Fitting Sound to Hornby Black 5 - DCC in tender model

zr2498 · January 19

A couple of Black 5s were described in:

This time the sound, stay alive and firebox flicker will be fitted to a more recent model, which has the DCC socket in the tender. This is not the retooled version we are waiting for (at 2023).

The irony is that if a large speaker is to be fitted, the older version was easier!

However, it is still possible to fit the same speaker by cutting out the coal pan to maximise the space available.

As mentioned in the previous installation, the room between the motor and cab back plate is so small that the 3mm diameter LED protrudes too far through the firebox. This time a Nano SMED LED was used which overcomes this problem.

This is the kit used:

Next time the tender installation will be described.

Edited January 19 by zr2498
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zr2498 · January 19

Now for the tender installation. Opening up, the space is filled up with the weight, standard speaker fitting and the 8 pin socket.

First step is to remove the weight, the capacitor (not needed, especially with DCC) and the DCC socket. I decided to hardwire for this install, as that would eliminate the space taken up by the 8 pin plug and socket

The tender body has had the coal pan removed, and also the lug which would have connected to the weight for body fixing.

Before cutting out the coal pan, I marked where the coal load came up to. This would prevent cutting too high, as the load has a low profile and I wanted to keep as is.

A couple of styrene pieces were added to the tender chassis. This would provide a boundary for the lead shot, keeping glue away from the wheel pick-up routing.

As can be seen, a good deal of parts of the tender chassis have been clipped off to increase the headroom. Lead shot added, and fixed with cyano. Also, a couple of weights added to the side of the speaker.

Now to the decoder. A 3 wire DCC Concepts Zen large stay alive was used.

First the wiring to the decoder.

Then the hardwiring connections. Motor (orange and grey), track (red and black) , speaker (brown), 2 pin micro plug/ wires for fire box flicker (blue common +ve and green AUX1). The firebox flicker wires were routed through a 2mm diameter hole in the chassis.

The speaker was fixed in place with black tack.

Insulation added, and assembly of parts. Fixed with black tack.

Note the postion of the stay alive decoder interface chip. The angle and position forwards makes sure that it clears the lowered profile of the tender body at the rear.

Tender body fitted. The front end screw as original fitting, and as the lug had been removed, a thin strip of black tack secures the body at the rear.

Coal load fitted.

Next will be the firebox flicker.

Edited January 20 by zr2498
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zr2498 · January 19

Now to the locomotive. As previously mentioned, a low profile LED is needed owing to the small clearance between the motor and back plate. A Kytes Lights suppled nano smed LED was used.

The LED fixing was set up using some insulating tape as shown.

A 3mm diameter hole was drilled through the firebox, and the LED fixed to the rear of the back plate. The LED wires are routed forwards to available space on the loco chassis.