This is a great little engine but has the problem as with many Hornby engines that the motor is in the tender and the pickups are all underneath the boiler. Instead of a pin & spring that usually has one pickup connecting the tender to the engine there are two wires (painted black) that look like vacuum hoses a seperate plastic drawbar.

At the time when I started this one I was still fairly new to DCC conversion and bought a Lenz silver mini but if I was to do the conversion now I would have bought a TCS as the amphage is fairly low. Luckily I am only using this engine to haul 4 or 5 wagons.

On taking the tender apart I first encountered a metal weight block which takes up all the space between the plastic coal shell and the motor so the chip (even a small one ) would not be able to fit anywhere on the tender.

I proceeded to take the boiler apart. This also has a weight block within the boiler but there is a small 2mm by 15mm deep gap in the location of the firebox. This is where I have located the chip. There is a fair amount of room under the boiler for wires. I needed to solder some extension wires on to the motor wires as the ones that came with the chip were not long enough.

Putting it all back together again I am still testing it - the engine works fine but has the tendancy to create a short circuit when sometimes going over points something which I am hoping point springs may sort.

(Note its working ok now since I painted the contact areas on the points)