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Hornby Castle class


Blackeunos
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Hi All,

i am after a bit of guidance please I bought a set Torquay Express which includes one of the above But the electrical connections are a little strange to me documentation tells me it is a Ringfield motor but 1 terminal appears to be attached to the chassis  and i assume would short the dcc chip. Can someone give me some guidance on how to sort this out please? I have added a photo

Thanks

Stewart

IMG_0152.JPG

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For starters chop  out the red and yellow bits and chuck them in the bin.

Then take off the nut connecting the metal strip to the motor housing at the left. Check with a multimeter there is no continuity between each motor brush and their associated  wheels. If there is still continuity twixt left hand brush retainer and the wheels take out the screw, fit an insulator under the brush retainer and fit a nylon screw (Peters Spares) to hold it together. Ditto at the motor housing location nut released earlier. If removing the red thing separated that housing tag from the motor brush retainer then just take the tag off.

The idea is to electrically separate the motor brushes from the wheels as the housing is being used as a bit of wire.

Once you have isolation then splice in the decoder as normal - red and black to the track (wheel pickups), orange and grey  the other way (motor).

Edited by RAF96
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Thanks for the reply, however I still do not follow you totally when you say remove left hand nut I assume you mean the Phillips screws, the only hex shape bolt is the one holding the left wire to the chassis. Sorry if I am a bit thick but never done one like this before.

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Sorry, I only just spotted this posting.

 

I have done a similar conversion on "vintage" Hornby County 4-6-0, which has a very similar motor arrangement - so similar that my instruction sheet for the loco covers both County and Castle versions of that era (mid 1990s).

 

Yes, it is a "Type 8 Ringfield motor". It has 2 connections from the wheel pickups - one at the front and one at the rear:

 

Motor_Connections_Front_20201011.jpg.e661ed3873e5dd52fc4d6ff02f266e86.jpgMotor_Connections_Rear_02_20201011.jpg.b765e729151c443d5ba146700e0b2cd5.jpg

 

Both of these connections need to be disconnected from those tabs on the side of the motor which connect to the motor brushes. Also remove the yellow capacitor.

 

Attach the red wire of the decoder to the rear tab, the black wire to the black wire at the front and then the orange and grey wires of the decoder connect to the two tabs feeding the motor brushes:

Decoder_connected_from_side_20201012.jpg.1f495a839b96cc4dc72ee91be1379bc5.jpg

 

You will need a physically small decoder - I used a Gaugemaster DCC92 - and you need to pay attention to the lengths of the wires to ensure that they are long enough to enable you to fit the decoder into a suitable space, which for the County was in the front section of the boiler barrel. You can see in my final picture that I have used heat shrink to cover the joins in the black & red wires that I used to ensure that they were long enough.

 

Mike.

 

 

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Hi Mike,

Thanks for the very detailed explanation I was a little confused by RAF96’s instructions and have got some insulated bolts and washers as suggested. However I see that you haven’t used any and neither did Doug Teggin in his conversion https://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?autocom=custom&page=H-Hogwarts so I was not sure whether they were essential. I intend to follow Dougs line of reducing the lead weight as I will put a sugar cube speaker in front of the weight . I have the Hornby tts decoder.

regards

stewart

Edited by Blackeunos
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Stewart,

 

Yes, if you want a speaker in the loco, I think that hacking a space from the lead weight is the way to go. I contemplated using the tender for the decoder, as is the case for my Hornby King, but decided that it looked like a lot of hard work for the County.

 

Yours,  Mike.

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Hi 

got the nylon bolts from Peters, unfortunately they are too big a diameter my are self tappers as well. However I have checked with a multi meter between wheels and motor terminals with wiring removed and just get an open reading of 1. Which from what I can gleam  is correct. So next stage is to solder in a chip and see what happens, I do intend to use a basic standard chip first rather than the Hornby tss one and then if it blows it’s not too bad. Hopefully the weather warm up a bit and then I can get in the garage to cut the lead weight.

regards

stewart

Edited by Blackeunos
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Stewart,

 

I didn't need to insulate anything on my County - the tabs feeding the motor brushes are isolated. One thing I did take care of were the unused wires on the decoder - they are at the bottom of the last picture I posted. I insulated the ends of the wires, rather than removing the wires, just in case I ever want to re-use the decoder.

 

Yours,  Mike.

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On 23/01/2021 at 17:04, Blackeunos said:

Thanks for the reply, however I still do not follow you totally when you say remove left hand nut I assume you mean the Phillips screws, the only hex shape bolt is the one holding the left wire to the chassis. Sorry if I am a bit thick but never done one like this before.

 

 

Water under the bridge now - but the nut I referred to was the one on the motor housing left hand as picture, not the cross points holding the brushes in.

The picture posted later shows this tag is linked to the motor brush by a bit of wire soldered across from the red thing and would likely have been removed when you took that off, thus breaking the link between the tag with the nut and the motor brush.

The important thing is ensuring the motor brushes are isolated from the wheels which you have done.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just as a final note for this string, installed the Hornby tts chip by removing a section of the lead weight to allow the chip to be fitted above. Placed the sugar cube speaker in front of the weight with a little black tack to locate it replaced the body and all works very well. So thanks to all contributors for their assistance.

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  • 3 months later...

I am having an issue in fitting a Bachmann decoder to my Hornby Kenilworth Castle loco.  I have successfully installed the same type of decoder into my Builth Castle loco that has the same motor.  I have soldered the four wires as per the photo but when I place the chassis on the track, I get a short circuit message.  When I installed the decoder and put it on the programming track, it worked fine.  I have cut the top of the weight to accommodate the decoder but I am getting a short without the weight being fitted.  Any ideas what might be causing the problem?

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

6199316B-57AD-461D-BB15-EA70FF745C4D.jpeg

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