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Oxford N7


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  • 4 weeks later...
On 07/01/2020 at 11:05, No Decorum said:

I have held off getting one of these locos until the sound became available. Rails’ Advent discount led me take the plunge.

The sound quality is, IMHO, good. Chuffs synchronise with the wheels and die away when coasting. Control is also very good.

On the other hand, it’s driving me mad! Most of the sounds and features don’t match the function list in the instructions and some features seem to be missing. As far as I have been able to work out so far, these are the actual sounds. I emphasise that I need another session to check the list below.

F1    Sound.
F2    Whistle (single note, playable).
F3    Whistle (random toot or toot toot).
F4    –
F5    –
F6    Safety valves.
F7    Injector.
F8    Brake.
F9    Flange squeal.
F10    Guard’s whistle.
F11    On: guard’s whistle; off: acknowledging toot toot.
F12    Drain cocks.
F13    Fire door (no shovelling, no light).
F14    Shunt mode.
F15    Auto uncoupling.
F16    Coasting?
F17    –
F18    Rattling?
F19    Flange squeal.
F20    –
F21    –
F22    –
F23    –
F24    –

This is driving me potty too. I took delivery of my pre-ordered-from-Hattons N7 with sound in October but it has been locked away till Christmas!

 

It runs well but then the problems start. The sound is very quiet. I have many other Loksound- and TTS-fitted locos and they drown this one out. I have looked at CV63 (Master volume) and that is set at the max, 128. I went to look at the individual volumes but accessing those via Railmaster and e-Link, all I get is "not used" for all of those. I have noted in the instruction leaflet that CV31 should be set to 16 and CV32 to 1 (it was set to zero), but, having checked and corrected that, I still can't access the individual sound volumes (CVs of which range from 259 to 467).

 

Most of the F key assignments are not as per the instruction leaflet, as ´No Decorum´said in his post, above. Some are so quiet, it's impossible to hear what they are supposed to be. I found AWS bell at F19 but no sign of AWS siren. Flange Squeal I concur at F9 and F11 for Guards whistle. I'm still checking the others.

 

It's a nice model but, having paid for sound, I expect to be able to hear it and to access the functions from a list that is correct. I will contact Oxford Rail as soon as the holidays are over but would welcome any ideas about the low level sound issue. Thanks. 

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For functions, I contacted South West Digital before Christmas and they very kindly sent me the following ...

----------------------------------

 

The function keys are assigned as follows:
F0 Lights On / Off, F1 Sound On/Off (Slot 1), F2 Whistle, Playable (Slot 3), F3 Whistle, Toot (Slot 19),
F4 Blower (Slot 21), F5 Exhaust Sound Hold, F6 Safety Valve (Slot 12),
F7 Injectors (Slot 20), F8 Dynamic Brake, F9 Flange (Slot 15), F10 Drive Mode (Light or Heavy),
F11 Guards Whistle (Slot 10), F12 Drain Cocks (Slot 23).
F13 Coupling clank (Slot 8), F14 Shunt mode, F15 Auto Uncoupling cycle,
F16 Master Volume Control, Toggle On/Off to change or leave On for Mute
F17 Aux 2, F18 Shovelling Coal (slot 5) / Aux 1 (Fire box Led), F19 AWS Bell (Slot 22)
F20 Water Fill (Slot 25), F21 Disable random Sounds
Auto sounds, Steam Hiss (Slot 24), Intelli-Brake (Slot 27), Blower (Slot 21), Westinghouse pump (Slot 6).
Random Sounds when Stationary: Shovelling Coal, Safety Valve

 

 ------------

 

Also I notice F16 in the above list says "master volume".  I wonder if playing with that may help the volume issue mentioned above.

Tom

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Thank you Dominion. I'll see if the rest of mine match this list! The ones I identified certainly do. So no AWS siren!? On the list that was included, AWS siren is there which also slows the loco. I have found no sign of that.

 

I'll try these out tomorrow. Thanks again.  

 

PS Was there an indication on your list which of these sounds were "latching"?

Edited by johnashp
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I had some fun with my N7 yesterday. (sound fitted)

ESU has a function called "Automatic Calibration of the Motor".

I prefer the name Rapido gives it, they call it "Awesome slow speed thingy". 

If you haven't tried it before it is worth a go.

When I first did this last year it put the steam chuffs out of sync so I reset the motor control to the factory settings, but now I was able to do both steps.

 

Set CV54 to 0. Make sure the loco has 4 or 5 feet of open track ahead of it, preferably flat and straight. Press the bell function. The loco will take off at high speed forwards for about 2 seconds. During that step you have no control over the loco so make sure the track is open with no risk of disaster.

When the loco stops the ESU chip will have monitored the motor and back-emf behavior and automatically tuned the motor and BEMF settings. It worked really well on my N7. It runs extremely  smoothly, even better than before, and also very nicely at very low speed.

 

The process upsets the factory steam chuff calibration but that wasn't quite right at the presets on mine anyway. Following the Loksound V5 manual, by trial and error I increased CV 57 to get the cuffs synced on speed step 1 (I used 128 speed steps for this though I did not find that explicitly in the ESU instructions). I settled on 240 as the best sync for my loco and BEMF settings.

Then I set the speed to 4 (from 128) and increased CV58 till the chuffs were synced there too. (settling on 80 for mine)

It was the first time I have altered the chuff settings on a loco and it worked fairly easily.

Tom

 

(CV8=8 goes back to factory presets on all if necessary)

 

Edited by Dominion
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On 03/01/2021 at 00:09, Dominion said:

For functions, I contacted South West Digital before Christmas and they very kindly sent me the following ...

----------------------------------

 

The function keys are assigned as follows:
F0 Lights On / Off, F1 Sound On/Off (Slot 1), F2 Whistle, Playable (Slot 3), F3 Whistle, Toot (Slot 19),
F4 Blower (Slot 21), F5 Exhaust Sound Hold, F6 Safety Valve (Slot 12),
F7 Injectors (Slot 20), F8 Dynamic Brake, F9 Flange (Slot 15), F10 Drive Mode (Light or Heavy),
F11 Guards Whistle (Slot 10), F12 Drain Cocks (Slot 23).
F13 Coupling clank (Slot 8), F14 Shunt mode, F15 Auto Uncoupling cycle,
F16 Master Volume Control, Toggle On/Off to change or leave On for Mute
F17 Aux 2, F18 Shovelling Coal (slot 5) / Aux 1 (Fire box Led), F19 AWS Bell (Slot 22)
F20 Water Fill (Slot 25), F21 Disable random Sounds
Auto sounds, Steam Hiss (Slot 24), Intelli-Brake (Slot 27), Blower (Slot 21), Westinghouse pump (Slot 6).
Random Sounds when Stationary: Shovelling Coal, Safety Valve

 

 ------------

 

Also I notice F16 in the above list says "master volume".  I wonder if playing with that may help the volume issue mentioned above.

Tom

Thank you for posting that; very helpful. Oxford isn’t very co-operative. Most functions now seem to work although I’m not getting a glimmer from the firebox.

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I've had my BR black one for over a year now, & the fact that the smokebox door numbers were printed on always bugged me. Decided to fix that this weekend; just a piece of plastic from an old kit cut to size, sanded & painted black, and some transfers from Modelmaster. Stuck down with some uhu & a little bit of fiddling to get straight, but looks a lot better imho. 

IMG_20210116_152323.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

At the price these are going at I couldn't resist getting one of the sound fitted examples. It’s almost like getting a free loco with every sound decoder. 
 

really pleased with it. 
 

Edit: the source I got mine from, Rails, have sold out. 

Edited by Jenny Emily
Update on price/source
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  • 2 weeks later...
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Sooo, anyone any idea whats going on with the BR late version?

Cheltenham Model Centre seems to have them but nowhere else does. Not even seen any of the big retailers even say they got them in and sold out or anything.

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33 minutes ago, Kaput said:

Sooo, anyone any idea whats going on with the BR late version?

Cheltenham Model Centre seems to have them but nowhere else does. Not even seen any of the big retailers even say they got them in and sold out or anything.

 

I bought one from Monk Bar Models in York back in early December (not DCC / sound).

 

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35 minutes ago, Kaput said:

Sooo, anyone any idea whats going on with the BR late version?

Cheltenham Model Centre seems to have them but nowhere else does. Not even seen any of the big retailers even say they got them in and sold out or anything.

Transport delays and shortages of stock so I'm led to believe.

ORN70004 can however be purchased direct on the Oxford Rail website.

If you're still trying to source one, try Derails of Coleford which has them on pre-order for £84.70.

Edited by Black 5 Bear
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  • 1 month later...

Does anyone know of a source of yellow train control numbers to renumber to GER grey version of the N7, please? Right now I am eyeing unshaded LMS yellow serif askance, but not happily...

Edited by EHertsGER
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  • 5 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
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Found a BR version s/h recently so finally got around to converting one to P4. I've also added sound from YouChoos, putting a speaker in the rear void under the motor rather than in the bunker where the Zimo MX648 and stay-alive pack are. I ditched the pcb. Now runs well and sounds good so worth the time and effort involved and I'm glad I got it.

 

1952024211_RMwebORN701.jpg.ff3f881437129571b02d157bb72b3121.jpg

 

Edited by Izzy
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hattons delivered mine this morning. Well finished and detailed; runs smoothly. Ordered 26.9.19 - delivered just over 2 years later.

 

So far have just replaced those hideously overlong couplings - a  ViTrains on on the front and a slice taken off the NEM box and the coupling legs, Loctite to secure at the rear. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Well, after two years of waiting it seems the late crest sound version has been cancelled - just received an email from Hattons to that effect.  What a company. Or should I say ex-company. 

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1 hour ago, Downer said:

Well, after two years of waiting it seems the late crest sound version has been cancelled - just received an email from Hattons to that effect.  What a company. Or should I say ex-company. 

 

That may be Hornby implementing their stupid tier system on Oxford stuff now they own them - i.e. not cancelled, just stitching up retailers like Hattons and their customers.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I received one of these yesterday, a DC BR late crest version. It arrived intact, it runs quietly and smoothly on plain track, but... it has a wobble, that seems to make it very prone to derailment over pointwork when moving forwards.

 

It looks like not all six driving wheels are quite level, so it can rock diagonally. I can't tell whether it's because any wheels are above the intended level or below it; I can't see anything amiss, but when rocked backwards and to the right the front left wheel lifts up so there's not a lot of flange below the level of the rail, which is presumably why it derails easily.

 

Has anyone else had this problem? Is it likely to be anything that can be easily fixed? I guess not, in which case back to the shop it will have to go...

 

This is the first loco I have bought since about 1995. Just my luck!

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Might be an idea to check the leading set of driving wheels; these are arranged to be sprung to move up and down.

 

Be careful if you take the keeper plate off as it is quite easy to lose the spring, which bears down on the leading axle.  Then make sure the leading axle's bearings are free to move up and down; they may be jammed by (for example) solidified grease, or casting flash in the slots in the chassis casting.  If they are jammed, this might account for the loco being 'three legged'.

 

It might also be worth making sure the body is attached properly to the chassis.  If it is not fitted square and level, it is possible for the oil boxes on the top of the coupling rods (on the leading driving wheels) to strike the underneath of the running plate as the driving wheels go round.  You may be able to tell if this is happening by seeing bare metal on the underneath of the running plate casting, where the oil boxes have been hitting it as the wheels go round.

 

I have got three of these and they are all good runners, but I did have to attend to the above points in a couple of cases.

 

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Thank you for your detailed reply. Emboldened by it I set about taking the keeper plate off to have a look. A few observations from doing so;

 

- A couple of the screws holding the plate on were not doing very much; they just spun when turned.

 

- They must have had lube to use up when it was put together, everything was covered in the stuff under the plate!

 

- There was a little bit of flash just inside one of the middle axle slots; I thought it could be fouling the bearing so I scraped it off, but it didn't make any difference.

 

- The front axle did have a spring above it, but the bearings were not free to move. The only driving axle that could move was the rearmost, which I suspect is the main problem; I think the rear right slot is too deep relative to the others, so the loco sags where it shouldn't. I thought about trying to pack it out a tiny bit, but decided the chance of it working at all let alone permanently was pretty slim, so I think the safest option is just to send it back and try another.

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I decided to go back to my model of 1002 and "correct it", as per the information posted on pages 17 and 18 of this thread; the left hand whistle, vacuum ejector pipe and associated brake pipes have been removed, whilst the large "train control" numbers on the tanks have been replaced by post-1915 GER lettering and clack valves have been added to the dome. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the result! As a starting point I really do like this model but it was equally nice to be able to do some additional modelling to bring it up to how it should be for the prototype represented. 

 

IMG_20211106_204029.jpg.370e6139f3d262262e4ad2b2769d28d3.jpg

 

And yes, that is a grey C53 being worked on in the background ;)

 

- James

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm hoping somebody on here might be able to help. I have the BR early crest example which has run faultlessly until yesterday when it refused to move. Occasionally the wheels would turn perhaps half a revolution and then nothing. I've checked all the obvious things like making sure the current collectors are clean and touching all the wheels. Examination of the underside revealed rather too much oil so I cleaned some of it off. Looking at the motor, there is nothing apparently wrong and the wheels are free to revolve. I contacted Oxford who told me that their technical expert is currently away and they suggested asking for help here so, over to you; any ideas? 

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2 hours ago, Les Bird said:

I'm hoping somebody on here might be able to help. I have the BR early crest example which has run faultlessly until yesterday when it refused to move. Occasionally the wheels would turn perhaps half a revolution and then nothing. I've checked all the obvious things like making sure the current collectors are clean and touching all the wheels. Examination of the underside revealed rather too much oil so I cleaned some of it off. Looking at the motor, there is nothing apparently wrong and the wheels are free to revolve. I contacted Oxford who told me that their technical expert is currently away and they suggested asking for help here so, over to you; any ideas? 

 

I think (from memory, having taken mine to bits several times!) there are sprung plunger contacts on the underside of the chassis casting which make contact with the pick up strips on the keeper plate - are they clean and making contact properly?

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