Ralphy51

I want to match the green colour used on my R502 station building/booking hall . can anyone suggest a Humbrol match please ? think it might be 02 Green gloss. Thanks

I’ve fitted a few of the R8243 surface mounted points and not had any problems . However the latest two have been problematic . The instruction leaflet that comes with the points suggests removing the point spring . I’ve done this and they now work ok .

I’ve fitted a few of the R8243 surface mounted points and not had any problems . However the latest two have been problematic . The instruction leaflet that comes with the points suggests removing the point spring . I’ve done this and they now work ok .

I’ve checked now and the “weights” on the driving wheels are all aligned on each side and pretty much 90deg aligned, one side as compared to the other .

Actually 96RAF I was being lazy and just checking out YouTube that seems to have a couple of videos .

96RAF thanks for the prompt response . I’m not sure I fully understand that or how to check . Could you please elaborate ?

I’m having a problem with the large driving wheels seemingly locking . It’s a tender drive loco and so the wheels should be freewheeling but occasionally ( especially at low speeds) they stop rotating and so the tender is trying to push a static object . I’ve lubricated everything and it seems free enough but definitely not as free running as say my R398 Scotsman. My other 04-06-02 locos have no problems . Increasing speed seems to resolve but I suspect that whatever resistance is in play is still having an effect on performance . Although it’s a vintage loco it’s never been heavily used and I’ve tried using a different tender but it’s still a problem. Everything seems to be in order visually . Anybody any suggestions please ?

Fishmanoz, LT and others , I believe that after taking on board your advice I now have a solution. Yesterday I discounted the idea of having two circuits, connected without insulating fishplates, using HMDC controls as this seemed to create too many short circuits for the App based controls. However, I revisited this option to see if I could understand the exact conditions that caused the shorts. I was well aware of the need to have the Motion controls for both circuits set in the same direction but this was still leading to shorts. I tried matching the speed controls and sometimes this still caused shorts but if not , once the loco had competed the crossover, the speed seemed to be something like the aggregate of the two controls, so way too fast before being brought to a halt. Apologies for the time it’s taken for me to consolidate all of the advice but getting my head around any differences between traditional analogue and the HM way hasn’t been easy for me Anyway, what I have now established to make things work for me are these steps- 1) I removed the insulation between the two circuits that were sharing a different HM6000 unit 2) HMDC controls for both circuits must of course both be in the same direction. 3) Both points must remain closed until both slider speed controls are moved away from zero otherwise a short will occur. 4) I found that with the smallest movement of the slider (not even enough for movement) shorts are avoided 5) Control of the loco was best achieved by using the control from the start circuit brought to a stop in the destination circuit. 6) Ok then to close the points. Thanks again everyone

Fishmanoz - ok sorry about that . As for the suggestion about pickups I may have to do that but to be honest that doesn’t explain why one crossover is fine and the other one isn’t nor why the problem only occurs when moving from one HM6000 controller to another . It feels more like an HMDC specific problem somehow but guess I’ve exhausted the options in the chat for the time being.

Appreciate your suggestions . Because I’m using the HMDC controls the option to not having the insulated fishplates doesn’t seem to work , I tried it yesterday . The controllers are too sensitive and easily trip out as locos cross . With regard to having to increase speed to cross the insulated joints, I totally get that but in my layout I have one crossover point where I do not have a problem and can cross at lower speed but the second crossover , with identical geometry , needs a slightly higher speed . I’ve been testing continuity and swapping pieces of track around and the conclusion at the moment is that it is only the crossover moving from one HM6000 to another is the point at which the problem occurs . Thanks for your interest though.

Thank you for the many suggestions , I am now pleased to say that I have identified the problem if not yet the solution. I considered what the 3 circuits had and did not have in common and it occurred to me that it might be because I am using 2 separate HMDC6000 units ( capable of operating 4 circuits). Rad3 and Rad2 share one unit and Rad1 is on a separate unit with one spare circuit. This morning I switched the connections for Rad3 with Rad1 and this cured the handover from 2 to 1 and shifted the problem to the connection between 3 and 2. Not sure why this happens and would be interested to hear from anyone on the possible cause. I’ll recheck settings and may also check out the HMDC chats to see if anyone has experienced the same problem. Thanks again for your interest and help so far.

Fishmanoz thanks for the prompt response . I’ve now tried removing the adjacent points to the crossover on R1 and swapping out the R1 crossover point with a standard curve so that the R1 is effectively a siding from R2. I’ve still used insulated fishplates . power is just after the loco passes over the fishplates . The problem still remains and locos will not pass over the fishplates at low speeds onto R1 and yet the geometry is the same as from R3 to R2 . I just can’t fathom it out !

Start at Section 5read through section 5 until you get to the two oval/two controller detailwhile you have 3 ovals and 3 controllers, you can think about it as 2 lots of 2 ovals/controllers, being your middle and inner ovals and your middle and outernow note particularly the link wire going from one side of the top point in an oval to the other side of that point in the same oval in the 2 controller case. This is what I believe you are missingwithout that link wire, if the top and bottom points in the oval are set to siding and crossover (rather than straight through around the oval), the whole right side of the oval is dead, isolated from the power connection on the left side of the oval