JST

Excellent! I have put my order in. I particularly like the fact that Accurascale have gone for the smokebox way of fitting the decoder. I would normally order a sound fitted model but I prefer Zimo decoders so I will have to fit my own.

Found it! It is CV574. It fooled me as it was under a heading of "Boiling" which I was not expecting. Zimo gives the range of this CV as 0-255. Mine was set to 0 which for some reason gave full volume. I set it to 50 which gives a nice balance between "Boiling" and the chuff sound.

I have the above sound decoder in my Hornby Grange Class with Youchoos sound. The sounds are fine but I have a volume issue. When I turn the sound on, the background steam sound is too loud and almost drowns out the chuffing sound. I can’t seem to lower the volume of the background sound without affecting the chuff sound. I guess there must be something in the Zimo manual somewhere that tell me how to sort this but I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction. Ta!

Thanks for the info guys. My Hattons trunk is filling up! 😁

Thanks for this. I run rakes of 10 coaches. I specifically like the close coupling properties of more modern productions and hence my search. I have looked for Bachmann chocolate and creams but can't seem to find any.

I have some Hornby SR coaches which I like a lot (R40101 is a good example) but I am now looking for some BR Mk1 WR chocolate and cream coaches to replace my ageing fleet of Mainline and Lima coaches. I particularly like the R40101 because it has nice sprung buffers and the kinetic coupling system with the Hornby alternative couplers which allow nice close coupling. I am looking for brake and corridor coaches but have failed to determine which Hornby models I should be seeking to meet my criteria (maybe they don't exist!). The Hornby website is not very helpful in this respect. If someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful. Having said all this, if Bachmann do something similar, I would look at that. I am looking for about 20 coaches so I need to get it right!

My two are running happily with no problems! (must fit some crew to Erlestoke!)

Well, I took mine apart and you are quite right of course in as much as there is little or no room for a bigger speaker in the tender if keeping the standard circuit board. However, I took the body off the engine and have discovered there is more room there. I reckon I can get a Youchoos double sugar cube in there (24x15x8) which is much bigger than what is there now. This is a 4 ohm speaker so I would have to disable the tender speaker which is no great loss or I could put an 8 ohm version in and leave the tender speaker. I think I will order both and experiment.

Thanks Phil. I have checked the spec and ESU claim that the V5 will handle 4 ohms so I will take them at their word. At the very worst I will have to replace it with a Zimo decoder. I will take the tender apart and see what is possible.

Excellent job Phil! do you know what the impedance of the original tender speaker is? I am not sure about going the whole hog with this improvement but I am wondering if a better speaker can be shoehorned in with the original wiring in tact. According to ESU, the V5 delivers 3Watts into 4-32 ohms so I am guessing the smokebox speaker is 8 ohms as well as the tender speaker.

I don't know if Neal has had an email but I live just a bit further down France than you and my Erlestoke Manor now has shipping details from Dublin. 😁

Done. Hope it works now!

Well, my Torquay Manor (soon to be Odney Manor) arrived from Hattons an hour or so ago and to say I am blown away is an understatement. I have read all the superlatives people have put on here and can only concur. The only thing about this loco that I have not seen on here came as a very pleasant surprise when I put it on the rollers to run in. Many of my other locos (Hornby, Bachmann etc.) dance around on the rollers but not the Accurascale Manor..... it just sits there... rock solid... not body movement....zilch! I think this says something about the quality of the chassis, axles and wheels! Nice one Accurascale! Here is my Manor not moving 😁

Thanks Fran. I was just getting a bit twitchy over the .eu thing but all is now well.

Sorry, I should have said. It is a sound fitted Erlestoke Manor.