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Howes DCC sound for Bachmann Midland Blue Pullman


Cliff Williams

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  • 1 month later...

Just a note to say that I've uploaded a couple of quick short videos of a Howes Sound DCC-fitted Blue Pullman here:

 

 

and here:

 

 

It also appears in this compilation here (should anyone be interested):

 

 

Apologies for the general quality (!) Cecil Beaton has nothing to worry about (or would if he was still alive, for the pedants.. *cough*)

 

Anyway, it has a sound decoder in both power cars. Fitting it was very quick and easy (thanks to the Howes link from this site, and those who have contributed posts about how to get into the power cars, seeing as the instructions fail to mention two retaining clips.

 

I just need to populate the train now, and do some light weathering....

 

Mel

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  • 5 months later...

I've just had a failure of the A car. Sound is OK but it will not accelerate. It seems to be in shunt mode. Before I send it to Bachmann for a mechanical check, could it be a problem with the Howes chip? I've tried a CV08 reset but it has not helped.

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I've just had a failure of the A car. Sound is OK but it will not accelerate. It seems to be in shunt mode. Before I send it to Bachmann for a mechanical check, could it be a problem with the Howes chip? I've tried a CV08 reset but it has not helped.

 

i'll alert bryan to the problem, hold off sending it back!!

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OK I've tried the F decoder in the A car and I can confirm the problem is mechanical. The motor is "straining" to get power to the wheels. This sounds like a drive-train problem to me so its going to Bachmann.

 

Cheers

 

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

UPDATE

 

Bachmann returned it to me on Tuesday (22 July) saying there was nothing wrong and that it had been thoroughly tested. Ran it on my DC rolling road with the DC blanking plug for fitted and it was OK.  Then I installed the sound chip and its been on the DCC rolling road for 2 hours with full sound etc. So far so good. Quick question, is advisable to run a sound decoder at full throttle for 2 hours? I ask this the chip seems to get very warm.

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UPDATE

 

Bachmann returned it to me on Tuesday (22 July) saying there was nothing wrong and that it had been thoroughly tested. Ran it on my DC rolling road with the DC blanking plug for fitted and it was OK.  Then I installed the sound chip and its been on the DCC rolling road for 2 hours with full sound etc. So far so good. Quick question, is advisable to run a sound decoder at full throttle for 2 hours? I ask this the chip seems to get very warm.

 

The strict answer is no but these chips do run hot and have safeguards to prevent burn out or damage. All chips run quite warm and many moons ago i got a Lenz 100 standard to cut out thermally after about 15 minutes on full chat. My fault really using a large blob of Blu Tac as a weight and as a fixing for the chip buried in it.

 

Just so long as the decoder is operating in the open inside the bodywork, all should be well

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