "locking up".

Are you sure you need to remove the capacitor? I remove them when it is easy and Hornby seem to use very bad ones that go short circuit but generally on Bachmann locos I leave well alone. Assuming all the components aren't damaged, all the capacitor and inductors is going to do, is round off the pulse width modulated signal going to the motor. I remove them on Hornby locos if I am doing a DCC conversion but otherwise I leave well alone. I did have one go short circuit on a Hornby class 66 but I knew about that as it took out the decoder. I must do some tests with my Bachmann class 66s and see if I get the same effect.

I think the general opinion is that the administrator of that site, has an issue with the power going to his head. He banned me for a weekend for daring to argue with him, after that I thought why bother, so I removed my membership. I think we were discussing either the high cost of locos or moving production from China. I thought it was just a discussion, but he thought otherwise.

It is ok, I double checked my setup and the fault was because the whole of the frog was not fully isolated. It was further complicated by the need to feed power to a double slip, but I think I have sorted it now.

Has anyone had issue with autofrog circuit boards? Mine just suddenly started smoking with nothing on the point in question. When I investigated it has "smoked" one of the large resistors.

As I said in my earlier post Olivias generally generates lots of emotion. On the RMWeb website post any post about Olivias and you immediately get a warning from the Administrator, but there again the guy doesn't read the post, just jumps in with two feet. Probably "too busy" to his do job properly. I must admit I bought a couple of items off them and they were ok, bit expensive which is probably why they still had them left, but still substantially cheaper than EBay. As for dispatch times they were quite good, definitely not the worst. I did put a post on either here or RMWeb (when I was a member) asking why they always had stocks of old models. The general consensus being that they charged RRP or more, hence why they had stocks left.

Well their website is still functioning, but that doesn't mean a lot. It might be worth a phone call to Rails, they are in the same City/Town so they will know the rumors. Olivias always creates a lot of emotion, although I have to admit all my dealings with them have been perfect.

I think the not working with a Select controller depends on the software level of the Select. If it is a late version I don't think there is an issue. You obviously found a suitable decoder. You can buy a function decoder that doesn't have the motor outputs, but they are more expensive than a normal decoder. So just use a normal one but not connecting the motor wires. As you only want the light functions the LaisDCC is an excellent choice as it is really cheap and really all you want is a glorified software switch dependent on direction of travel..

I found the CDU that I first had wasn't "man enough" to fire two together, but recently I upgraded to a DC Concepts one. I cannot praise this unit enough ( I don't have any involvement with them at all ). I am so used to buying model railway stuff that doesn't work very well, that I was incredibly surprised how good this unit was. I tried lots of different ways to switch my points, I found the Hornby ones difficult to connect to reliably (the connectors kept falling out), the Peco slider switch ones weren't that great either.The DCC concepts ones were good but too big ( I have over 60 points). In the end I just used a centre off biased micro toggle switch, which works really well. You can even buy ones on a PCB which makes life so much easier.

If it has a smoke generator no need to disconnect it just use a decoder with a decent output. The Zimo decoders have enough current capability and they came in really small sizes.

This is for general information, I have fixed the issue, but I thought it might be useful for others to know. I came up with what I thought was a clever way to drive a relay on a point from the DCC signal, I did do a post about it. Anyway I attach wires to the non moving part of the blade and the opposite rail to drive a relay through an AC to DC circuit. It worked perfectly with all my locos except this Duchess. On this one point on my layout the loco would stop and the controller trip out. Eventually after a lot of testing I found that the dummy pony truck wheel was dropping onto the non used part of the blade. The wheel is just wide enough to short the unused blade and the rail it would connect to, if the point was switched. So my circuit thought the point had switched, so changed the polarity of the frog and hey presto we have a short. I did initially change the pony truck wheel to one off a Britannia which is smaller and this cured the problem, but I figured that eventually another loco with a similar pony truck would do the same. In the end I decided to use an autofrog circuit which cures the problem and just use the relay for enabling the isolating rail before the point. That probably also explains why on the W1 the pony truck wheels are miles away from touching the track, although Hornby don't use a circuit like mine, I assume they found it caused other issues. Of course with all my locos that have a normal moving pony truck there isn't a problem, which is why when I tested it on my other locos I never noticed it.

I am sure I have seen a thread about this earlier. Sam's trains did a review of R3371 and I think it was pretty complimentary. The mechanism on both is the same although I suspect R3371 might well have a heavier chassis, I am not sure when Hornby changed their A3/A4 Railroad chassis, but I suspect R3173 may have the earlier one which has a plastic pony truck as opposed to the diecast one. I think Sam highlighted that R3371 has no tender pickups whereas from GS's post it looks like R3171 does. R3371 will have a three motor with flywheel whereas I suspect R3173 has a five pole motor with no flywheel, but it all depends when Hornby went to the newer chassis as to that fact.

It is normally the whistles that are unique to the loco. I imagine an expert can tell the difference between a two cylinder and 3 cylinder sound, but generally I can't.

So if the Black 5 is only just at the detailed design stage, they don't know yet if they can actually make it, especially as it is a change in technology. There were a very many products where I worked where they got "canned" because the technology did not work in a production environment. So who knows when it may appear. As to the price if Hornby sticks to its original policy, then if you preordered it the price should not change.

I wasn't suggesting buying a Zimo sound decoder, I was talking about the bog standard £22.00 job, which used to be £20.00. It was only to prove to yourself what the delay is, due to DCC. When you have finished testing you put it in one of your other locos. A Zimo £120.00 sound decoder will probably have the same delays as TTS, although I must admit it never seems so obvious. Most of my locos have TTS, although I must admit since the two price rises they are not as popular as when they were only slightly more expensive than a standard decoder.

Thank you 37lover for the info, I noticed that the HD Princess has slipped to 2023. There is not much more to say. I suppose the only thing is that I doubt the prices will go up much more, as I think Hornby is probably at the point where another increase could kill their market completely.

Thank you 37lover for the info, I noticed that the HD City of Lichfield has slipped to 2023. There is not much more to say. I suppose the only thing is that I doubt the prices will go up much more, as I think Hornby is probably at the point where another increase could kill their market completely.

Thank you 37lover for the info, I noticed that the HD City of Lichfield has slipped to 2023. There is not much more to say. I suppose the only thing is that I doubt the prices will go up much more, as I think Hornby is probably at the point where another increase could kill their market completely.