Clement Matchett
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Posts posted by Clement Matchett
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Lee, may I ask, what did you use to get the bodywork off without damaging it?
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Why would you need the source code for the app and why would Hornby give it away under a GPL. It is someones very expensive-to-develop property.
Quite right, RAF! Computer code is copyright, a right which is generated automatically under the law of most sophisticated jurisdictions.
Unauthorised copying of computer code is an actionable infringement of that copyright.
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Since @Clement Matchett raised the topic - of whether there is a difference (especially in quality/performance) between the speaker pre-fitted in certain TT:120 locos & the one included with decoders.
According to the developers - no difference (except for the way they interface with the decoder - pre-fitted uses spring contacts instead of the plug & socket).
Thanks LT. I should have gone to Spec Savers! But I will try the built-in speaker in my Flying Scotsman; I read somewhere that it has one.
And I presume Blink Bonnie hasn’t.
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Ad Rallymatt.
Regarding removal of the item from the speaker aperture in my A4, though I recognised that it must be something more than a blank (because it was magnetic!), I couldn’t see how it was connected to the mother board.
How does that work?
And, I have been reliably informed re 00 TTS that much better results can be achieved by upgrading the speaker.
And I had one, so I used it
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Like Rallymatt, I think the HM7000 system is very good. I duly installed, updated and downloaded the files to run my TT120 Falcon A4 and am very impressed with the results.
Take a bow, Development Team.
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So, RAF96, is it possible to fit the Hornby Powerbank into the TT120 locos which have been released so far?
I assume it is?
And if it is not, why is it listed as available in the TT120 shop?
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Further to my earlier comment, I have now fitted the HM7000 decoder to my Falcon A4, and replaced what I take to be a blank sugar cube with the one which comes in the decoder bundle. It seems to work well, despite having the generic sound. I will install the A4 sound profile later today.
First point: I have found that my three LNER Pacifics are much less susceptible to any deficiencies in my track-laying skills than are my 00 engines, many of which are Pacific’s. I haven’t bought any Power Bank/Stay Alives for TT120, because I don’t think they are necessary. Hornby have clearly tried to up-grade the connectivity of these feather-light TT120 locos by providing pickups on all the axles, where practicable.
Second point; Given that the ‘as sold’ mother board in these Pacific tenders already covers the sugar cube space, I am surprised that the Hornby Power Bank is so large as not to fit above the speaker. But, as I have already said, it is overkill at providing a 9 second charge. My little Southern 00 M5 tank engine has only 5 seconds, and it works very reliably, including with TTS sound. You could solder, or get someone else to solder, a smaller Stay Alive onto the plug you have.
Or sell the kit to somebody running HM7000 on 00?
I hope you manage to sort it out.
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Though I will probably have to, Ivan, I haven’t gone that far.
But have a look at a video on YouTube where one ‘ Frankey T ‘ shows how to fit the sugar cube speaker, and I suspect that the Power Bank/ Stay Alive fits under the main board, like the speaker?
As they say, ‘as a last resort, read the instructions’
I haven’t, but apparently they run to 100 pages! At knocking on 79, I probably haven’t got time!
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Call me hamfisted if you like, but after snipping out the capacitor, I thought ‘Why am I doing this”, and just soldered the wires to the track!
Works fine, and since most of my nearest neighbours in rural Shropshire have four legs, they won’t notice any unintended interference.
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If you use N gauge buildings at the rear of your layout, and the very few 120 ones near the front, in can help to create a so-called ‘forced perspective’.
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I got my Toad.
Or with apologies to Lewis Carroll, Towed…’We called it Toad because it is towed.”
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Ad Old Kent Biker
No!
My baseboard is quite small - 1687 x 809mm, sitting in an alcove, and I use 28mm Mdf.
The trains run reasonably quietly, but putting the layout in an alcove with plastered walls produces quit a bit of reflected noise. But it is what it is.
The height issue is not extreme…I will probably sand the platforms off.
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ad Robc058
So did I. And I am sticking with it for the moment.
I don’t like the Hornby platforms..they are too much of a toy for me.
But having received some laser-burnt MDF ones, I think they are too high.
I have been on hundreds of British trains but have never stepped down into a carriage from the platform.
May have to resuscitate the belt sander.
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..,and as an addendum, you need much the same if, rather than arriving at a terminus, your train is just clearing the main line to a stop at a platform, the track is much the same. There is no purpose in having a platform loop unless that allows a later train to take the main, avoidance line.
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As others have pointed out, notably Charlie Bishop at Chadwick, there is a problem with platform loops with the TT120 locos released so far by `Hornby, in that none of them have front couplings. So the Heritage practice of decoupling the loco from the train at a terminus and running it through a loop and attaching it to the rear of the train, to enable it to take it back to its starting point tender-first, cannot work.
But, in a long-winded attempt to answer your question, you need two points of opposite hands, two 6th radius curves, and enough straights both to enable the loco to be driven forward across the terminus point and allow it to clear.
It is simpler now to describe the process. The point is then changed, the loco placed in reverse, and driven along the train, backwards until it rejoins the main incoming line, the point behind the last carriage having been changed to allow that.
Then, in Hornby 120, you need The Hand of God!
Hopefully, He is not too busy.
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I may have got this wrong, but if the standard straight from Hornby is 166mm, and the scale is 1;120, my calculator states that in real money, the rail is very nearly 1 chain in length.
And when I drive my Pullmans over the back of my layout, where I have used Hornby track, they produce the sound which we trainspotters know so well.
On the front of the layout, where I have used a Peco Flextrack, they don’t.
So aurally, I prefer the Hornby track; it sounds better.
And, although my locos and coaches negotiate the change in design adequately, I prefer to stick with one or the other.
Pity, therefore, that Hornby’s straights are out of stock. I empathise with DW.
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This afternoon I set up a siding on my layout which included a 90 degree first radius curve. I formed this from Peco Flextrack and used the green plastic TT 120 templates advertised on eBay to check the curvature.
Flying Scotsman negotiated the curve easily enough running light, though I think I could hear some scraping from the Pullmans.
But I was encouraged enough to order 12 1st Radius curves from the Hornby set track, and I had no problem checking out.
When my order of 6 vans is fulfilled, I will know whether I have wasted £25!
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It would have to be HufflePuff, wouldn’t it😂
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Ad 96RAF
The long list of devices which Hornby have listed as being incompatible with HM7000 at the present time doesn’t persuade me that I should ‘X-Ref’ any of my rather sceptical posts, both here or on YouTube.
Of course, I am pleased that the decoders have become available, but as ever, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The rest of the kit needs to become available, the software needs to work on most modern phones and tablets, and the compatibility issues which you signalled to me (rather brusquely) about Gaugemaster and Dapol N18 decoders should not re-appear with HM7000.
We will see.
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My bank account has just been debited for two N18 Bluetooth & Sound decoders, so can I assume that the HM7000 control system has been born?
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@Shaun-345564
Scalescenes have obviously done their very best to fill the rather surreal lacuna between the introduction of TT120 and the after-market catching up to provide 120 scale buildings etc. I take my hat off to Scalescenes! Thank you!
But;
I have tried what you suggest, and concluded that it works. However, it is very time consuming, and as others have suggested, not especially cheap, even if just building a free sample.
I am not that bothered about the cost, but if one of the objects of introducing TT120 is to get away from the ‘fiddly’ of N Scale, then I don’t find that printing Scalescenes models at 63% of OO scale works for me.
Until such time as the market provides semi pre-cut building kits at 120 scale, I will continue to buy stuff in and plonk!
A halfway is to use Metcalfe N scale pre-cuts, and I have built two of their row of four shops this week. You have to look hard to realise that a three story building at 148 is at a different scale from a two story one at 120…but those wishing to exhibit will rightly disagree.
I find the Hornby launch curiously dysfunctional. Amongst many conundrums, why launch LNER locos with Carlisle & Settle buildings? And run out of straight set track?
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.....and only 137kcals!
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Taken in the early-60s in Edinburgh…I think
Note whistle! joy
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Something which I haven’t seen mentioned in the context of gradients, is the possibility of using a banker. Or more than one! As you can read in the 2nd Edn of the magazine, it was common practice in the steam era, and I have a photograph of three GW tank engines helping a Stanier 8F with getting its train up the Lickey, outside Bromsgrove. The Garratts did that job too.
So long as you are using DCC, that would work wouldn’t it? And if most of the TT120 locos are going to be without a front coupling, then we wouldn’t have to fret about uncoupling.
I haven’t got a gradient on my layout yet, but subject to any response to this, I soon might have!
Sound issue with N18TXS Decoder in Flying Scotsman with HM7000 App
in Hornby TT:120
Posted
I, too, had some issues with installing the sound files on my Flying Scotsman, but after giving it some thought, I wonder whether this may be the explanation:-
The HM7000 decoders have only just been sent out, the app and profiles have only just been released, there are only the three TT profiles for the Gresley Pacifics at the moment, and these are the only TT locos available.
I suspect that the time interval given by my device for loading the data is just an extrapolation from my internet speed, and that the server supposed to be supplying the data is overwhelmed by the demand from those with 18 pin decoders and Gresley Pacifics!
So I downloaded the SD36 profile onto my decoder just before 6am this morning, when all God-fearing railway modellers are still in the arms of Morpheus, and it worked perfectly.