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jpendle

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Everything posted by jpendle

  1. Found a 25V bench supply as well, so I just need to make up a suitable cable to start testing the track voltage. They are only "apparently" sitting idle. If one went walkies it would soon be noticed. We also have lots of "apparently" empty cubicles and storage rooms, put something in one and you get an email within a week asking to get your junk out of someone else's space! John P
  2. @spamcan61 The company I work for makes Oscilloscopes so there are plenty sitting around not being used in the office. @WIMorrison I went through my box of redundant wall warts this morning and not one of them goes above 16V 👎 I'll have a poke around in the office, I've got a very large system supply that'll do 24V @ 4A, but someone will probably have a suitable bench supply lying around. Regards, John P
  3. Hi Iain, As I said, my Z21 came with an 18V DC power supply so I cannot get the track voltage any higher than 16V with my existing setup. Roco themselves do not sell a PSU rated at more than 20V DC. I can get hold of a suitable 24V PSU for $20 from Amazon, or $40 from Digikey, but there's probably not a great deal of difference in quality. I can probably borrow a suitable bench supply from work and try it out with that. With regards to designing drive trains to suit the loco, I have 7 Pendolinos, 4 have Loksound and 3 have Zimo MN180 decoders, all run quite happily at scale speeds. I also have 3 CL92's, reviewing the speed profile for one of these locos shows a straight line from 0 to ~100mph, with default settings for the speed curves, all these models are designed by Rapido, again fitted with a Loksound decoder, so it does appear that this can be done right! I'm modelling in N Gauge and I do have 20' straight sections, so I expect my express passenger trains to run at 100mph or above, and for the fast freights to run at 75mph. I think my next step is to source a 24V supply for my Z21 and then increase the track voltage to see what effect it has. I am also sorely tempted to buy an ESU decoder tester so that I can actually measure the PWM waveform supplied by the decoder to the motor. Regards, John P
  4. Hi and a Happy New year to all, The maximum DC voltage with the CL68 running is slightly more than 14V, I’ve got a Z21 and it had been set to a track voltage of 15V, increasing this to 16V, which is as high as it will go, makes no difference. The Z21 came with an 18V power brick by the way, although I will double check that. Regards, John P
  5. I am in the process of measuring the scale speed of all my locos as I am automating my layout using iTrain. I model in N Gauge and the majority of my locos have Zimo MX series decoders. Loco wise I am talking about Farish and Dapol CL66's, CL60's, and CL68's. Almost without exception the same thing happens when measuring scale speed on any of these loco's fitted with a Zimo decoder. First on my DC test track, with a Dapol CL68 fitted with a Zimo MX618N18 at firmware rev 40.1 I measure a top scale speed of ~150mph. With exact same loco on my layout controlled by my Z21 the loco only gets to a top speed of ~75mph. And, when I measure the speed of the loco using iTrain every 5 speed steps from 126 down to 1 the loco speed maxes out at 75mph at speed step 60. The speed then wobbles around 75mph all the way up to speed step 126. I have also discovered that I can set the max voltage delivered to the motor to ~6V (CV57 set to 60), with no effect on max speed. The speed curve looks better, but that's not what I'm after. Now, and this is important, I don't care what the measured speed profile looks like in relative terms, I can change CV's 2,5,&6 and mess with a 28 step curve if I need to. I have 3 questions. 1) Has anyone else noticed this kind of behaviour? 2) Does anyone know why this happens? 3) Has anyone been able to fix the issue? A few other random thoughts, the same happens with my ESU Loksound 5 equipped Farish CL90's. I'm using mine on intermodal trains so 75mph is just about good enough, but I wouldn't be happy if I were running with rakes of MK3 coaches. My Pendolino's with both Zimo and ESU decoders achieve prototypical high speeds, but as a result I haven't ever measured their speeds on DC. A user on the iTrain forum reported the exact same issue in 2021, but as this isn't an iTrain issue no conclusion was reached. Maybe this is just an N Gauge problem and HO or OO models with the same chips, but presumably bigger and more powerful motors don't have this issue. Regards, John P
  6. I heartily agree. No one else will be attempting these, and I’d go for the TPE and Avanti ones. Of course it does mean that Revolution would then be free to build on their CAF expertise and do the CL195, CL331, and all 12 CL397’s 😀 Regards, John P
  7. Thanks for all the replies. I know that 140mph isn't done these days, pity! Anyhow, the root of my question was in regards to signalling my WCML N Gauge layout. I'm playing around with 4 aspect signals in iTrain and it's going to be a steep learning curve. iTrain's Automatic signals are based on German speed signalling rather than UK route signalling. I currently have 1 working 4 aspect signal and a signal decoder. I doubt that I'm going to be buying any more stuff until I've been able to get head around signals in iTrain. Regards, John P
  8. Hi, This is about colour light signals on todays railway. Let’s suppose a Pendolino is belting along at 140mph in a 4 aspect signalling area. The signal operator needs to send the Pendo into a loop or onto the slow lines, how is that done? Clearly there’ll be a feather on the signal at the junction itself but how are earlier signals set to tell the driver that they’ll be taking a diverging route and will need to slow down? Thanks, John P
  9. Probably! I use stripped out CAT5E Network cable and I even bought a whole box of the stuff for the purpose. That cost me about $100 8 years ago and I still haven't run out! I get 4 different colours of single strand 26AWG twisted pair wiring out of each length of cable. Regards, John P
  10. AWG is AWG regardless of the number of wire strands. So that looks like 28 or 30 AWG to me. It doesn’t matter if its single strand or multi strand AWG is all about the overall diameter. e.g. 28 AWG and 7/0.2 are about the same diameter, but 7/0.2 has 7 strands, 28AWG wirewrap wire is single strand. FWIW I use 26 AWG single strand wire for my DCC droppers. Regards, John P
  11. For better or worse part of the experience is chucking it all away and starting again. My first layout was hinged against a brick wall in a lean-to using code 80 track with a CL47 and some bogie tankers, this lasted about 1 year and then we moved house. Layout 2 was in our garage, again with code 80, plus lots of issues with trackwork as I moved a bit further along the learning curve, that got demolished when we converted the garage. Layout 3, approx 25 years after number 2 was constructed, was in the basement of our old house here in the US. I started from scratch with Code 55 track and new locos and rolling stock, the 1980's vintage stock was consigned to storage. Lots of lessons learned here as well, such as CL66's don't like hauling 20 bogie coal hoppers up a 3% grade on a curve, I don't like crawling around under baseboards to attach point motors, and Peco slips are a nightmare to get working with Peco solenoid motors plus accessory switches. I bought 2 Tortoise motors and had the single slip wired and working in about 20 minutes, versus the many frustrating hours I'd spent before. I then converted it from DC to DCC and swapped all the solenoids for Tortoises (these days I'd take a look at the MTB range of point motors). Layout 4 is the latest and might be the last (famous last words there) and while I've got to a point where my construction methods suit me, I'm still a beginner in many ways. The space I have is actually a detached double garage with a sloping floor. I re-used all the baseboard frames from Layout 3 and replaced the baseboard tops with XPS. 3 or 4 years later I start to expand the layout and I realised that I'd laid the original boards on a slope heading down to the garage door doh! There's now lots of random offcuts wedged under the baseboard legs to get it level again. The point is that it's very big learning curve and I suspect that everyone on this forum has gone through 2 or more layouts before they've thought that they're finally getting there. Regards, John P
  12. Hi, I use Peco code 55 track, laid on 1” thick XPS. I have around 40 short radius points in my storage yards and another 40 long radius points in the scenic section. I have just 1 single slip and no diamond crossings. With the exception of my 2 axle cement PCA’s, all my rolling stock has bogies, and all my locos are either Bo-Bo or Co-Co. I rarely get any track or point related derailments, and any wheel drop in frogs is only really noticeable with the PCA’s. But that doesn’t cause them to derail. I suspect that the smaller the wheelbase the worse this gets with Peco track, and it is certainly the case that the flangeways have relatively much larger gaps and drops than the equivalent OO track. The reason people “put up with this” depends what they’re layouts are for. Mine depicts the contemporary WCML, fast, long trains and no shunting in a 36’ x 28’ space. I’ll put up with a few wobbles rather than have to handbuild all the track. If my layout were meant to depict short wheelbase stock being shunted around in a relatively small space then I too would be pretty upset. BUT, I probably wouldn’t pick any brand of RTR N Gauge track as my starting point. Merry Christmas, John P
  13. Because there aren't that many part numbers for SOT23 Zeners in the list that you linked to. Any of the SOT23 Zeners would work, I chose Vishay because they're a company I'm familiar with. Regards, John P
  14. It's not a transistor, it's a Zener diode, check your other post for a fuller answer. Regards, John P
  15. Hi, It's not a transistor, it's a 15V Zener diode. If you look at your link you'll see that nearly all of the Y4 marked devices are Zeners. This is the DataSheet for the Vishay part https://www.s-manuals.com/pdf/datasheet/b/z/bzx84-v-series_vishay.pdf, and this is the part number for the 15V version, BZX84C15-V. They should cost about 25p. Yes I know that diodes have 2 pins but a third pin is often added to an SMD package so that it can't be loaded backwards. Regards, John P
  16. They get a 16.66666% reduction on prices shown on the Hattons website, or any other shops website, as do I and anyone else living outside the UK. VAT is an ADDITIONAL 20% added to the price of the good, so before VAT if the price is £10 then the price with VAT is £12. To get back to the price without VAT you need to divide 2 by 12 = 16.666% Regards, John P
  17. Hi, My Zimo MN's behave the same way. It does mean that it's easier to program an MU non motorized coach without needing something to simulate a motor load. Regards, John P
  18. All my Revolution ones, none from Farish or Dapol. John P
  19. I'm all in on this one, I've only got 18 in my roster so I'm sure I could justify 18 more! BUT, the big issue for me is that these models will use the ESU E24 format, which, as far as I can tell is still not a standard format. The only option for non-sound is the ESU 59925 Lokpilot Nano which is about £38. I'm quite happy with my other Revolution sound fitted models with ESU decoders ( and my Farish ones for that matter) as someone else has done the hard work programming the lights, etc. I'd much rather use a non-sound Zimo decoder as, IMO, their CV programming is much easier. And finally, even though I'm happy with my sound fitted Pendolinos, I have observed, admittedly without any scientific tests, that my new Pendolinos, with Zimo Next 18 decoders, run smoother and quieter than my original 4 ESU sound fitted ones. (Anyone suggesting that I turn the sound off to make them quieter gets a slap🙂) Regards, John P
  20. So in order for iTrain, or the Z21 app, or a Maus handset, to control signals on your layout the signals must be connected to a suitable DCC accessory controller. You can connect your signals to accessory switches on your point motors but then you're not controlling the signals, they are just working in conjunction with the points. For signals with no associated points, you can either control them manually or hook then up to accessory decoders. Regards, John P
  21. To make sure that you've changed the address on your laptop to 192.168.0.100 ping that instead. ping 192.168.0.100 You should get an immediate response, if you don't look at your laptop settings again. Don't forget that to change your laptop's address you'll need to turn of DHCP and tell it to use a fixed address. FWIW this is nothing to do with the age of the laptop. Regards, John P
  22. The Uhlenbrock unit is for DCC decoders that DO NOT support Railcom. "In RailCom® mode, there are small RailCom transmitters for retro-fitting to DCC Locomotives without a RailCom-Decoder and for wagons without RailCom Decoder (e.g. driving wagon). They transmit the configured address to the track of a DCC-RailCom System via the power pickup. " So that is exactly what the OP needs to add Railcom to his locos without swapping out the TTS decoders. BUT, as others have said the DCC system must also support Railcom, and you would also need to add Railcom detection devices around the layout. So, @deepfat what DCC system are you using? Regards, John P
  23. Remember that with a 6 pin decoder you’ve only got 2 function outputs unless you’ve been soldering to pads on the pcb. That means that Digitrains need to remove all their lighting mods, except for dimming otherwise the lights will never work. I would be asking Digitrains to redo the sound project with lighting suitable for a 6 pin decoder without any wiring mods. Regards, John P
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