scoomby

I now have several diesel locos with Legomanbiffo sounds and they are great. I am now trying to improve speaker performance which is difficult with the V3.5 loksound decoders as they use 100 ohm speakers and speaker choice is very limited. A lot of the factory fitted locos do not have the speaker sealed into an enclosure which will obviously improve performance. Does anyone know where I can find some 20x40mm speaker enclosures? I probably want to get about 10 of them. Thanks in advance. Steve

I've recently acquired an ESU lokprogrammer and was using it a lot over the weekend. What a great piece of kit and it's very easy to use including setup. It's so easy to adjust CV settings, upgrade firmware, download new sound projects, etc. One by one, I hooked up all of the loco's fitted with an ESU loksound decoder and discovered most of them required a firmware update, one of which fixed a sound bug in my Bachmann Class 55 Deltic with factory fitted sound!! I also discovered some new sounds on some of the ESU loksound fitted loco's that were undocumented (e.g. station announcements). For anyone that owns a reasonable number of ESU loksound decoders, I recommend buying this.

Do you know what loksound version you are using? V3/V3.5 requires 100ohm speaker

These are great and you can order them with lighting! Time to put in a pre-order for some with the GWR livery.

You have a very good point there Richard. With the V3.5 installations, speaker choice is very limited. Your youtube video showing the performance of different speakers was very interesting. What would be very interesting also is doing the same demonstration but this time with steam sounds. I would have thought that treble would be more important than bass with steam sounds so choice of speaker may differ for steam locos. You also made a good point about the factory fitted sound locos, I expect that not all of them are sealed so that is something I can check. With regards to the Olivia's sound loco's, I fitted them myself and I ensured the speaker was fully sealed which might explain why they typically sound louder than the factory fitted sound locos. In some cases, I had to reduce the sound level by adjusting CV63 as they were too loud! Steve

Thanks for the advice so far. It's helping me lean towards getting an ESU lokprogrammer just for the convenience of not having to take apart each loco and having to put the decoder in the post for reblowing!

In my opinion, Hornby TTS decoders when used in a diesel models are not too bad. However, for steam models, Hornby TTS decoders are noticeably inferior to the sound decoders from ESU and Zimo (e.g. chuff chuff sound is not synchronised to wheel rotation on TTS decoder). The Class B1 from Hornby is a great looking model and I recommend fitting a good sound decoder and speaker to it. If you can hang on until Black Friday, you might be able to get a good deal on a Zimo or ESU sound decoder then.

I read the same article in the latest Hornby magazine but when I searched on the internet, I couldn't find a sound project that I was after that could be installed onto a Doehler & Haass sound decoder. £70 is a very good price point for a sound decoder so popularity in the UK may help increase sound project availability. In addition, it might put a bit pressure on the sound decoder pricing from Zimo and ESU which can only be a good thing!

Hi All Due to ever increasing number of sound decoders that I have (mostly ESU type), I am thinking of purchasing an ESU lokprogrammer so I can reblow some of them to improve the sounds or move them into a different loco class. A lot of them are loksound V3.5 which are either factory fitted or Olivia's sound. Is it still possible to reblow the ESU loksound V3.5 with the lokprogrammer? If so, is it easy to obtain the sound files other than the limited offering on the ESU website? I heard legomanbiffo offer some of best sounds for diesel. Some of the locomotives that I want to reblow is as follows: Hornby R2803XS BR Sub Sector AIA-AIA Diesel Class 31 31233 - V3.5 (factory fitted sound) Hornby R3036XS BR RAILFREIGHT Class 08 Diesel Shunter DCC Sound Fitted - V4.0 (factory fitted sound) Bachmann 32-404DS Class 25/2 Diesel 25276 BR Blue - V4.0 (factory fitted sound) Bachmann 32-387 Class 37 Diesel 37506 Railfreight Red Stripe - V3.5 (Olivia's sound) Bachmann 31-475A Class G2A 49064 BR Black Late Crest with Tender Back Cab - V3.5 (Olivia's sound) Bachmann 32-802 Class 47 Diesel 47035 BR Blue Full Yellow Ends Domino Head Code - V3.5 (lifted from a Bachmann sound fitted Class 47) Bachmann 32-040DS Class 20 Diesel 'D8113' BR Green With Discs/Tablet Catcher - V3.5 (factory fitted sound) Bachmann 32-525DS Class 55 'D9007 PINZA' BR Two Tone Green With Sound - V3.5 (factory fitted sound) Bachmann 32-977 Class 66/9 Diesel DRS/Stobart Rail '66411' - V3.5 (Olivia's sound) Bachmann 31-426A 4 CEP CLASS 411 EMU LATE SR GREEN WITH YELLOW WARNING PANELS - V3.5 (Olivia's sound) Bachmann 32-481 Class 40 Diesel D369 BR Green Small Yellow Panel - V4.0 (Olivia's sound) I also have 2 x ESU's that I haven't fitted yet, an ESU V3.5 with Class 40 (Olivia's sound) and an ESU V4.0 with Class 37 sounds (lifted from a Bachmann sound fitted Class 37) I was thinking of using them in a Class 44 and Class 70 respectively. Any advice would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks Steve Coomber

Hi all. Just a quick posting to let you all know that I am still working on this layout. I haven't been able to do much on the layout due to having to work abroad for a few years although this will finish end of October this year. That should give me some more time to work on layout from November onwards. Things that I have done over the last couple of years is (which isn't much!): 1. Added brick effect to side of platforms to make them look more realistic. 2. Painted removable centre section and added water effect to lake 3. Started adding white lines to roads 4. Started adding walls to outer edge of layout 5. Added sound chips (mostly loksounds) to several locos 6. Updated firmware in Elite controller to latest version! Things to do next: 1. Install the new Heljan DCC turntable 2. Install point motors and wire up fully including CDU unit 3. Build 2 x drawers and install under layout. One drawer (on left of layout) for operating and one drawer (on right) for test/maintenance 4. Continue with work on scenery Regards Steve

Ha. I've used that airline aLOT !!! Seriously, I spent about 3 months in Poland last year !

What a fantastic looking loco. I must get one of these in the LNER livery Well done Hornby.

Looks great for a railroad model. I've noticed that all the hand-rails are not molded on (design clever style!) and the buffers are sprung. I'm certainly glad that I have pre-ordered one of these :-)

Cool. I have just been fold that mine is coming tomorrow :-)

Can you do a factory reset on the Select?