BRIBRI

Had to waste time while my wife’s car was being serviced and dropped in to “ The Works “. Found this, it must be one of the best loco books I now have! Reduced from £22.99 to £7.00 and they had lots of them! Sorry image rotated but you will get the message. Rgds Brian W

Back to A3!! picture of front steps, made up from brass scrap. Interesting that holes exist which look as though they were intended for a step moulding. Rgds Brian

Hi Bernd My settings for these CV are:- 2 = 10 3 = 10 9 = 0 * 56 = 55 * I use Decoder Pro for my Zymo CV,s PWM is set to 40 MHz. Decoder Pro states 40mhz active if CV 9 = 0 (CV112 Bit 5) Not sure how that fits in with the Zimo documentation. But it works well and came in my Zimo by default. Rgds Brian

More on my A3. I finally got to the stage of running and setting up the DCC. SWD never got back to me regarding the ESU chip and software so I used my preferred chip and software from Digitrains namely Zimo and Paul Chetter sound. Which is working well at the moment. I may treat it to a boom box speaker. I had problems initially with derailment caused BT the trailing truck arrangement. I sorted mine out by cutting 2 coils off the spring and limiting the side play by putting a brass spacer either side of the truck. See attached pic. The tender is unbelievably heavy and the electrical pickups scrape like rusty disk brakes. When they actually touch the wheels, which they don't always! With this system some of my pickups were pushing the wheel to one side and onto the plastic chassis side. Effectively the loco was dragging a brick around! I have removed all the gubbins from the tender and just added a small weight. I could fit some sensible pickups but they are not necessary as those on the loco are doing an adequate job, especially with the extreme weight of the loco. Picture of my chassis as tested attached. The loco travels backwards and forwards at speed through Peco points, double slips, Marcway scissor crossing and three way points. Incidentally despite the large current hungry motor this is the only loco I have which will not give wheel slip. Either under DCC with maximum gain or DC. In my opinion it is too heavy. Wheel slip can be a safety feature if a loco is caught up some where unnoticed. I hope some one at Hattons finds my rambling more important than a couple of handrails and food for thought when designing in the future. Rgds Brian

Jay thanks for your kind remarks. I have done a few fire boxes in my time some in brass. It’s a bit nerve racking but worth it. I just remove as much from the fire box hole as possible using drills starting with a row of small holes and moving progressively on to larger ones. I then finish off with small files of various shapes. For the A3 I made a Plasticard flap with a brass rod to look like a pivot. This was then stuck on in the open position and painted black. The A3 cab is easily removed by undoing the 3 screws. I usually make a small light tight Plasticard box representing the fire hole which is not necessary on the A3. I then fit a small block of a particular type of packing foam I came across by accident When torn rather than cut it gives a very realistic coal effect. The LED is simply pushed into it I hope the attached picture helps identify the type. The fire box flap is one that got away and turned up after I made another!

My FS A3 so far. Never thought I would have to do so much to this loco. I agree with everything others have said. I have too many issues to list them all. Most have been resolved with paint, super glue, files, and sand paper. Shame just a little more care it could have been near perfect. The next issues are to do with fitting DCC and the running. Why did they not consult someone about DCC installations and future loco maintenance? I still have problems with the rear truck and the motor worm gear also jamming over the drive cog at very slow speeds. Still that’s for tomorrow! Some pics attached of progress. Note on the pic my cab gauges are not screen printed properly I have since added some printed ones I am not convinced that I will be picking up my A4. Rgds Brian

Hi! I collected my A3 Scotsman as preserved last Friday and saw it run on Hattons test track. For the price it looks very, very good. Gripes so far:- No front steps. The tender rear window does not line up with the corridor. The valve gear could be better. DCC is not totally catered for The firebox is modelled closed. Not very helpful if you want an LED fire effect. The chimneys are not drilled through which apart from being unrealistic doesn’t help the sound get out. The decoder provision is in the tender with 6 wires going to the loco. If you want the LED fire box and a synchro cam you will need to take another 4/5 wires forward. I will investigate putting the decoder chip in the boiler but have not had it apart yet. The reason for this being that I decided to get my ESU 5L from South West Digital and they asked me to hold on while they perfected the chip CV’s specially for the Hattons A3. I am still waiting to hear from them but hopefully not too long. The A3 is a bargain and a credit to Hattons’s. Far better value than another brass RTR I purchased recently at over 3 times the price. Which by the way I have spent hours on fitting DCC and getting to run decently. Rgds BrianW