Hornby castle

[B15nac]

Hi

 

I'm in need of a bit of help I've got a Hornby caerphilly castle that I'm converting to pendennis castle so I've swapped the 3500 gallon tender for a 4000 gallon one from another Hornby castle but she won't run? I've plugged the white plug in correctly but still nothing has Hornby changed the wiring in the later castle than pervious ones?

 

Thanks for your help

 

Regards Neil

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Past experience suggests that there is no guarantee of plugs/sockets wired the same way around in different production runs, If the loco runs with the wire plugged in, when you lift the tender off the rails, stops when you put the tender on the rails, then the pick up wiring is crossed over causing a dead short.

 

There are other possibilities, could be a broken wire or failed connection between the DCC socket motor supply pins to the connector on the faulty tender, Something really daft like no (or a loose) DCC socket blanking plug would do it.

[DCB]

If it is DC surely it should run without the tender?   We threw away the draggy tender pickups on a Hornby County and increased the pulling power by 2 coaches with no pick up problems so if its DC I would suggest trying it without a tender and if it runs ok Bin the tender wiring/ pickups etc

If DCC compare the two tender chassis and play spot the difference as per the wiring.

[Podhunter]

There is no guarantee of plugs/sockets wired the same way around in different production runs

It doesn't help when both connecting wires are the same colour (e.g. black) in loco and tender.  If you have the opportunity, substitute a different colour for one of those connecting wires: it will help when you have to solve a simlar problem in the future.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

If it is DC surely it should run without the tender?  

 May depend on the version? I was assuming the all-new tooling of the Castle which has a four pin connection tp enable the decoder to be placed in the tender. There's no connection from pick ups to motor terminals on the loco, without the plug inserted in the tender. If I were solely a DC user I would certainly make those connections so the loco will run independently of the tender.

 

FWIW, the manufacturers have I feel gone the 'wrong way around' in the their loco to tender electrical connections. If the socket was on the loco, and the plug on a flying lead from the tender; then a blanking plug can go into the back of the loco for independent operation, rather than having to go into the end of a dangling lead which tends to snag just about everything in range when the loco is on track, unless very carefully secured. And even when secured these things have a tendency to break free while the loco is test running...

 

 

We threw away the draggy tender pickups on a Hornby County and increased the pulling power by 2 coaches with no pick up problems ...

 Between the very crude inside bearings and a draggy wipers, the friction from Hornby tenders with pick up wipers is indeed very significant. It's a weak spot in their design template for steam loco tenders in my opinion. If there has to be tender pick-up -  and perhaps the set track point does make it of continuing value? - a move to split axle pinpoint wheelsets with pick up from the bearings would be very advantageous. It's not rocket science, Bachmann have it well proven on their MU's and Pullman coaches, and Hornby use a closely related scheme on their premium twin bogie diesel mechanisms.

[The Johnster]

Assuming the loco runs with it's original tender, easiest solution is to swap the tender bodies over.  But I still can't guess why the locos won't run with the new tender; don't know anything about DCC but if it's DC put a meter on it and see if there is a dead short, which will mean that you need to reverse the connections from the tender pickups, or dispense with them altogether like David did if you are confident of good running from just the loco's pickups.  I'm all for as many pickups as you can get, but sometimes they're more trouble than they're worth.

[The Fatadder]

A common problem I have found with Hornby locos.

 

Assuming you have a multi meter, tender body off then touch one probe to pin 2 and the other to a driving wheel(find the side which matches)

 

First check that it is connected to a wheel (I've had one connected to the motor and pin 1 to wheel)

 

Now check there is also a connection to the tender wheels on the same side.

 

Finally check for shorts between the motor pins 1/8 and pickup pins 2/7 (think I have the pin numbering right)

Again I have had various shorts between pins on both the plug and the dcc socket.

[t.s.meese]

I've got a similar problem - so would be interested to know if anyone found the solution. I have Wellington (Castle) with Hawksworth tender. Works fine. I bought an earlier pattern tender (different body and different chassis, but same method of connection) but it won't run with that tender. Neither will it run without a tender. Works fine when original tender reconnected. Inspection reveals that both tenders have a blanking plate in place (I'm DC) and that connections look good throughout. What I don't know is whether there is a hidden fault in the replacement tender, or whether the wiring diagram changed between Wellington and whichever loco the donor tender came from (bought off ebay). Hmm...

[The Fatadder]

See the previous post, Hornby randomly change the wiring on the loco to tender connection,

 

You need to determine which wire is which and rewire the DCC socket on the tender to match.  Or alternatively you could probably transfer the good circuit board and connector from the original tender into the new one.   

[t.s.meese]

Okay - I've figured it out; the son of Beelzibub has been at play here. Here is the problem and the solution (for swapping (some) tenders on (some) Castles). Using a multimeter on the tender pins and with blanking plates in place I found continuity between pins 1&3 and 2&4 on the Hawksworth and 1&2 and 3&4 on the other one (Dean or Collett? - I don't know enough about GWR). So - the wiring diagram is different for different Castles! My solution was to rewire the other tender (the one that didn't work) as follows. First, I noticed that the use of black and red wires was not the same in the two tenders. I traced that through and found the correction is to cut the outer two wires (to pins 1 and 4). One is red. The other is black. Now cross wire them - red to black and vice versa. Solder, insulate. Job done. Both tenders now work. Quite an easy fix. But why or why!

[t.s.meese]

To avoid any confusion across posts - the pins I was referring to are the four pins that connect loco to tender. The pins fatadder is referring to (I think) are the socket pins for the blanking plate/DCC chip. Note also, for clarity, in my post it doesn't matter whether you are working left to right or right to left.

[John Tomlinson]

On 27/03/2021 at 19:04, t.s.meese said:

Okay - I've figured it out; the son of Beelzibub has been at play here. Here is the problem and the solution (for swapping (some) tenders on (some) Castles). Using a multimeter on the tender pins and with blanking plates in place I found continuity between pins 1&3 and 2&4 on the Hawksworth and 1&2 and 3&4 on the other one (Dean or Collett? - I don't know enough about GWR). So - the wiring diagram is different for different Castles! My solution was to rewire the other tender (the one that didn't work) as follows. First, I noticed that the use of black and red wires was not the same in the two tenders. I traced that through and found the correction is to cut the outer two wires (to pins 1 and 4). One is red. The other is black. Now cross wire them - red to black and vice versa. Solder, insulate. Job done. Both tenders now work. Quite an easy fix. But why or why!

One wonders if the different wiring pattern is due to different manufacturers for the locos, Hornby apparently have done several changes over the years.

 

As was said earlier, the whole arrangement is a pain for DC modellers, as the locos won't work without the tender being plugged in. We've been compelled to adopt something more complex and therefore another source of problems, whether we like it or not. In an extreme case I've stripped the wiring out and redone a simple loco pickup to motor arrangement (on the Heljan 02) but this should hardly be necessary.

 

John.

Edited April 2, 2021 by John Tomlinson