davyjcrow Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 OK, given the humdrum around Hornby's VEP I thought it might be timely to start a topic on how we have all been giving the beast a facelift... Here are my efforts to start us off.. cab fronts only for the moment, one step at a time! List of changes: 1. Performed the door modification per Gareth's experiment on the main 4-Vep topic, cut out from the bodyshell and inserted the door inside the corridor connector 2. Cut away most of the protruding part of the headlight and filed it back to be square per the 90s prototype, fitted clear plastic in the square aperture to resemble a new lens (original "round" light guide fits behind the new lens) 3. Fitted the supplied Hornby headcode blinds to the inside of the headcode glass (fit the stickers over the top of the black "frame' that makes up the shape of the rectangles inside the headcode - the assembly pulls apart with a little persuasion) 4. Painted the cable recesses and inside of the gangway.. nice and dirty 5. Painted cab window surrounds black 6. Removed OLE flashes with some thinners 7. Painted a black line down the sides of the corridor connector to resemble the joint 8. Decided that moving the windows and replacing the gangway is beyond my skills and patience.. Think that's it, still have to fit the horns and replace those daft yellow lights.. have manufacturers never heard of warm white LEDs?!? Comments / crticism welcomed! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Yes - it now looks like a 4-VEP hopefully a blue/grey one will appear at some stage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted October 12, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2011 Thoroughly VEP-like. One small suggestion - the headcode and headlights are much too bright. Wire a resistor in series to limit that? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.A.C Martin Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Terrific - only thing to do now is change the orange cantrail stripe to red, add an NSE flash on the door and it is significantly improved. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickL2008 Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Judging from the Pictures Martin, it looks a bit like a VEP.. Your mods look good, I think ill wait until the box shifters reduce the prices down to a more sensibile price, as for me £100+ for a model that requires the bodyshell to be cut etc isnt justifyable NL Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 40-something Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 You've made a great difference on the VEP, looks great! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyjcrow Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 Thanks everyone for the comments! Olddudders, I tried dimming down the LEDs by turning down the dimming function for the output on the DCC chip. No dice at all! I'm using a Lenz chip and the setting ranges from 255 to 0 - even turning it down to 4 makes no difference in brightness, it just takes a lot longer to fade on. Turning the setting down to 3 means it won't light up at all?! I guess this could be because of the circuitry designed for DC, where the lights are designed to illuminate before the train starts moving. Since the fade on is gradual at the lower dimmer settings, maybe there's some kind of capacitor charging up. I will try snipping the wires to the LED board and adding a series resistor as you suggest to see if that works. When I mod the second set, I'll post some step by step images in case that helps anyone wanting to perform their own cut 'n' shut.. the biggest difference for sure is from Gareth's mod so credit to him for being the first to dare to take a hacksaw to a brand new model! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Welly Posted October 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2011 Good idea to start a thread specifically about modifying Hornby 4VEPs, Davyjcrow! I have painted the whitemetal Dart Castings roof vents using my favourite black spraypaint from Games Workshop and dry fitted them to the roof of one of my DTCLs. The difference is enormous when you compare them side by side!! I'll use araldite to secure the vents in place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.A.C Martin Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 Good work Welly, that has made up my mind on modifying the roof on mine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyjcrow Posted October 23, 2011 Author Share Posted October 23, 2011 Welly, I thought I could live with those roof vents but maybe now.. Some more updates from me on the lighting. Fitted a 2.2k series resistor to each of the orange and yellow flying leads that go to the headcode circuit board, to try and tame the brightness a bit. If you fit the resistors close to the main roof circuit board on the wires, then the resistors will fit in the roof cavity above the main circuit board when the train is assembled. The headcode as it stands lights unevenly as Hornby have not used a proper "lens" like Bachmann did to ensure even light distribution. This can be cured by putting some diffusing material (tracing paper or actual light diffusing sheets) on the front of black cover that fits over the LED board, this also tones down the yellow from the LED itself. I also replaced the headcode blind itself, with one that I printed on inkjet paper. This was fitted inside the headcode glass. The Hornby blinds don't match up exactly with the "blanks" and these have been measured to match up better. PM me if anyone wants a copy of the PDF for the blinds! Finally, placed some blue filter over the black surround at the bottom for the headlight LED, to take out some yellow. Also placed some tracing paper between the round lens and the new square lens that I put in to represent the prototypical square headlight, to take out more yellow and tone it down a bit further. One other point to note, the coach lighting is way too strong and needs some paper putting over it to tone it down. Also Hornby have chosen to mould the coach in white plastic presumably to save a print colour, with the unpleasant side effect of the interior lighting bleeding right through the sides of the coach!! End result.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.