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First SS loco to be released soon?


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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?

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@BB There is a very good (last day or so) Youtube video of the loco in action. I have to say it looks very tempting😕 Video from Shed Spotter 66.

That certainly is impressive and very tempting. If it was GWR or Southern I might have jumped straight on it.

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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.

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@DarkRedCapeDuring the Range Release the Hornby Director of Engineering stated that the water droplets are generated by ultrasonics.  There is no evaporative process.  

If memory serves me correctly, he stated 50 micron holes.  So unless you are using silt laden water, you should be fine.  Particles in solution will not clog the grating.  Particles in suspension will.

You will not go wrong using distilled water.  Its just a bit of overkill.

What will destroy ultrasonics is running it when dry.  That's a swift death.

Bee

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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.

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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
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Hornby also state that the loco should be drained before storage and that at first fill or subsequent bone dry fill the loco will require a little more water to allow for the wick soaking it up.

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Perhaps what Hornby should have done is had the steam generator on a separate function so you could turn it off without turning off the sound. Currently both are operated by the F1 function. As I imagine this is controllable from the software perhaps someone should suggest it as an upgrade for a future release, then there would be no issue with running out of water.

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34 minutes ago, ColinB said:

Perhaps what Hornby should have done is had the steam generator on a separate function so you could turn it off without turning off the sound. Currently both are operated by the F1 function. As I imagine this is controllable from the software perhaps someone should suggest it as an upgrade for a future release, then there would be no issue with running out of water.

F24 turns the atomiser on/off separate to sound.

CVs 211 and 212 set the steam volume for chuff and idle.

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4 minutes ago, 96RAF said:

F24 turns the atomiser on/off separate to sound.

CVs 211 and 212 set the steam volume for chuff and idle.

Great thanks 96RAF, that is really useful information. Why does the Quick Start Guide not say that? It just lists F24 as Aux4 (HF06).

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26 minutes ago, ColinB said:

Great thanks 96RAF, that is really useful information. Why does the Quick Start Guide not say that? It just lists F24 as Aux4 (HF06).

The decoder manual will be updated to give full details of the system.

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Received my P2 'Prince of Wales' loco (with steam generator & TXS fitted) yesterday after a fairly long wait but it was worth it. Had a lot of expectations as the loco cost nearly £300/- and happy to say it met all of them. Ran it on my layout, which is a mix of radius 2 & 3 track with some sharp points, and glad to say the locomotive performed extremely well. It should be noted that it does take a bit of effort to ensure the loco is correctly placed on the track with all wheels touching but once that is done it just runs great.

The sound and steam features are also excellent and look just so realistic. One point to note though is that at slow speeds there is a bit of synchronisation mismatch between the speed of loco and sound. Not sure if it is due to my layout or otherwise. The flickering firebox effect is also very good. My only disappointment here is the lack of running lights but can bear with it.

And yes I too am considering using only distilled water so as to avoid any sediments or limescale 🙂

 

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I don't know why people are happy at paying around £5 for a litre of distilled water when a litre of RO water, which is to intents and purposes is the same, for 10p or thereabouts. My wife was like that, didn't trust my judgement. Well you can trust me, I know about water, I used to brew beer.

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