Pete 1

Evening all. just to let you all know I’ve successfully managed to get some lights on my little 4pin model. Just compared 8pin with the 4pin as suggested and it works perfectly! Went all out and it’s got 2 at the front 1 at the back. thank you all for your help

Thank you all for your advice. Very helpful. I will be trying the 4 pin tomorrow night after work and il let you know how it goes. Just waiting on some decoder wire for the mallard as the lighting cables don’t reach.

Hi John, thank you for the reply. I’ve located those pads on the mallard, and I’m guessing I just correspond the pin to the pad in terms of which pad to solder on to. Does make life a bit easier and gives me a bigger surface area to solder to! I’ve attached a photo just to make sure it’s the right bit. In terms of the 4 pin one, one side it goes black, blank, blank, red. I think I need to attach the blue wire to the blank next to the red wire? On the other side it goes blank, orange, blank, grey, blank I think the forward/ white wire goes on the blank between orange and grey?

Thank you for the reply Richard, I thought the same with regards to the 4 pin, well it looks the same on google and images ha! Is there any chance of damaging anything with doing a trail and error method? In terms of the mallard. The wires go from the decoder to an 8pin plug. Do they stay in the plug/decoder and i solder on to them? Or do I take them off the plug? Does that make sense? Also my green wire (sound) is controlled by f18, I can’t go up to 25 Thanks

Afternoon all. I am struggling a bit with lighting and getting my self all confused. I am hoping someone can help me out in beginners language. I have 2 locos at the moment which I would like to add lights to. One of them is the Hornby mallard TTS and the other is a small gwr basic starter kit Hornby model the mallard I’m pretty much happy with blue positive, yellow back, front white etc. Question on this is, where do I connect the wires? Do I just cut the blue in half and wire the now 3 cables together, or do I just solder straight to the blue terminal on the decoder? the second one, I believe is a 4 pin? Know I now I can’t wire into a function output or anything but can I just hard wire it in? I’m not fussed if the light is on all the time. On a side note, does anyone know if the mallard TTS can accept a seuthe smoke unit? many thanks for any replies Pete

Thank you for all your replies, this has helped me out a lot. I have now ordered an auto reverser so will let you know how that all pans out.

Oh wow. That didn’t even cross my mind that I could isolate that part of the track! Gives a bit more scope in terms of running longer trains. I’ve not used it yet, but I’ve just bought the Hornby select with 2 locos set. So I was looking at the Hornby module R8238, figured that would be compatible enough with their controller? Or my other choice was the gaugemaster DCC40. Doesn't seem to be many out there? But knowing me I’m probably not looking hard enough! Ha.

No, no connection between the 2. The line going up goes round and above that section to a station/shunting yard area. And the storage yard goes under. So I can install a reverser in between where point 3 and the diamond meet and then up to point 1? I suppose if it’s not long enough I could make sure the last rolling stock has plastic wheels? In your opinion what’s the best reverser out there? Or are they all pretty much the same? thanks

Hello! New to the forums so hopefully I’ve posted this in the right place and it all makes sense, I do have a tendency to waffle on.. New-Ish to model railways, been interested in it for years, the wife has only ever let me have a tiny layout 1ft by 3ft ish, if I’ve wanted to play I’ve just set it up on the lounge floor. However! For some reason she is now really involved and has let me take over half of her summer house. Won’t complain, won’t ask any questions. Anyway.. what I’m getting at is I’m stuck! And need help, after hours of trawling the web I’m just going round and round in circles and hopefully someone can shine a light on my problems. hopefully the picture below makes sense, nothing is to scale on there but I can’t work out how to change the polarity, my plan was to use an auto reverser between points 1/2. However this won’t work as the length of track is tiny, and a lot of the rolling stock has metal wheels so will send the reverser into overdrive. All my points are dc wired, however the track will be dcc as I’ve just made the change. But still like the idea of a panel of switches. Does any of the make sense? (Again waffling...) is this even possible to do? Am happy to change a point to dcc if this makes it easier/more doable. thanks In advance Pete