Rails Announce OO 18000 Gas Turbine Locomotive

[luke_stevens]

One thing I found with the functions is that some need to be activated before others will work. For example F19 (cab light) and F20 (engine room light) won't work unless F0 (running lights) is already pressed. 

 

I've just checked using DecoderPro/ Sprog II and F2 & F4 will only work if F1 or F3 are already pressed.

 

Luke

[luke_stevens]

Further if F1 or F3 isn't pressed then F2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 don't play but F10 does as do F11 and F12. F13 is always silent. F14-F22 do not play but F23 and F24 do. F25 and F26 also remain silent.

 

If F0 is off then F19 does not light (but makes a sound), F20 does (correction from above). F16 will only work if F0 is on, obviously!

 

Hope that helps.

 

Luke

[MG 7305]

Mine is fitted with a Zimo.  It now runs beautifully (see above) but I agree the lights are something of an enigma. 

F0 - Class 1 train lamps and directional, fine.

F1 and 2 switched tail lamp and directional, fine.

 

I don't really have a use for the cab and engine room lights.

 

BUT the head and tail lamps do not work until I change the locomotive's direction on my ECoS.  Weird eh?  Still it is a prototype and allowed to foibles.

[boxbrownie]

10 minutes ago, MG 7305 said:

Mine is fitted with a Zimo.  It now runs beautifully (see above) but I agree the lights are something of an enigma. 

F0 - Class 1 train lamps and directional, fine.

F1 and 2 switched tail lamp and directional, fine.

 

I don't really have a use for the cab and engine room lights.

 

BUT the head and tail lamps do not work until I change the locomotive's direction on my ECoS.  Weird eh?  Still it is a prototype and allowed to foibles.

Oddly I have two Zimo fitted Locos which often need the direction changed before the lamps illuminate, not worked out why yet……ECoS as well.

[luke_stevens]

On 27/10/2021 at 15:02, Bob83a said:

There is no information about CV’s although we can assume that the standard Loksound V5 ones all apply, but the is no details of CV’s to set sound levels etc. One would hope again that the standard/common locations apply.

 

Attached is the cv value listing for my 18000. All I have changed is the long address to 1800. Hope this is of help.

 

Luke

18000 CVs.pdf

[luke_stevens]

Filtered down this is the function to 1) sound sound slot allocations and 2) sound slot volumes.

 

Luke

18000 function map.pdf 18000 sound slots.pdf

[luke_stevens]

Hi Guys,

 

I think I mentioned I was going to swap the installed speaker for the set of 2 mini bass speakers from Road and Rails. I also decided to fit a stay alive, so I asked Richard at Road and Rails his recommendation and ordered a Train-O-Matic SSP-N

 

Fig 1

Here I've removed the supplied speaker (and decoder for safe keeping). The two new speakers and the Train-O-Matic SPP-N stay alive are above. 

 

Fig 2

I thought I was having trouble refitting the body with the stay alive in places so I removed the capacitor from the stay-alive circuit and attached it under the board next the the speaker (below). If you look carefully (above) you can see I have the wires to the left speaker blocking the screw mounting  socket... 

 

Fig 3

Side view showing the speakers, stay-alive and capacitor. The wires are then tucked away and held with little bits of black-tack.

 

As per the Train-O-Matic instructions I change 3 cv's to "tell" the decoder that Aux9 is to be used for charge control: CV31 = 16, CV32 = 0, CV339 = 31. I left CV 123 and CV 124 as they were. I did not change CV 29 as I forgot (and the loco won't be used on DC). 

 

The speakers seem to give a clearer sound with more depth and the stay alive does help.

 

Hope this is of help too!

 

Luke

[reddragon]

My 18000 has been diagnosed at Rails and I am being sent a new loco.

 

It would seem that there was a power fault on the chassis that caused power fluctuations and hence stalling. The wheels were clean and the contacts were fine.

 

Rails have as usual been excellent and helpful.

 

To be specific, my loco ran very poorly right out of the box, jerky even on clean track. On sound each time it had the issue, every few yards it stopped and restarted the power up sequence.

 

A rare fault but well responded to by Rails

[Colin_McLeod]

Are Rails still working through the pre orders? I've heard noting re my 18000.

[BR Blue]

1 minute ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Are Rails still working through the pre orders? I've heard noting re my 18000.

I got an email when my was dispatched. About a week later I got a note from An Post with a reference number so I could pay the VAT. Once I paid that it took another day for it to arrive. So you should get an email from Rails when they send it. I think they are still sending them out.

[boxbrownie]

Opened mine today (as the kiddlywinks went home) and it looks perfect, no broken bits so far and at the moment it is on the prog track with the decoder being “read” by my ECoS……just one issue so far was upon opening the outer box the inner plastic sleeve had all the little plastic detailing parts stuck around all over inside the sleeve, statically stuck.

 

The little plastic pack had been sealed so well it had burnt through the bag and was open   I just hope I have managed to retrieve all the little pipes and twiddly bits.

[TheEngineShed]

5 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Are Rails still working through the pre orders? I've heard noting re my 18000.

I reserved last fall, card was charged on the 5th, "its in the post" email from Rails last week.  So they must still be working through the non-sound orders, assuming they are shipping in the order they were reserved.

[boxbrownie]

Well unfortunately my 18000 runs like a kangaroo at certain speeds, very odd…..a definite slow “pulsing” of the speed as it accelerates, and it slows on one particular 90 deg curve which is a R3…..let alone catching the battery box on the point levers (Trix-C track)……also it will not operate at all unless Railcom is turned off on my ECoS controller, I thought it being an ECoS Loksound 5 and an ECoS controller everything would be fine, but not.

 

I am a bit disheartened here having spent the best part of two hours trying to get it to run smoothly and then finding the track fouling issues.

 

I might go run an old Hornby 108 later and lift my spirits a bit 

[oleander]

Got mine and ran it for the first time. 
Could not get the AWS horn or bell to sound eventhough they are listed. The whistel was broken. Making that out of plastic was a bad move. Should have been made out of brass. 
Overall pleased with it.

[reddragon]

21 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Well unfortunately my 18000 runs like a kangaroo at certain speeds, very odd…..a definite slow “pulsing” of the speed as it accelerates, and it slows on one particular 90 deg curve which is a R3…..let alone catching the battery box on the point levers (Trix-C track)……also it will not operate at all unless Railcom is turned off on my ECoS controller, I thought it being an ECoS Loksound 5 and an ECoS controller everything would be fine, but not.

 

I am a bit disheartened here having spent the best part of two hours trying to get it to run smoothly and then finding the track fouling issues.

 

I might go run an old Hornby 108 later and lift my spirits a bit 

Mine did that & I had to send it back. Try running it at speed for a while first though!

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, reddragon said:

Mine did that & I had to send it back. Try running it at speed for a while first though!

Cannot do that as it bashes the point motor covers.......it’s that low slung battery box* between the bogies, and also it’ll only negotiate the outer circuit on my layout as the inner curves are R2 in places........wish they had mentioned that when I ordered.

 

*I assume that’s what it was?

[7013]

Have had mine a couple of weeks now and all is well. A little PVA in the battery box cover screw holes keeps it in place. I have exchanged the flimsy plastic whistles for a couple of brass ones and blackened them. All my functions appear to work but in reality I will not use all of them. I am really pleased with this model but am disappointed that a £200 model has quite a few QA issues, niggles they may be but they should not be there on a model costing that much. As i said before the whistles could have been brass from the outset, the holes in the bufferbeam should have been the correct diameter to accomodate the pipes etc, and the battery box problem is quite frankly shoddy workmanship. I would love to order 18100 but will hold back until it is already released then will decide to purchase or not to purchase on the quality of the model.

Edited November 13, 2021 by 7013

[boxbrownie]

Rang RoS this morning and it’s now packed and ready for it’s historic last journey from Cornwall to Sheffield 

[Ian J.]

I've managed to get JMRI installed after having to do an upgrade to Linux Mint first (not specifically for JMRI). Once I figured out how Decoder Pro works with the SPROG 3 (it can't seamlessly switch between Programming and Main operation), I was able to get 18000 running on my rolling road with the sound chip in place. All sounds work, though some only work while running. I'm stuggling to figure out how to work the diesel engine and gas turbine to be prototypical, not helped by the fact that I don't know how they worked in real life.

[reddragon]

I have my 18000 back and it now runs very well getting smoother after about 30 mins of running in.

 

I do have a dodgy point and when it crosses it, 18000 stops dead on the spot so clearly no flywheel or stay alive at all. It should have had at least one of those!

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, reddragon said:

I have my 18000 back and it now runs very well getting smoother after about 30 mins of running in.

 

I do have a dodgy point and when it crosses it, 18000 stops dead on the spot so clearly no flywheel or stay alive at all. It should have had at least one of those!

Why not fix the point?

[reddragon]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Why not fix the point?

It's in the middle of a complex junction, fortunately not yet ballasted. I can just run 18000 on another line as I have 4 main line tracks.

 

Doesn't change the fact that it stops dead derailing the train!

Edited November 3, 2021 by reddragon

[cctransuk]

4 hours ago, reddragon said:

It's in the middle of a complex junction, fortunately not yet ballasted. I can just run 18000 on another line as I have 4 main line tracks.

 

Doesn't change the fact that it stops dead derailing the train!

 

If it stops dead, it suggests a short circuit - or just a single axle collecting current.

 

I'd check out current collection on the loco first.

 

CJI.

[zr2498]

On 02/11/2021 at 15:48, boxbrownie said:

Rang RoS this morning and it’s now packed and ready for it’s historic last journey from Cornwall to Sheffield 

Might well do the same. I have run the 18000 in as instructed and the contacts appear OK. Not running on anything less tha 33" radius but although it does not stall the kangaroo effect will not go away and seems to vary according to speed. I noticed that one set of drivers is fairly stiff when moved axially. A great loco and great sound but when coupling up carriages the jerking is amplified. I am sure the passengers would spill their coffee. Not acceptable for a £300 purchase. So do I ask for repair or refund? Will sleep on it but such a shame after the long wait.

[reddragon]

4 minutes ago, zr2498 said:

Might well do the same. I have run the 18000 in as instructed and the contacts appear OK. Not running on anything less tha 33" radius but although it does not stall the kangaroo effect will not go away and seems to vary according to speed. I noticed that one set of drivers is fairly stiff when moved axially. A great loco and great sound but when coupling up carriages the jerking is amplified. I am sure the passengers would spill their coffee. Not acceptable for a £300 purchase. So do I ask for repair or refund? Will sleep on it but such a shame after the long wait.

As for a repair or if OK a refund.