Heljan class 28

[gordon s]

Cracked it! It suddenly came to me over dinner. They are the fan blades......

 

Just read back through the thread, so guess I’m going to have to deal with the lighting and polarity. The Google page has now gone so if anyone can give some advice on what to do, it will be gratefully received.

 

Noticed before dinner that one of the yellow/white led’s is out on one end. There appears to be two white/yellows at each end plus a red. Probably a plug/wire adrift somewhere......

 

Glad to read I wasn’t the only one struggling to get the body off. Just nine years after everyone else.

 

I never was the quickest worker.......

 

Do you think Hatton's will take them back?.....

Edited March 5, 2020 by gordon s

[gordon s]

Any clues about these led's? The Co end has just one white/yellow light (the higher one). The lower one is out. Direction wise the red light works at the Co end and all lights work at the Bo end. Are the two yellow/white led's fed in series or does each led have it's own feed?

 

Just strange that one works and the other doesn't. I changed the Lenz decoder to a Zimo and reset both to factory settings, so it has to be a loco issue.

 

Is it possible to access the led board behind the chassis front or is it more likely a plug/socket/wire/pcb issue?

 

Maybe I'll pull out the plugs one by one to try and trace which plug.

Edited March 5, 2020 by gordon s

[gordon s]

Morning all....Seems I'm the only one posting....:-)

 

Stripped out the led boards and fairly sure one of the boards is faulty, but here's the rub. Unpacked the second one to check what lights should be on or off and believe or not, they don't work at all. 

 

Bought both of them brand new from Hattons when they were released and of course they've lay in the boxes untouched for the last 9 or 10 years. Somewhat tongue in cheek I rang Hattons so see what the options are. Spoke to a very nice lady who was sympathetic, but of course not much they can do and it appears the model isn't available anymore....

 

Note for collectors: May be worthwhile checking a loco when you receive it rather than just sticking it in the cupboard as there's not much you can do after 10 years if it doesn't work....

 

I now have two brand new models, which don't have functional lighting. I managed to track down Gaugemaster who apparently are now Heljan spares facility for the UK and await a call back from them.

 

Any other options anyone can offer? I did see something about Olivia's trains, but have read mixed reviews.

 

Bit of a bummer having spent £200+ on two locos which run, but lack some of the directional lighting.

[MikeParkin65]

17 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Morning all....Seems I'm the only one posting....:-)

 

Stripped out the led boards and fairly sure one of the boards is faulty, but here's the rub. Unpacked the second one to check what lights should be on or off and believe or not, they don't work at all. 

 

Bought both of them brand new from Hattons when they were released and of course they've lay in the boxes untouched for the last 9 or 10 years. Somewhat tongue in cheek I rang Hattons so see what the options are. Spoke to a very nice lady who was sympathetic, but of course not much they can do and it appears the model isn't available anymore....

 

Note for collectors: May be worthwhile checking a loco when you receive it rather than just sticking it in the cupboard as there's not much you can do after 10 years if it doesn't work....

 

I now have two brand new models, which don't have functional lighting. I managed to track down Gaugemaster who apparently are now Heljan spares facility for the UK and await a call back from them.

 

Any other options anyone can offer? I did see something about Olivia's trains, but have read mixed reviews.

 

Bit of a bummer having spent £200+ on two locos which run, but lack some of the directional lighting.

Fully sympathize with the struggle to get the body on and off - had the same with mine. Lights work both ends of mine tho I admit I haven't checked for 'peculiarities'. I think there is a second batch though of which mine is one - sold in Hattons packaging but on general release. I bought mine from Cheltenham model centre maybe a year ago. I am wondering if there is a revised circuit board fitted to these later locos? Mine is at the mo parked 'on shed' awaiting  repairs to the mangled under body pipework

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by MikeParkin65

[John Tomlinson]

You may well find that at some point Heljan re-release the model with another production run, if so it is quite likely that spares will be made available. This seems to have been the pattern in the past.

 

The other thing I'd add, although its only a personal opinion, is that the lights on most models from the era covered by the Class 28 are totally unrealistic. They are far, far too bright. It was only in the '90's, I think late '90's at that, when high density headlights came in to use in the UK. So your models are more realistic with the lights out of action!

 

John.

[gordon s]

Well a bit of good news...

 

Having struggled so much with the first one, I was loathe to pull open the second one, but eventually decided to give it a try. The knowledge of how the body was held on from the first one certainly helped and miraculously, I managed to get it off without breaking anything.  What a relief...

 

Even better news is that whilst the lights didn't work in analogue mode, removing the blanking plug and adding a Zimo decoder suddenly brought all the lights into action. Yippee!

 

At least one is up and running, but the first one I took apart has only one yellow/white on one end and nothing on the other, so I may go back again and have another fiddle with CV's, but suspect it is a duff led board.

 

Surprised what you have said about the lights as even the ones that work are barely visible once the body is back on. No worries though, I'm just glad to have something work at all.

 

I've glued the various pipes back on and was even able to fit a Kadee without removing any of the front hoses. It's trundling around quite happily now upstairs. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by gordon s

[Halvarras]

I bought Kernow's last pristine D5706 of the last batch and was very impressed with the level of underframe detail but realised that it had a problem - it was riding too low at the Co end and the brake linkages on top of the bogie sideframes were catching on the underframe pipe runs. The Co bogie had a lot of vertical play which, due to the very tight clearances Heljan works to (the Hymek was an eye-opener in this regard back in 2003), was bound to cause trouble. However I was sure I could fix it so I put it away for a couple of years........until this week.

I have fixed it, but it severely tested my patience and ingenuity! Unlike others I had little trouble getting the body off (I have a set of 4 brass shims about 15mm wide and bent to an L-shape specifically for releasing Heljan bodies) but I was somewhat perturbed to discover that the circuit board, motor/flywheels/rubber inserts and driveshafts were still in the body, with everything still linked by the wiring! In the end it didn't matter as I had to dismantle all this and almost the entire Co end anyway, to insert a small steel washer around 1mm thick between the bottom of the transverse bogie pivot and the top of the inner bogie frame (gear casing) - easy to say, not so easy to do. If anyone else has had this slack bogie pivot issue with the Heljan Class 28 I can describe how I did it in more detail but it's a mega-faff so I hope mine was a one-off!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that on reassembly the loco still ran OK and the lights all worked. And it now sits level with equal clearance at both ends. The only casualties were the two small footsteps moulded onto the bottom of the battery boxes, which I could replace with new ones bent from small staples if I felt so inclined. I thought those protruding white pipe ends were goners for sure, but no, they're still there!