DarkRedCape

I get my power banks from EBay. Jadlam sell them, or used to, for around £15, which is no different than Hornby. Except there is usually free postage and they usually arrive in a couple of days. It was a tad chilly in my loft yesterday and the mist from my P2 was consistent from cold to warm when I turned the radiator on. It was 16°c when I went up there and it was 22°c when I came down, and the mist produced was seemingly no different. With more run time during different times of the year, I expect we’ll see if there is any fluctuation in performance caused by ambient temperature.

Yeah I’m pleased. It does seem like these mist units do need a slight running in process. So far this loco has been very good out of the box, it’s a smooth runner and the mist units performance is good. The front bogie has done a sideways derail a couple of times, but I’ve no doubt this is just because it’s on a rug. I do plan on adding a power bank, which is on the way. I’m very much looking forward to get the Flying Scotsman SS loco and seeing the lamp codes. I have to admit I was a bit wary of these SS locos and if they’d be any good, but the P2 has definitely exceeded my expectations.

From having run the loco several times yesterday. I’ve noticed a few outside factors that determine how well the mist unit is viewed. First of all is lighting. Very bright white LED lights, like I have in my loft, seem to wash out the visibility of the mist. My lights have a three stage light setting, which is basically very bright, bright, and warm. When I switched to warm, the mist became more visible. Another element seemed to be height of the tracks, or layout. Currently my track is on the floor and when I was standing above it, the steam wasn’t that visible. Then when I sat down next to the track I could see the steam much better. And lastly, what the track has for background. As stated, my track is currently on the floor, so there is virtually no background to speak of around the track, but by coincidence I put a box next to the track and noticed when the loco went past, it was much more visible than when the loco was on open track. I’ve included a short video just to highlight some these points. And after having seen how the loco performs when factoring in these points, I’m happy with how it performs. It doesn’t seem to be much different from the loco in the video, and all my CVS are default, so I can still increase it if I ever feel the need. Btw, the embedding feature on the new forum is brilliant.

I do believe I read on this forum that a 5ml fill should last 30 minutes or so. I tested my P2 yesterday and the results are good, but a tad disappointing. Filling it up for the first time took more than 5ml, which was already indicated would be the case. Initially my P2 didn’t smoke at all. I ran it for maybe 20 minutes before it produced any smoke at all. It doesn’t seem to smoke much at idle at all. As these smoke generators are apparently not the kind that some of us are familiar with, I don’t know if they need a running in period.

I sent an email to Hornby maybe.. 15 minutes ago? And already got a reply. That’s really quite impressive. Either way, here is the reply. Please spread the word. Dear Lee, Thank you for your email. The steam generator is able to be run dry, as it does not operate via heat or such as older and other versions do. Kind Regards, Sam Coventon Hornby QC Team

There is no mention anywhere that says not to run these dry. I’ve always been under the impression that ultrasonic was not to be used dry, but you’d think if that was the case with these SS locos, it would say so somewhere in the red writing used to highlight important messages.

I got 1L of distilled water for a fiver. Not gonna grumble at that. It only takes 5ml at a time, so I’ll probably croak before using a litre. As for the instructions. There seems to be no mention of what water type to be used. I will have a thorough read when I get home to be sure.

Good shout Al. I picked up some distilled water from eBay. I won’t get to use the loco till the weekend, so it’ll likely be here before then. Many thanks.

I’m sure others with far more knowledge than I will know this, but does it make a difference what kind of water you use in these smoke generating locos? I live just north of London and our water is quite high in calcium. My kettle needs descaling all the time because of this. Is there a risk of this happening in these SS locos with standard tap water? I think my local pharmacist sells purified water in little bottles, but is it necessary?

So looking forward to getting this on the track.

Mine had also been sitting with Hornby for days now, even though I got the DPD notification maybe a week ago. It never normally takes this long. As no one has posted pictures, or feedback of theirs in here, I assumed this hold up was the same for everyone. I probably won’t have time to play around with mine until the weekend, but at least it’s finally here.

I just don’t like that Hornby don’t announce these things. I understand why they don’t, but at the same time, we should know these things. It just feels sly. They did the same thing last year when moving from the 10% CC discount and moved to the Rewards Points system. This will be the last year I purchase the CC membership as it’s simply not the price. The enhanced Reward Points was the sole reason I purchased it. If Hornby are determined to get more people to buy direct from them, this is like an own goal. Plenty of places sell cheaper than buying direct from Hornby, and removing the enhanced Reward Points is going to ensure people go elsewhere when it’s cheaper.

DPD in my area is really good, so hopefully, fingers crossed, should be here tomorrow.

When I first started to get into this hobby, I visited just about every model shop website there is, and seeing how unreasonably overpriced some items were, it put me off ever using Jadlam. But then on the flip side, I have used their eBay store a few times, because they had good prices.

And it’s on its way. I have noticed that since the new management was brought in at Hornby, the time from the expected release date is removed from the website, so it showing as in stock, to receiving the email, to it arriving, has become noticeably quicker. Maybe this was a new priority for Hornby leadership.