Yogi Sriram

Fixing crew in a Dapol Class 22 can be a challenge and the space is so tight that the way the crew sits is also important to squeeze them in. In the pics attached the crew appear to be chatting with each other, slightly angled inwards. The seats are close to the dash board and the space for legs is inadequate. Replacement of the sprung buffers has to be done with great care. The casing for the buffer fits into the chassis. Gently tease out the red buffer casing to be replaced by persuading the piece outwards with a nose pliers, using a soft touch and cloth to hold the piece. If the red paint on the casing rubs into the cloth a touch up may be required. The sprung buffer has a ridiculously small spring which tends to jump around the place. It gets inserted into the casing along with the buffer beam from the front. A small piece of plastic 1mm * 1 mm may be pasted on to the other end of the buffer beam once it is in the casing with the spring in a compress position. This is for the buffer beam to be prevented from flying out with the spring release. The little piece of plastic acts as a lock and has to be just a wee bit bigger than the buffer spine. Whew! delicate job.

Converting a Dapol Class 22 into DCC with sound and with the lights as the proto-type had is quite a challenge but very satisfying. The space inside is quite tight for the headlights. I have used 0803 LEDS (warm white) and have soldered 0603 resistors to the anode side. I have used Gauge 42 single strand enamelled coper wire for the connections. The decoder used is a 8 bit Digitrax SDH 124 with a round 32 Ohm speaker. Creating a baffle for that speaker with soft plastic was important. And then I stuck two crew members inside. I used a female plug on the 21 pin plate and hot wired the Decoder leads on to the female that sits snug on the male 21 pins. Quite painstaking! And I used a 0.29 mm drill bit for the holes for the directional lights. I have separated the cabin lights from the directional lights