Harlequin
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Posts posted by Harlequin
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1 hour ago, Adrock said:
Performance here looks great. I’ve just watched the Sams trains review and, as a few others pointed out, I think the performance of mine is more aligned with his. So, thinking this through, how did yours run on DC before chipping? I wonder if DCC settings have improved the situation? Also, have you got an ability to measure the b2b’s to see if they are the same as Sam quoted in his review?Either way, I wonder if I consider returning and requesting a replacement, to see if that runs any better. Maybe mine and Sam’s were of a few within the batch that aren’t running as well as they should...
I don't have a DC setup, only DCC, so I can't tell you how it runs on DC I'm afraid.
There are no unusual settings in the decoder - only a linear speed table to reduce the top speed (i.e. Speed step 0 = 0 volts, then a linear progression up to speed step 127 = about half max voltage).
I think it's more about good motor control, which all good DCC decoders have these days. So if this loco was run on a DC setup with pulse width modulation and feedback I would expect it to run similarly.
I'll try to measure the b2bs later.
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8 hours ago, The Johnster said:
I suspect I'm one of your 'grumpies. I absolutely agree that we shoud all be encouraging divesification and risk taking among RTR producers, but there is no monopoly and I reckon the trade is in a pretty good shape at the minute. I accept that 00 gauge involves compromises, and a perfect scale model cannot be produced for an incorrect track gauge, also that volume RTR production will inevitably mean even more compromise. But the new mogul, which I am keeping an eye on as I may be interested in the propsoed 5101 which uses the same chassis and mechanism, is not up to standard however good the body tooling is. I would be avoiding this chassis even if the look of it was better than it is; my layout is a fairly short BLT using DC control, and I have no place on it for a loco that does not run at least as well as my existing Bachmanns and Hornbys in terms of slow running and of smooth stopping and starting; unfortunately, this one as reported and videod does not cut the mustard. Moreover, as Dapol themselves have stated that the loco does not need running in, this is therefore as good as the performance is ever going to be, and waiting for it to bed in or gentle fettling is a hiding to nothing.
This sorry state of affairs is then compounded by the visual disaster of the splayed slide bars, which are not just wrong and avoidable in the ways I have suggested, but draw attention to themselves, and I am further dissuaded by the rather crude crosshead. This is a ship that has been spoiled for a ha'porth of tar, and unless it is significantly improved I will be avoiding the 5101 version; I have no need of moguls or manors. Were I in the market for a mogul, I'd be happy with the body tooling of this, but would be wanting to put a Hornby chassis under it for performance and appearance.
I have no shares in Hornby or Bachmann, or anyone else, and the fact that I have no Dapol, Oxford, Heljan, EFE, DJM, Kernow, Accurascale or other makes of locos is simply down to the fact that those companies do not make anything I want, while Bachmann and Hornby do. I have no brand loyalty to any RTR firm; it you make something I want to decent standards of realism and running and I can afford it, I'll buy it! I'm no rivet counter either, my ownership of a Hornby 2721 and a 'Limbach' 94xx (not for much longer) proves that, but poor running and overtly obvious inaccuracies like the splayed slide bars are not acceptable to me. This is not a grump, it is my choice.
I hope for your sake that the Bachmann 94xx is absolutely perfect in every way then, otherwise you’ll have to reject that too...
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Here's my 6336 starting up and running at speed step 1 for 4 chuffs:
Zimo MX659N18 decoder. Speed table set up to reduce top speed by half.
Tender middle axle rotates fine.
No hesitation, no jumps.
(Tender body off while I test out different speakers.)
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I know some people are keen on having something scenic in front of the fiddle yard but I'm sceptical. It might be OK if the fiddle yard is just for storage of fixed trains but I think it gets in the way when you need to get at the stock to remake trains by hand. Having space in front of the FY to place stock before and after being swapped in and out is very useful when the FY capacity can't hold all your rolling stock.
David's suggested extra loop is good. If you rationalise the three lines to run parallel and put the cattle dock on the outside and it would be similar to Launceston (GWR). Launceston even had a turntable and single road engine shed...
The private industry at the back feels like it might be a step too far to me. Better not to fill the plan with track, IMHO. Instead leave some space for scenery to break up the plan shape and help disguise the railway-to-backscene transition.
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2 minutes ago, liathach said:
I've just emailed Dapol and Rails to seek assistance first. I've even asked if they are aware of alternative motors or gear arrangements that might yield better results. Otherwise, I shall intend to send this locomotive back.
Might be worth some further systematic debugging before you send it back. (Dapol are highly unlikely to say anything about other motors or gear trains - with RTR you get what you're given.)
Do you know if the decoder was at factory defaults when you first tried it? If not there could have been some odd setting in there so maybe try resetting the decoder and seeing if that helps.
Can you post a video here so we can see what you're seeing?
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wiggy1's Wheeltapper video shows a OO model.
Hopefully the sounds from an O gauge model will be significantly better than the sounds from a OO gauge because you should be able to fit a decoder with higher amplifier output and a bigger speaker(s), which should improve the frequency response.
So what you really want is videos of such a setup in an O gauge model. And I would be interested to see them too!
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Here’s a side view of the real thing. The motion bracket is to the front side of the saddle. So Dapol’s rendition isn’t far out.
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30 minutes ago, Chuffer Davies said:
According to J.H.Russell the moguls were a tender version of the 31xx prairies
GW standardisation in action.
Not only does Russell say that, Holcroft the man who drew up the design, says, "Although no thought of it had entered into the decision what had been achieved was a tender engine edition of the '3150' class 2-6-2 tank."
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5 hours ago, Miss Prism said:
It's interesting that Hornby's prairie seems not to have problems with the conn rod envelope hitting the slidebars, although Hornby has cheated a bit by lowering the cylinder centreline to be on the driving wheel axis, and by cutting away the rear front of the cylinder. Dapol has taken a different cheat route, and, although I await seeing a good side-on shot (rods at 12' or 6'o'clock please), it seems as though Dapol has left the conn rod about 3mm overlength. This first arose (iirc) as a result of the correction to the longitudinal cylinder position in the CAD process. Dapol never made it clear exactly what they had done in that department (the communication to the outside world was non-existent on that aspect), but it seems they only did half a job in the correction process, which was a tricky compromise between allowing enough clearance for the front driver and not impeding the swing of the pony truck. My guess is the factory knew exactly what the problem was, but lacked proper direction in addressing it.
Are these any use?
I took them near a window but clearly there was not as much light as I thought. Sorry.
Seems to be plenty of clearance at the end of the slide bars...
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I fitted a decoder and speakers yesterday and so I'm finally able to report back on the running qualities of the model.
She's very smooth, quiet and reliable. I don't think I have had to poke her once to get her to move.
The gearing is a bit high, as others have noted, and top speed would be crazily out of scale but I haven't dared to go there and I haven't measured it.
Under DCC control, with the speed table flattened to roughly halve the top speed (and with PWM and back-emf motor control of course) she crawls absolutely fine.
The firebox glow is disappointing in three respects:
- There seems to be a transparent plastic light guide that is clearly visible from some angles (i.e. you see something glassy reflecting at you where you should just see a hole).
- It's very weak (I haven't applied the YouChoos tweak of putting some foil behind the LEDs yet).
- The yellow and orange LEDs just cycle regularly like Christmas lights - they don't use the random flicker effect that the decoder can produce.
DCC notes:
- The firebox glow is not connected to any of the function outputs you might expect - it's connected to F0 fwd and F0 reverse. So you have to sync those outputs with the coal shovelling sound.
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Chuff rate sync for YouChoos 43XX Zimo sound project:
- CV267 = 34 (Chuff frequency)
- CV354 = 9 (Chuff frequency adjust at speed step 1)
The clever tender draw bar has a very positive click so it feels like a strong connection - at the moment. (Probably not a good idea to repeatedly connect and disconnect it, though!)
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9 minutes ago, DRoe96 said:
When I watched the Sam's Trains review he showed the manual which listed the speakers as DCC Supplies 112965 & 100790 both of which I've found several hundred in stock? Are you saying that in fact these aren't the correct speakers?
Apologies for the slight diversion Neal.
They are the right ones. Sorry, I just didn't search the DCC supplies website properly. They are in stock, as you say.
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44 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:
Thanks Phil,Does the sugar cube still sit in the smoke box with the decoder?
Yes.
Dapol quote part numbers for both speakers.
They aren't available on the DCC Supplies website yet butThey are on the DCC Supplies website and I think I have also found a speaker that would exactly fit the tender without modification on Road & Rails.-
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On 15/11/2020 at 06:00, Neal Ball said:
Thanks for that Phil.Looks as if you can get a decent sized speaker into the tender then. I wouldn’t want to remove that much weight.
I will see if I get a reply from Dapol on Monday or Tuesday and decide what to do from there.
Thanks again
Hi Neal,
Reading the Mogul's manual again I realise I made a mistake about the smokebox speaker. Dapol's intention is that a gasket should be fitted between the sugar cube speaker and the clip-on cover, so the speaker would then have a sealed enclosure to improve the sound.
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33 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:
My apologies Phil. It would appear I misunderstood the contents of the booklet. Mine will be in the post as of tomorrow.
No apology needed!
The spare parts that are listed, including smokebox doors, are a very good thing. A step above most models, as you say.
It's just a shame that outside Steampipes are not among them - seems like a natural addition for the class where they varied so much.
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Sadly, steampipes are not on the list of Spare parts in the manual. (Not in mine at least.)
I guess we're going to have to use 3rd party parts if we want to add them to models that don't have them as supplied.
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4 minutes ago, gwrrob said:
Is the coal load removeable on the tender chaps.
Yes. In fact it almost drops out when you turn it upside down.
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I have opened up the tender to investigate what sort of speaker can be fitted:
The chassis is plastic, most of the weight comes from the casting. The casting includes the speaker well and two fixing screws - looks designed for a very particular speaker.
As you can see the weight can be removed but then the close-coupling mount (the spring and Y shaped part) for the rear coupling is uncovered. So if you wanted to remove or replace the weight to fit a different speaker you'd have to arrange something to keep the coupling in place.
Pickup wipers bearing on the wheel flanges.
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On 14/11/2020 at 00:20, St Enodoc said:
Will you be able to program the firebox glow according to whether the fireman has opened or closed the firehole door, the amount of coal on teh grate, the damper settings or the regulator/cutoff settings i.e. amount of draught? If not it's just a gimmick.
I'm sure it will be possible to program the effect like that eventually but at the moment, if it's like all the other firebox glow effects I've seen, it will come on when the shovelling sound is playing and off when it stops.
But that's not just a gimmick - it's a small step closer to modelling reality. How accurate does a feature have to be to escape gimmick status? After all the fireman doesn't move while he is notionally shovelling and when the loco chuffs there's no realistic blast of smoke and steam from the chimney but we put up with those discrepancies.
The speaker in the firebox of the Mogul is a standard sugar cube that clips to the pullout PCB.
It has no enclosure so won't be making deep bass sounds...A gasket between the clip-on cover and the speaker form a sealed enclosure to improve the sound.The speaker mounting in the tender is a generous well in the
cast chassiscast weight (39 * 20 * 8.5 mm), which should be big enough for a reasonable sized enclosed speaker but may need some grinding down to fit a really bassy speaker. (Or the entire weight could be removed but then something would be needed to keep the rear coupling mechanism in place.)
P.S. Any decent sound decoder will be able synchronise the firebox glow with the sounds. If it doesn't do it "out of the box" it's just a matter of CV twiddling to change which function output is turned on when the sound is triggered.
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2 hours ago, Adrock said:
I’ve just sat down and read the excellent owners manual. It’s a comprehensive and easy to understand booklet of 20 pages, more detailed than the folded A4 that one is normally accustomed to. What is very interesting is the spare parts list. It looks to be the case that you can order 4 different smoke box doors, and different buffer styles for starters. And even a complete tender body and chassis. If so I think this would be groundbreaking on a brand new mainstream model?
The manual says on Page 1, "Designed by G. J. Churchward..."
It's a shame no mention was made of Holcroft, the man who had suggested the idea for a new 2-6-0 after a visit to Canada and who really put the design together from a broad outline spec by Churchward.
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@Miss Prism Here's the smokebox door of 6336 under flash illumination. It shows up differences in materials/finishes that you don't normally see:
Here's 6336 without flash:
Here's 6116 for comparison:
I measure the colour of the Mogul tender sides under a D50 illuminant as CIELAB = 22, -8, 4. (For comparison the Hornby Large Prairie 6116 is CIELAB = 25, -5, 7. So the Mogul is slightly darker, slightly greener, slightly less yellow than the Prairie.)
P.S. Correction to earlier statements: The smokebox door is not held in place by magnets - it's a simple friction fit.
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42 minutes ago, No Decorum said:
That is just stunning. Dare I say it? The finish is Bachmann standard. The big question is: how does she run?
That's the agonising part for me - she won't move until Monday, probably, because I haven't got the right decoder!
Someone else will have to oblige.
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'Yer 'Tiz!
She's a little beauty!
The smokebox door looks OK to me but I'll try to get a better photo for Miss P. later this evening.
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10 hours ago, Miss Prism said:
I'm still undecided about it. I gave Dapol the proper smokebox drawing 3 years ago.
Remember that decoder fitting is via the smokebox door on these models
and the door is held in place by magnetsso,a. the door(s) in the photo(s) may not be seated properly, orb. the magnet mountings might push it out more than would be ideal, orc. the door moulding might be a compromise to allow it to function as the decoder access.
We shall soon see...
Correction: The smokebox door is a friction fit, not held in place by magnets.
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I'm going to fit a sound decoder myself so that I have more control over exactly what I'm getting, in terms of make and sound project.
I reckon that a Zimo MX659N18 (small Next18 sound decoder) will fit and YouChoos have a Mogul project based on recordings of 5322.
Edit: Amazingly, it looks like Hattons got my Mogul out of the door yesterday because I can see it in the Royal Mail tracking system! I might get the loco before I have any decoder to make it go...
Edit2: It transpires that the larger MX658N18 should also fit - because that's exactly what Dapol will supply in their sound-fitted versions according to the manual.
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OO gauge GWR Mogul and Prairie
in Dapol
Posted
Hi @liathach: I suspect the "jumping problem" is local to you rather than a real problem with the Mogul. Remember you said:
But in May you said this about a Hornby Drummond 700:
And in April you said this about Bachmann Halls:
The jump to speed step 1 seems to be a common problem for you. I wonder if you are accidentally setting your decoders to 14 speed steps when changing CV29?