spud

Hi, Back in my younger days i had a rake of Hornby mk2 coaches with a class 37 as one of my first train sets. I alway remember the coaches had thier window frames finished in bright chrome. 40 years later, and im building a rake of 7mm ones, I'm wondering if any did actually have chrome /silver window frames, or was it just a Hornby thing??

Fantastic, thanks, this is just what i needed! from memory I seemed to remember the red and white were different but most photos don't show it!

Hi you knowledgeable lot!! Im about to paint my 7mm scale mk2's into executive livery but before I do, I'm undecided on the dimensions of the red and white bands!!!! Does anyone know the width of these, either full size, or in 7mm scale??? Thanks!!

That's good enough for me, time to order some paint!!!......

Hi everyone! Im currently building a collection of 7mm mk2a's all built from Triang big big train coaches. So far ive done 4 SO's and a single BFK. I remember the colourful late 80's and would love to build another BFK, but in intercity livery ( easier to paint than blue and grey!!) My question is, how many mk2a's were painted in intercity? And were there any SO's too??

@ hamburger, Your trick worked!! Why on earth CV3 isn't set like other manufacturers, or is that high in the first instance, i have no idea! Had you not told us about it, I'd still be tweaking gains etc all to no avail. Thank you!

What did steve from southwest recommend, out of interest???

As i suspected, ive always used MX645 but for some reason i cant get one for love or money, so went ESU instead. My job is setting up industrial motor drives, but this v5 is really taking the mickey!!

Hi all, I am desperately (and almost losing the will to live) trying to get my 0 gauge brassworks 08 to run smoothly with a loksound v5 chip. Ive fitted loads of decoders in the past, but just cannot get this to stop jerking!!!! The loco is perfect, ive even stripped it down to a bare chassis and still cant get it to run without 'kangarooing' at low and medium speeds. The best i can do is to set the PWM frequency as high as possible and reduce the Bemf value to about 100, though this has the effect of next to zero torque on the wheels, ie, wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding! Has anyone done this before with any, or lack of success??

Brilliant! Thanks for the replies. I was beginning to wonder if my browser wasn't compatible! It gives me a phone number, I'll call him monday. Regards Simon

Hi, Might be a daft question, and i hope it is! Does anyone know how to go about ordering from easybuild? Are they still going? The website has a destinct lack of contact details and ordering information and I'm really confused!? Thanks everyone?

Hi Nigel, many thanks for the reply, i have tried manually selecting the correct t decoder id, but when i try to read the decoder for its function table contents, although the loco is 'twerking' the table boxes remain blank. It still takes ages to read ages lines (as normal) but the result is a blank box!!??

Evening, ( or rather morning!) all, Ive been using decoder pro for some time now, but recently i've been given a loksound V5 to fit. For some reason i cant get the decoder to identify as a V5xl. i've tried paged and direct bit, and the responses i get are that it identifies as a Roco 10745, an ESU switchpilot and ESU Lokpilot, but not as what it should be! the decoder is brand new, and it works ( default address etc..). I've even tried a factory reset, all to no avail. i've even installed JMRI onto a newer PC and the latest version on windows 10 ( just in case the decoder descriptions were a bit screwy on my old XP machine!) Hoping someone can tell me whats going on!!! All i want to do is edit the funtion table and turn the volume down ! many thanks.

Hi ! only just found this, so forgive me for being late. i have successfully repaired ESU and Zimo decoders in the past ! ...when you say 'the power transistor', do you mean there is no output to the motor? ( I only ask as the transistors are normally an array contained in an 8-pin chip ) regards

Thanks for the answers, jist in case anyone was wondering...... I fixed it for the grand cost of 28p!!

Hi everyone, Im embarking on a project to extend and detail 8 triang mk2 coaches ( ex big big train). Ive got most parts sorted, but i need someone or somewhere who could laser cut loads of windows to suit the apertures , once ive removed the cross members. Any recommendations??

Hi all, Thanks for any offerings, in advance, i'll be interested to see if anyone has any ideas..... I have a Zimo MX645 sound decoder that has ceased to be....its an ex decoder !! Unfortunately, I'm an electronics engineer so curiosity got the better of me. The problem is, its not in the least bit alive, any attempt to interrogate it using my SPROG on DCC fail. Connected to straight good old DC, and its still dead, my bench psu shows its only drawing 3mA, even when the dc is cranked up past 6-8v ( the region when its supposed to snap into life!!) looking at the circuit, I can make out the motor driver stage, and that the decoder is based on a PIC18F66 with flash memory. taking the pinout of these two devices, ive located the Vcc rail, and that only ever gets up to 1.6v it should be 3.3. If i feed 3.3v directly to the PIC and its associated circuitry, ( using the pregramming pads) it takes 20mA, a bit more like it , I assume it's in standby until called up to do something. My problem is, I can see the rectifier bridge formed of 4 diodes that turn the track volts into a rectified dc for the board, but after that i get lost, and i cant find where the 12-18vdc rail is turned into 3.3v. has anyone ever traced out one of these and worked it out? would love to get this working again if possible, especially now that ive found the fault, just need to locate it !!

Hi everyone, can anybody advise me where i can get a TTS decoder for the '08 ???? everywhere seems to be out of stock! Real shame, as they look like really good decoders, and at a realistic price! would like to fit one to my 7mm bachman brass 08, loads of room for a speaker and the motor stall current is ideal too. thanks in advance.... Spud

Hi, an appeal to anybody out there who can help...... I'm fitting a zimo mx645 decoder to a friend's 7mm class 101 all is going well until i come to hardwire the interior lights to F01 and try to switch them on!! I cant for the life of me work out what activates f01. I think the sound project is digitrains ( paul chetter) & indeed, some of the functions tally, f2 for brake application, f5 for loaded or light train but, according to the online help, f10 should activate f01, except it doesn't, it sounds a guards buzzer code!!! I can get f01 to work, by attaching it to f12 (or another key) but, it seems to only work in one direction, meaning it has a directional function applied in the Swiss mapping! However, after downloading the entire swiss mapping, there seems to be nothing assigned to the f01 output!! Im using a Sprog3 and decoder pro! Anybody have any input that may help? All i want is to switch the interior lights on and off!! Thanks in advance. Simon

Reposted, as I suspect its more appropriate to this forum! ( my apologies to the moderators!!!) I'm hoping someone here knows the quick answer..... Ive had to rework somebody else's 7mm Heljan 31... So far so good! I have everything working, directional markers, switchable tail lamps via F6 , engine start and stop and she runs like a dream. My problem is that I seem to have lost the horn sounds!!!! This is a loksound xl, probably SWD, so i assume the horn is assigned to F2 &F3. I'm using JMRI and a sprog, and have checked that the function map has entries for F2 & 3 that only act on sound slots 3 &4. I'm about to loose it with this one!!! Anyone offer any advice? Where are the horn files stored normally, is it ss2,ss3,ss4???? Thanks

I'm hoping someone here knows the quick answer..... Ive had to rework somebody else's 7mm Heljan 31... So far so good! I have everything working, directional markers, switchable tail lamps via F6 , engine start and stop and she runs like a dream. My problem is that I seem to have lost the horn sounds!!!! This is a loksound xl, probably SWD, so i assume the horn is assigned to F2 &F3. I'm using JMRI and a sprog, and have checked that the function map has entries for F2 & 3 that only act on sound slots 3 &4. I'm about to loose it with this one!!! Anyone offer any advice? Where are the horn files stored normally, is it ss2,ss3,ss4???? Thanks!

Forgot to say....... The metal doors also had two handles, midway and lower down. As far as I can remember, the wooden doors had only one handle, at waist height!!!

Best thing you can do is see if you can get a picture of the loco you want to model, there were a myriad of combinations...... Some kept wooden doors to the end, some got changed for metal....some were built with metal....some had one side changed only !!! The doors do look quite different, the wooden ones are a typical panelled door, whereas the metal doors look more flush and plain. Good luck!

Hi, They would have been red-oxide undercoat and black top coat when new, but would rapidly have weathered to rusty brown with oily residue and puddles of oily water!

Brian, Is that 08 one of the ones fitted with remote control ????