Stringfingerling

My Heljan O Gauge mogul has a Loksound V5 decoder in it which, I think, has just expired. I fitted the decoder myself and I've had numerous adventures with the loco, getting it to run nicely, and the other day, I thought I had finally got everything going really well, no pickup problems, smooth running etc - but this morning, the running was stuttery and lumpy, before the loco refused to start again. It now emits a buzzing sound (from the decoder in the tender) as soon as the track is powered up - before any instructions are sent to the loco. The controller and track are fine - other locos work without problems. 1) Is this terminal for the decoder? 2) Has this happened to anyone else? 3) Should I replace it with the same model of decoder, bearing in mind that the model has been designed around that decoder? 4) I would be happy to pay an expert (I live in Kent) to fix this. Any recommendations?

In a modest GW country station, where the goods yard and facilities are accessed through the same road entrance as the station buildings, were there any rules or guidelines about keeping members of the public away from goods facilities with fences, either for their safety, or for security of goods in transit? Looking at a lot of photos, it's hard to see evidence of a standard rule about this. If there was a set of rules, were they followed in practice? Also, where there is a cattle dock/pen in the goods yard, would there have been any rules about how animals would be brought into the yard, to avoid either animals being injured by trains, or leaving droppings on the ground where passengers would be obliged to walk?

Thanks very much! Me too! Abermynach was unforgettable to me. In spite of being built with RTR stock, and off the shelf (though adapted) model buildings, it captured something particular about the Welsh landscape. I would be very interested to hear more of Jurgen Mehnhert who built it. (I think that's the spelling )

Thank you very much!

Thank you very much!

Glad to hear you've got one that works now Mine has definitely improved with use. I smoothed out the running surfaces of the slide bars as they seemed a bit rough and made sure the backs of the crosshead had no jaggy edges, as, to begin with, I was getting the occasional clash with the front crankpins. I haven't even opened mine up to look at the gears, though I know what they look like from your and other people's photos. Some of my problems were not really Heljan related but to do with decoder settings for the Loksound V5L. I've got it much closer to the way I want now, though it's never going to be perfect. Mine will run smoothly in both directions but there's something about the running when it is pulling a train that is not quite as silky smooth and consistent as I would like, but it's good enough. The rolling road is a good idea I'm sure.

Thanks Nigel, an interesting idea. I'll get in touch with the person who I believe did the sound project.

Hi Richard, I know that works as a way of reducing the speed range, but I also want to make use of the much quieter and gentler chuffs that are available in shunt mode.

F17 allows me to enter shunting mode on my Loksound V5L. It works fine - as long as I have already run the loco - however briefly in normal mode. I would like to be able to start "from cold" in shunting mode, as the nature of my layout means I do not normally want to use the "normal mode". Is there a way around this please?

I ran it static, with the wheels suspended above the track in each direction for an hour when I got it. I haven't added any extra lubrication.

I've had my mogul since the end of December and it hasn't been plain sailing; I had a few issues with the DCC, but that is now fine. I'm still not content with the slow running. You could live with it if the loco was mainly used on trains that maintain a steady speed, but my layout is all about arrivals, shunting/running around the train and slow departures. It doesn't stall and there is no interruption to the sound but it does have a noticeable random jerkiness which detracts from the sense of it being a heavy locomotive. There is a stay alive in the Loksound decoder. A number of people have suggested extra pickups, and I may well pursue this route. One contributor who had fitted one axle's worth of pickups to the loco still found some judder. Jon Fitness suggested enquiring whether spare parts designed for the Heljan prairie would do the job, as the chassis ought to be pretty similar. It occurred to me that I could divert the wiring for the under-chassis loudspeaker for use with pickups on the loco itself, as I'm not using the chassis cavity for a speaker. (My speaker is in the tender). The point of this would be to avoid extra fiddly wiring and connectors between loco and tender. I noticed though, that occasionally the centre tender wheels are not rotating, as they are not dropping into slight dips in apparently level track. The tender has no flex in its suspension so it must be riding (and picking up power) from just the outer four wheels. Given that it is of a rigid design, I wonder if it's sometimes even reduced to three wheels firmly in contact with the track? Adding extra loco pickups would certainly be easier than modifying the tender suspension to include some kind of compensation or springing. I'm guessing that what happens when the loco jerks is that there is a momentary lack of power which slows/stops the motor and the gear driven by the motor shaft worm continues to turn. When the motor restarts or picks up speed it then re-engages the worm causing a judder, because of the slop in the mesh between the worm and the gear. I assume other people must have the same issue. I'd be very interested to hear of successful strategies for improving this.

I am very pleased with VSDC which I've used a lot. The free version is ok to start with but the paid version (about £20-30) per year is really good. It's not perfect; you have to get used to a few quirks in the interface, but it's very good at opening all sorts of video formats and has loads of options for exporting the finished product. It has a multitude of editing features. With a little patience while getting started I'd say it's not hard to learn and there are many tutorial videos on YouTube. As with all video software, a reasonably powerful computer helps, but there are quite a few built in features which assist with improving preview performance etc. Not available for macs though - PC only.

If the issue is the gears then there are probably quite a lot of people who would welcome a solution such as a replacement set of metal gears though I have no idea how difficult it would be to fit them . Reading through various posts on here and on tbe o gauge Facebook group I'm coming to the conclusion that improved pick up arrangements and large stay alive capacitors still may not address the issue. I'm no kind of engineer but it seems quite plausible that a bit of excess slop in the gear train would allow the jerking movement to happen. It's the kind of thing that I can live with but it would be nice to get a proper fix.

Yes I did do the Auto-Tune. I assume that means the procedure where you you set CV54 to 0 and light the blue touch paper while the Loco runs off and then stops.

I did change the chuff settings earlier and they seem reasonably good now but since adjusting the speed curve I haven't really checked them. My main aims were to get earlier acceleration and deceleration along with preserving the ability to coast. I can't remember off hand cv53 does?