davyjcrow

Adding a metal chassis would be a step in the right direction but I believe that by itself will not be enough to ensure good performance as there are too many other deign flaws that contribute to the problem. I found that a lot of work was necessary to get performance to acceptable levels: 1) All the wheelsets need to be replaced with pinpoint axles 2) The traction tyres have to be removed (if you ask Hornby they will send you the "Revised" wheels as spares, and you can pry these apart to add to the original wheels and obtain enough non-tyred wheels to have a tyre free motor bogie) 3) You also need to get rid of the end NEM pockets which are a key culprit of the slowing down around curves due to their design 4) Add lots and lots of weight to the motor coach - to the sides of the motor arrangement, stuck to the undercarriage, in the roof (after cutting away the circuit board above the motor bogie, which contains no functional components). I added probably 150-200g of weight to each motor coach. Once I did all of the above, then you get much better performance. There is still noticeable cogging at low speed due to the crude motor bogie design which has half decent power but no slow speed finesse, these Limby motor designs are toylike compared to the arrangement that Bachmann use in their EMUs. On the end of unit appearance, they would go a long way to improving the issues by tooling a new "clip in" corridor connector just for the cab fronts that is shallower. I think they have tried to save cost by using the same corridor connector that is employed between the cars; this is too deep and makes the door appear way too far back. So, if they deal with all of the issues above then I might buy some more.. anyone care to give me odds on these points being addressed??

Folks, thanks for the kind comments.. and yes I am fully aware that Bachmann will probably announce one tomorrow. Actually the exact same thing happened when I repainted my EPB into NSE so I consider this as a kind of rain dance as I would like to have a second refurb CEP, but at the moment I couldn't be bothered to do another conversion! Colin, I did toy with the idea of having a half etch on the back to help center the windows in the apertures but I decided it was another source of potential problems, so I just placed them by hand which while time consuming, worked well enough. To attach the windows to the frames I used regular superglue, albeit very small amounts applied with the tip of a scalpel blade to the back of the window frame before press fitting the pane. I know you can get glue specifically for attaching windows but I didn't have any to hand.

Hi Everyone I had started a blog showing my efforts to transform a regular Bachmann CEP into a refurbished version, but typically I lapsed in keeping it up to date! So instead here is a recap of the project. First let's cut to the chase. Here is the finished result: Overall I'm fairly pleased with it and it was certainly a learning curve for me. Along the way I designed my first etch sheet and had a go at creating laser cut windows which wasn't a great success.. hmm. Very time consuming overall so this will probably be a one off but very enjoyable. First some research. I had a thorough read of John Upton's blog on his own conversion and used that as a base for the items that needed changing. It was clear that I was going to half destroy the original model. The worst part was popping out the original windows which were glued in like a cornflake to an old cereal bowl. I nearly broke the coach sides trying to remove them, that much glue had been used by Bachmann's factory. My original plan was to keep the windows and file the detail flat and then re-polish, but they were so badly damaged after being removed that this had to be abandoned. First I set about designing the etches for the new window frames. These were tricky but this part was a lot of fun. My thanks go to the Rmwebbers who contributed suggestions on how to improve the design. The etch was made from .2mm stainless, due to the window frame colours. This caused some challenges later on in the build with other parts. Also on the etch were fold-up headlights, cladding for the corridor connectors, and new sides for the TBCK where the guard's compartment sits. Next up was the process of designing the laser cut windows to replace the originals. These were cheaper than I expected but I made one fatal flaw which was to forget to account for the kerf (width of the beam) which meant that the windows were about 0.5mm too small. Small difference but enough to cause a problem since the tolerances were so tight between the window frame overlap with the coach body and the window pane. In the end it kind of turned out OK, since they were just big enough to be glued to the new metal window frame to keep them in place. This has made the window assemblies very fragile however. Having received the etch on the other hand I was pretty pleased. That turned out very well indeed and the etching company did a fine job. Next step - cover up the guard's compartment door / windows. I used a small laser cut window to assist with that and a lot of model filler. Once these were covered, new windows were cut for the new seating bay in the DMSOs. New holes also had to be drilled for the shorter handrails seen on the refurb CEPs. And now the cab fronts. The "ledge" above the corridor had to be removed. On the door, adding the headlight etch was relatively easy and it folded up nicely. The lens was made from a 1.5mm wide fiber optic, which was "flared" gently at the end with a lighter and then glued inside the headlight. The cladding was tricky and took some time, with one layer going around the original corridor connector, and the other fitting to the cab front to enclose the corridor connector. This part took some time and a lot of filler. Roofs - removed the periscopes and filled the resulting hole. The roofs were primed and repainted to give a more realistic colour. The underframe required the bogies to be changed to Commonwealths and this was relatively trouble free, having followed John Upton's method to reposition the pickups. I also took the opportunity to change the through wiring to allow the two contacts to operate directional lighting, with the circuit boards being modified in the cab ends to take two additional LEDs - one for the headlight, and one for a red headcode light. The coach lighting is now unswitched and is run directly from the DCC current via the track pickups on each coach, using the bridge rectifier already built into Bachmann's circuit boards. This has the disadvantage however of causing more flickering between coaches since the lighting is no longer strung together. To help this, I soldered the pickups to the circuit boards with thin wires rather than rely on Bachmann's press contact metal strips. This part still needs some work as the lighting still flickers too much for my liking. It has always escaped me why manufacturers insist on using yellow, blue-white or orange interior lighting LEDs when perfectly good warm white ones are available anywhere. I obtained some warm white replacements on Ebay and soldered them up to the roof PCBs. The DMSOs have very poor lighting out of the box and I re-wired the boards so that they had surface mount LEDs at regular intervals instead. If anybody wants more detail on how I did this please PM me. The interiors were also changed somewhat to reflect the new arrangement. I cheated on the TSO and simply removed the compartment walls, I may get around to correcting that in the future. Next was fitting the new sides to the TBCK. I filed away very carefully around where these would go, aiming to reduce the thickness of the plastic coach sides by the exact thickness of the etches. The etches are not easily bent to shape as they are made from steel, but they are bendable. Lots of superglue sealed the deal and some filler on each side helped them blend with the rest of the coach. I discovered very quickly that drilling through stainless was near impossible, and having forgotten to half etch holes for handrails, I found myself supergluing mounting points for the handrails on instead. Far from ideal but the only solution that had a chance of working. Next - off to the paint shop! A layer of surface primer later and it was clear that stainless steel will just not accept regular primer. After help from some Rmweb members I settled on using self-etching primer designed specifically for stainless. This is really nasty stuff. I was very wary of spraying the model with it so I cut a mask around the steel sides, to ensure that only the steel got coated. A couple of quick blasts and it seemed to have done the job pretty well. I got some primer on the outside patio so we'll see if it eats a hole in the decking in due course. Painting the livery was a long process but good (tamiya) masking tape made the job much easier. Way more time was spent ensuring that the masking was in the right place for each colour than actually spraying the paint. I had to use a coat of gloss varnish over the red stripe before putting the grey down, for fear of pulling up the red stripe totally when masking it off. Even after two coats of gloss, some small parts of the red did still peel off when I removed the last piece of tape, but they were easy enough to touch up with a brush afterwards. Adding the windows was one of the most mundane parts. The tiniest amount of superglue is required to hold the frames to the coach side, and being fragile, if it breaks it will take paint with it! The other problem is that having glued the frames to the windows first due to the size issue with the laser cut windows, the window frames are not totally flush with the coach side at the top and bottom due to the slight profile of the coach body. This is not really noticeable unless looked at straight along the side of the model, but I may try to remedy this later on. Transfers were easier but I had trouble with the orange cantrail transfers and had to remove these as they kept peeling off. Painting the cantrail is therefore on the "still to do" list, may happen one day. So here are some more photos of the finished article! One final word is that anyone is free to use the artwork for the windows (now corrected for size) and to order a copy of the etch directly from PPD if you want to try your own conversion (or I can supply you the art so you can get the etch done elsewhere) - I received a lot of help from everyone on this site when creating the designs so it only seems fair that they should be made public in return. PM me for a copy of the art which was drawn up in Illustrator but I can supply you a PDF as well.

After a bit of a break for all the usual festive preparations, I finally managed to get around to applying some of the etches to the model! Starting with the cab fronts: The headlight etch folded up nicely. The lens was created by very gently exposing the end of a 1.5mm fibre optic strand to a lighter flame, this causes it to "mushroom" into a wider lens shape at the end. This fits inside the assembly, which is superglued onto the door front. Photos seem to show inconsistent placement of the headlight from unit to unit, so I decided to place it ranged on the outline of the removed lamp bracket. The "cladding" etches were applied around the corridor connector. There are two sizes, the smaller one goes around the connector itself, and the larger is glued to the cab front, to represent the "outer" cladding that the corridor connector fits into. These needed to be carefully bent to the correct shape, and attached with superglue. There are half etches on the back side where the corners bend, this helps a bit but also makes them very fragile. Afterwards the corridor connector needed a little more cladding thickness, and this was achieved by applying model filler and filing back with wet & dry and polishing cloths to get a smooth finish. I found that a tiny bit of nse red added to warning panel yellow paint gave the correct shade to match the Bachmann paint colour on the cabs. It needs a little rough polishing to take away the glossy finish. End result on the cab fronts (some minor things still to be addressed). One of the problems with using stainless steel for the etch is priming it for paint. For the windows it's not an issue, since they don't need painting, and the smaller parts aren't an issue either, but the replacement sides for the guard's compartment will be since they need to endure several applications of masking tape to apply the NSE paint job. The best primer for the job seems to be auto etch primer, which comes in an aerosol. This, along with the rest of the paint job, will be the next stage of the build. Here are the sides applied to the Bachmann coach body, partly detailed.. kicking myself that I didn't etch holes for the handrails, the steel is hard as nails and very difficult to drill through, even though it's only .2mm thick!! Any comments / observations appreciated as always~ :-)

The etch arrived this week and PPD have indeed done a fantastic job! The etch contains the following pieces to assist with the conversion; - Headlights (fold up to box shape) - Large hopper windows with insert (as per tomstaf's suggestion) - Large fixed windows - Medium fixed windows - Small fixed windows - Bodysides for guard's compartment - Inner and outer plating for corridor connector Here are some close ups of the large hopper window, this has come out really nicely I think: Now, the moment of truth is here.. test fitting the windows and ensuring that the slight overlap was there as planned! One of the things that I tried as an experiment was to put a representation of the guard's compartment sides on the etch. What I am planning to do is file back the coach side as shown on the photo below, so that the etch will be more or less flush with the rest of the coach when added. Then hopefully with a little filling and sanding, the join won't be too noticeable. Test fit shown below, note that it looks odd at the moment because the etch is flat and the coach is curved. The metal will curve to fit the coach when it's finally attached. One issue with my etched sides is that they appear to be marginally too tall, and the windows are not quite far up enough (look to be about 1/2mm off). That's solved by fitting the sides so that the bottom is slightly above flush and the top protruding. That can be filed off in due course. So far that's the only issue encountered though, I was really worried that the etched window frames would not turn out to be the correct size and they all seem OK. I only ordered one sheet of the etch for the time being, but if anybody reading this wants a sheet I will be happy to share the artwork with you so you can source from your own supplier, or I can point you in the direction of the supplier that I used, as I understand that they keep the tools used to make the design on file for a length of time. More will be posted as the conversion takes shape!

An almost exact equivalent to the Bachmann decoder is the Lokpilot basic, as I understand it the 21 pin 36-554 was essentially a rebranded version of that same item. A search on "the main competitor to the RMweb marketplace" for "lokpilot basic 21" shows some up for sale.. As SRman says the Lenz silver does offer a lot more configuration options.

Tom, thanks - yes it does. I can't seem to upload photos to this comment, but I revised the art and have now sent away for a test etch. I have included a separate piece on the etch for the "inlay" for the top part of the hopper. It is half etched with a full etch "strip" to represent the bar, so hopefully it should be a close fit inside the half etched part of the main window. Will post updates when I have the samples to see how it worked out! Thanks again for the input.

Just this week, I took delivery of my first bash at laser cut windows. They turned out really well, and at 30 Canadian dollars for enough to re-window the whole CEP, were not too expensive. I used a local supplier here in Toronto called sawdust and noise, friendly and prompt service (usual disclaimer applies - no affiliation!) One problem however was that as a newbie I forgot to take account of the kerf (the width of the laser beam when cutting the material) which has made them ever so slightly too small. They're still useable though as the dimension difference will be covered by the window etch which overlaps the pane itself. I have the artwork used to cut the windows, this time adjusted for the kerf (line offset by +0.25mm from desired size) - it was drawn up in Adobe Illustrator. Just PM me if you want the file. The material for the windows was 1/8" clear acrylic. Moving onto the body sides, I have been tackling the driving cars. I decided to take a different approach to how John Upton performed his conversion, and cut and modify the existing sides to represent the refurb. The main difference is that an additional window aperture needs to be cut into the bodyside in the location of the old guard's compartment, and the existing guard's door covered up and raised detail filed off. First I marked some lines very finely with a scalpel to show the position of the new window. This overlaps the position of the window in the guard's door by about 1.5mm. Then I used a drill bit to cut out the window shape, and filed it to the correct size for the new pane. Note that the window aperture must have rounded corners, so be careful not to file it square. Next I took one of the small laser cut windows intended for the door windows and filed it down on one edge until it was flush with the edge of the new window side. I superglued it slightly recessed into the hole left by the guard's window. Next up - cover with model filler, applying with a piece of thin plasticard to gain a smoothish finish. Apply filler to level off the guard's window, and apply it into the moulded edges of the guard's door. When dry, file flat. I used some micro polishing cloths to get a totally smooth finish and remove any trace of a join at the guard's window edge. At least I hope so - we'll see when the primer goes on! End result - next step is to get the window etches ordered!

Actually, hold on a second - I think I get what you mean. If the original half etch is kept underneath, then perhaps any gap won't be too noticeable between the two pieces..

Tom, that's a good idea.. I'm worried about whether the two pieces would actually fit together closely enough around the join between the window frame and the hopper, as I'm aware that the etching process doesn't produce a perfect straight edge.. not sure how that would work out.

Thanks for the feedback - here is the latest version of the artwork (note, the images are not in scale with each other): The large hopper vent has now been changed to match the photo that Tom supplied more closely. Unfortunately the lines are too small to etch a very thin line to represent the join in the window segments, so I have left this as a half etch. Some other photos do show this as a slight indent, so this is a bit of a compromise. However I could also see that there is a "bar" that protrudes a bit from the middle bar in the window, which is the bottom part of the tilting ventilator. To represent this I have added this to the etch sheet as a separate item, which will fit into the bottom part of the half etch. Therefore it should protrude from the window by a half material thickness - 0.1mm. Here is the stepped layout; Re the windows, I am sourcing some quotes for laser cut acrylic to see how that works out. The gazing panes are tricky since they have to fit exactly, but a search on the web shows that there are quite a few companies offering these services.

Bernard, thanks - good spot! If you have the drawings or a measurement, that would be much appreciated.

Hi Everyone This is a follow-on of the help and questions thread that I started to discuss converting the Bachmann CEP to refurbished condition. Having explored a few options I have decided to explore an etch that would assist in the conversion of windows and a few other things. I have done some more work on the etch and simplified the design a little. Here is how the windows look now: And here is the "stepped" sheet. I have also included: - Headlight - "Cladding" for the sides of the cab's corridor connector, and a slightly larger surround strip to fit to the cab front - A representation of the new sides for the guard's compartment Red represents front half etch. I am thinking 0.2mm stainless steel, given that it would be the correct colour, and it needs to be thin for the window frames to look right. I would welcome any comments or things that should be added to the sheet - there is still a little space in the bottom right corner as you can see! Next step is to send this off to get a quote.

On the motor performance, if Hornby don't offer an upgrade to the mechanism, does anyone have any thoughts on how to improve the performance of the existing motor bogie without replacing it entirely? Low rail adhesion aside, the performance is noticeably "coggy" at slow speeds which my Hornby 73 also suffers from. I have tried messing with the settings on DCC, and turning the BEMF right down definitely helps, but still the start is unrealistically jerky - speed step 1 is not the slow crawl that we have become used to in most modern models (and CV2 is set to 0 volts!) I remember reading in another thread that someone was considering replacing the actual motor inside their Limby bogie with a Mashima motor (the limby bogie was from a different model - I think a 101 or similar). Has anyone tried this with a limby motor, and did it help at all?

You can also try swapping the driving cars over. My unit illuminated for the wrong direction when I swapped the driving cars...was OK again when I switched them back.