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keybuk

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    https://github.com/keybuk/SignalBox

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  • Location
    San Francisco, CA
  • Interests
    Southern and Midlands region 1980s onwards, anything in Network SouthEast liveries.

    Working on a DCC computer-control system using Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

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  1. For what it's worth, I pre-ordered the day of the catalog announcement
  2. Yeah this is what I suspected... Which of course means that a pre-order is no longer a guarantee of actually getting the thing you ordered, which in of itself is somewhat concerning.
  3. I've had a similar e-mail about two other items: R4991 - Network Rail, ex-BR Mk2F TSO Structure Gauging Train Support Coach, 72630 R4997 - Network Rail, Ex-BR Super GUV, ADB 971003 QQA Hornby list one of those as In Stock on their own website, the other is listed as In Stock in at least Gaugemaster's store. Strange things may be afoot, are Hattons claiming cancellation when they're just not receiving as big an allocation as they expected? Are they having a spat with Hornby too now?
  4. There are other shops. For me a huge red flag is Hatton's absolute silence on the issue to their customers who have open pre-orders for items that other shops are now listing as In Stock. 'twas only a few weeks ago that I defended Hatton's in another thread, on the basis of their great service - and I'm now seriously considered cancelling all (about 8,500 quid worth, eep!) of my pre-orders with them, regardless of manufacturer, and moving them elsewhere. It's just as easy to switch shop as it is to stop buying one manufacturer's model when a better version comes out.
  5. Great, I'll buy five! When are you going to start shipping them?
  6. I can't answer for the original poster, but I can answer why Hattons gets my business - they've earned it. They reply to e-mails. I've never had to chase an order from them for over a year. I've never missed a pre-order because they "forgot about it, sorry, we're out of stock now, would you like a Class 37 instead?" I've never had them send me the wrong model, and then been "well, it's yours now, we can't take it back, if you want to buy the one you really wanted, we can charge your card again" And in the cases have gone wrong, including things like missing decoders in DCC Fitted models, the bag of detail parts being missing, etc. they've quickly and apologetically corrected the problem. I don't get the bad attitude towards Hattons. They are not Amazon, or Walmart, or some giant corporation - they're just a local model shop that's "done good" and grown because they're successful. By all means, order from your favorite shops, and avoid shops you've had issues with (all of the above are genuine responses I've gotten from "local model shops" about orders) - but telling people not to order from a shop, that is a successful part of our hobby, just because that shop is successful seems counter-productive.
  7. Yup, Wolverhampton operated on a "run what you brung" principle right up until the end. I've ridden on trains with a mix of Mk1, Mk2, and Mk3A stock
  8. The instructions in my Colas were correct, you just have to read them carefully … if you glance at them, you'll remove the four obvious screws visible on the chassis and then fail to get the body off. The actual screws are underneath the bogies, in different positions on the fan-end and other-end, and you're going to need a slim long-stemmed screwdriver to get them loosened since the bogies cannot be moved out of the way. The body should come off relatively easily, it's not clipped, but it's a tight fit at each end, so use gentle force. Once inside decoder and speaker fitting is a breeze. To get the body back on, the fan-end (I think) screws can be put in place with the body and chassis upside down, and will sit there as you lower the chassis down - but to put the other-end screws in, you'll need tweezers to gently get them under the bogie and dropped into the hole before you lower the chassis. Getting the cab ends clipped down is also a bit of a , be careful not to tighten the screws until you've done this. (Since I bitched about the Hornby 87 decoder/speaker fitting and used the 70 as a shining example on that thread, I will now bitch here about how difficult Bachmann make getting the body off some of their models - I do appreciate a good solid "four or six clips and it's off" model)
  9. *mutters* After fitting the 87 for sound yesterday, decided to catch up on the backlog on the desk, and do the Bachmann 70. Space for the speaker, with a speaker box for the common sized speaker, that could be removed if you want to do something different. Push-on jumpers to hold the speaker wire in place on the PCB so soldering not required. 21-pin socket with plenty of room above it for a full-sized decoder. Decoder outputs take over from the switches on the bottom. It's like a different world.
  10. Re: common negative wiring Decoder outputs are common-positive, with the function output on the negative end. When the LED circuit board in the model is wired common-negative instead, there's no "easier" way to control each LED individually; since the negative output from the function would have to go to the common for all of the LEDs on that board. You really have to rip all the boards and PCBs out and redo every piece of wiring to each LED from scratch…. at least on this model, getting the PCB out of the way would be an improvement.
  11. I'm using an ESU LokSound V4, which is about the biggest package size there is... There is space under the PCB on the non-speaker side, provided you're frugal with the glue/tak and spend a little time clearing the wires from the motor that's right below it. Another option for a smaller decoder would be the gap on the side between the motor and body panel. But for sure, alas, this is a second model in a row from Hornby (after the IEP) without sufficient decoder space provisioning.
  12. Hornby use 8-pin decoder sockets, which doesn't provide the necessary function outputs to make things "more controllable" out of the box.
  13. Thanks Dave, Any chance you could confirm, for those of us of the sound-inclined, whether the sound-fitted version of this model will have a reprogrammable full-fat LokSound so we update Bif's sound files ourselves - or will it use the cheaper LokSound Select? Scott
  14. LokSound Select cannot have the sound files updated, proper LokSound V4 can I realize that to some people this might not be important, but also to some of us, that is important
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