Sotonian

First post back on RM Web for about 10 years ... I've just finished fitting one of these with sound using Zimo MX648 (from YouChoos), a Sugarcube 7 and Zimo stayalive. The trouble with this model is the very small space available in the tender, so fitting all this in without a very OTT coal load is tricky. I swapped the Dapol motor for one of the tiny (6x15mm) coreless motors sold by Tramfabriek and 3-d printed a special mount. That allows the chip to go sideways next to the motor (where it is firmly sandwiched by plastic both sides, so doesn't even need insulating. A bonus is the space the other side which is ample for a 470 tantalum capacitor (probably two!) to beef up the stayalive. It runs excellently, and the sound is very decent indeed. For those who care about the cost (don't we all …) the motor is around £14 plus whatever it cost me to print (several version of …) the mount. Probably adds another £25 to the job. Plus at least an hour! Personally, I think that the result is a lot better than you can achieve by putting a chip on top of the motor. The bottom image shows the result on my test track before detailing and fixing the soldering iron burn on the tender chassis (doh …) If there's any interest, I can share more details and pics of the conversion.