Izzy

An alternative to a 3-point gauge is a slab one. Will do the same job. Just a rectangle of thickish material with the diemensions based around the 3-point, which in itself is an Isosceles triangle. Much cheaper to make, for while investing in a 3-point seems worthwhile if you've lots of tightly curved track to make for just a short length it does seem overkill at £25. It can also be used at a normal gauge check when used horizontally or vertically. Bob

Do you have one of these you no longer expect to make and would like to sell please ? Bob

Oh that's a shame. I've an older Sprog II needing the special USB drivers and have had some problems with Win 11 but a Sprog upgrade has solved that now. I still think it's quite probably the best piece of DCC equipment I've bought especially seeing as how it can also be used as a standalone DCC command station if needed. There's a very helpful group for Sprog DCC on Groups.io and Andrew Crosland is most helpful with any issues you have with them if you contact him. Bob

If you like having a separate programming track and have a laptop you can use when doing so them might I suggest getting a Sprog. You’d only need a Sprog II so not too expensive but it takes all the hassle out of it, no messing with cv’s, well unless you want to. With JMRI/decoder pro the graphical interface makes it easy and the loco roster means you can keep records of all the locos. Bob

Absolutely beautiful work as always Nick, quite stunning really. Don't know if it might give you a any ideas on the drawbar front but with my recent Royal Scot I re-worked things (as I did with several aspects) and set it underneath on a shouldered bolt. This allowed the drawbar hole to be turned into a sideways slot for a bit more movement around curves. It doesn't look too bad and nothing really shows in normal use. As the tender is plastic I also tried out those larger 25v tantalums (4x 220), which without the zener in the mix seem to work quite okay and of course shouldn't go pop and melt it! Looking forward to seeing the body on. Bob

In my experience far less tolerant as has been said, and unless you use decoders with the best motor control, I.e. Zimo, then usually worse slow speed performance. Only ever having the space for small layouts I went DCC in the first place simply for the advantage of no sections and being able to move one loco right up to another, important when track space is at a premium. Had I known what I know now, and considering the very large costs involved, I would find it hard to decide whether I would choose it again. But once down the rabbit hole, and with all my stock now fitted in all scales, there is no point going back. Bob

Glad you got it sorted and running. The decoder appears to be by Gaugemaster going by the sleeve covering on it. Bob

I think in this case as they say, a photo would speak a thousand words, if the Captain were able to provide one. Bob

The standard wiring for a hardwired decoder is the black and red wires connect to the pickups/track and the grey and orange wires go to the motor. As has been said un-soldering all these connections so the decoder can be sold on seems best. Then just connect between the pickups and motor as you normally would. Bob p.s. most decoders can run on DC, but this ability can be turned off, which might be what has happened here. You do need a DCC system to be able to re-set this so awkward if not.

I don't know what era you intend cover but when track centre measurements are discussed bear in mind that those oft quoted are the minimum distances specified and in a lot of cases they will be more/wider. You also have to alow for the fact that quite a bit of RTR N gauge stock is over-width in one way or another, like the outside cranks on Farish 08's for example. Or the tender steps on quite a few steam locos. They can therefore catch on such as ground signals placed in the 6 foot or on platforms, so due allowance must be made for such aspects. Templot does allow you to specify the exact track centres you want. The basic minimum standards are of course 11'2" between lines and 15'2" between pairs of them. The latter is also the spacing between running lines and sidings and allows the placement of such as signals in the distance between them in either case. So when you generate the track plan in Templot, using I guess the N option, then the full size track plan you are using should only be considered as a guide as scaled down it might not be that accurate in such matters and extra distance might be needed for the reasons stated as well. Bob

A Railroad Class 31 re-motor On the first page of this thread I described the conversion to P4 of a Hornby Railroad Class 31 along with some body improvements. Although it was okay performance-wise it wasn’t brilliant at slow speed which was what was needed for my small plank type shunting layout. So last year I managed to obtain a ‘full fat’ mazak rot version (5512) at a decent price. The intention had been to take out the motor and drive parts along with the bogies and transplant them into the railroad one as others have done. However I found that the body & chassis damage was quite minimal, very minor cracking of the cabs which could be cured by re-gluing, while cleanly cutting off the front bufferbeam sections from the chassis and fitting them to the body instead meant the whole loco could be used since the main chassis seemed totally unaffected by the rot. The chassis had just failed at the weakest, thinnest point, the front part under the cabs which includes those bufferbeams. All I had to do was then machine the wheels to run on P4 track and it was job done. I did however remove and ditch all that rotating fan gubbins to provide plenty of space for the speaker and decoders and also ditched the circuit board as the lighting connection parts had failed. I could have re-wired it all but wasn’t bothered about the lights, not ever using them. It is always something I can re-visit in the future and sort if desired at any time. The TTS sound decoder was moved over to the new loco but was found not to control it very well. Eventually I did another ‘piggy back’ job as I have with several other diesels using TTS chips and used a spare Lenz silver mini to control the loco with the TTS just providing the sound. This then meant the original railroad model was spare and no longer needed. Recently I decided to try and sell it on the RMweb classifieds. No sooner had I listed it than while giving it a final run before packing it up ready should a buyer emerge than the motor just packed up, went completely dead. In hindsight perhaps this had been on the cards without me realising as the slow speed running had been getting worse. So I then of course withdrew the loco from sale. This left a dead and useless loco. I did consider trying to sell it as it stood, needing a new motor, which can easily be obtained from such as Peter’s spares. But I was also intrigued as to why the motor had failed, and why the loco didn’t run better than it had. Had I got one that had a less than perfect motor to begin with, was that why performance was not as good as I had hoped? Or was this just basically railroad standards? I had no way of knowing and didn’t feel I wanted to buy another motor myself if the latter was the case. It would just be more money down the drain. I also had lots of spare Mitsumi double-shafted motors and wondered if perhaps I could re-motor it with one of those. An experiment to see what kind of performance emerged. This would mean removing the worms on the dead motor. It proved impossible to get them off. A really tight fit on the shafts and no room to get sufficient support between the back of the worms and the motor body to tap them off with a drift. Since the motor was dead I eventually got a diamond needle file in the gaps and cut the shafts off, then being able to tap the remaining sections out of the bores. At this stage I discovered a few things. Firstly, on stripping down the motor I found it was well made, decent commutator brushes and with a large 5-pole skewed armature. The magnets are very strong but why it cogged so badly I still can’t work out nor why it needed a feedback controller to run slowly on DC, because it shouldn’t have given the spec. Nor could I find any reason why it had failed. Hm. Then I noticed something else that I’d missed before. The gears in the motor bogie are large tooth, roughly 42dp, and with 16 tooth spur gears. I had thus assumed the gearing was 16-1, okay for a diesel with small wheels although a higher ratio would have been better for slow running. However I was wrong, because I had missed that the brass worms were two start and not the normal and common single start worms that are used. So the gearing was actually only 8-1. Jeez, quite ridiculous. This kind of gearing ratio was quite common in days of yore with large and heavy current draw slow running motors but a bit silly now. This helped explain the often coggy, jerky, slow speed running I’d got and I was very glad I had not got another railroad motor/gears combination to replace the failed one. So, what now? Well, if I could find some single start worms to go with a Mitsumi motor I might have a solution. As luck would have it I did have some suitable worms, from a distant time when I produced worm gear sets for O gauge in a couple of different sizes, 42dp and 50dp. With a couple of 42dp worms on the shafts the Mitsumi motor fitted nicely into the space and plasticard was used to place the motor in the correct position for meshing with the spur gears. Once it was all wired up I found the performance far, far better. Decent slow speed running with the simplest DC controller. Had I tried this motor conversion before obtaining the full fat model I most probably wouldn’t have bothered. It just never occurred to me but would have if I had spotted the low 8-1 gear reduction which would have set alarm bells ringing. So that’s the loco back up and running nicely but it is still now surplus to requirements so perhaps I will again try selling it. Bob

I now lay track with d/s tape. It takes especially well on cork, not sure how well straight onto ply, but can still be lifted if problems arise. I usually wire up and run it for a while before attempting ballasting just to make sure. Bob

Such as Loctite 601 aren’t really capillary type glues. You coat the part/s, say the axle, and then insert it into the bore. It takes a while to fully cure. Plenty of time to undertake quartering. Another use is for retaining worms on motor shafts. By twisting the worm on the shaft it enables the glue to ensure the worm fits true and concentric. Of course it’s important not to get it anywhere near parts that will move, bearings and so forth. Application of heat, say from a soldering iron, will break a joint, if the materials are of course both metal…. As an anaerobic glue it never goes off in the bottle. The one given to me by my father-in-law some 30 years ago is still in use. It was a fairly large one on account of it being one given to him by Loctite when he did some testing for them. I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say that as the works director of a large boilermakers the tests he carried out involved fairly large lumps of metal and the tale he told involved a 100t SWL overhead crane which he joked nearly came down when he tried to part two bits joined by it (601). So it’s useful (his words) for doing odd jobs such as retaining wheels on axles when an interference fit is not obtained Bob

View Advert Class 31 to P4 (can be altered to EM/OO) This is a railroad class 31 which has been 'upgraded' in various ways. New wire handrails for cab and roof. Cab interiors plus crew. Full bufferbeam details. It has 'goalposts' for use with Sprat & Winkle couplings. It currently has re-machined Hornby wheelsets set for use on P4 track but I can, if the purchaser prefers, re-set these for use on either EM or OO gauge. Due to recent motor failure it has now been re-motored with a Mitsumi & single start worms giving a higher gear ratio and far better slow speed performance with any DC controller. It is 8-pin DCC ready for use on DCC. More details on request. There are several posts about it here: Advertiser Izzy Date 30/04/23 Price £85 Category OO / 4mm scale  

I have to say that when I built my 2mm model I never really ever expected to see a RTR model produced. The rigging is perhaps the biggest challenge. It does allow a nice maintenance train to be run. Bob

If they are that would be a shame, but perhaps not unexpected given the current general component shortage. I remember paying £35-40 for Lenz decoders a decade or more ago. The MX600’s are still being produced at present in small batches at £25. TBH unless the HM7000’s motor control improves an awful lot they will IMHO still be expensive compared to Zimo. My diesel TTS are great for what I paid for them, when they suit the particular motor and gearing the loco has, the couple of steam I tried a waste of money given the lack of wheel synchronisation. My ‘full-fat’ steam on Zimo’s I find worth the money despite the far greater cost. Each to their own I suppose for I have zero interest in Bluetooth etc. Full marks to Hornby for trying to give specifically Hornby users these decoders but given how the previous attempts at Bluetooth have gone I’m not sure they will have quite the impact others believe. But I do expect more retailers to offer pre-sound loaded decoders to those who don’t what the bother/ haven’t the equipment to set them up themselves. From that perspective of stock management, just one type of chip of each socket fitting to stock, must be a big advantage both to Hornby and their retailers. Bob

Ah yes, sorry for the mis-direction. I’m so used to using my Sprog/decoder pro for initial setting up that I forgot that. Apologies. Bob

Not quite totally off the workbench yet, a few bits yet to do now running trials have been completed, but as I was doing some shots of other rolling stock I thought I'd take one of it. Re-built Royal Scot 46100. The reason why I've made it revolves around historical family history. My maternal great grandfather William Jackson regularly drove the Royal Scot out of Carlise while his brother John Jackson is named on the commemorative nameplate 6100 has carried since it's tour of North America in 1933 in which he participated as lead fireman (even though he was also a driver). They are Farish bodies on the nice chassis Nigel Hunt produced (couldn't have contemplated doing it otherwise). Bob

The poor placement of the lining and lettering is just indication of sloppy factory assembly since they will be applied/printed with the body in a tool for accurate placement and alignment. With regard to the nose-down issue and taking this into account alongside study of the photos posted I’m just wondering if the problem is the the bogie’s have been fitted upside down in the chassis? How is the bogie fitted? With a screw? Anyone with one care to check and try reversing it? Dapol would be grateful no doubt if this is the case….. Bob

Are you trying to read CV8? You can't do this, only write instructions to it. That is why it will return an error message and 'can't read CV'. Bob

“To Izzy , it runs sweet on dc, sounds work too but pop it on dcc and nothing happens, tried resetting to 3 but it won’t work”. I’m afraid I know nothing about how the Z21 works, @WIMorrison will sort that for you, being ever helpful with them, but all my equipment needs me to input the current decoder address before I can change it to another. This might be why you cannot do a re-set to the default address of 3. I still think the decoder is probably okay. It’s quite possible it’s been ‘locked’, either by design or accident. This could be another reason why you are struggling with it. You’ll appreciate that there are so many possible scenarios that when things like this happen trying to work out the solution can be difficult at distance. Bob

If the junction trackwork is to match finetrax then I would suggest that soldered track via 2mm association parts will be the way to go, possibly using etched chairplates to save messing around with different rail heights. The late Keith Armes used to offer bespoke track made to 2mm & N gauge but I don’t know if anyone does now. Have to say those points at the junction look to be quite sharp compared with the others visible, something perhaps to double-check before construction commences. Quite apart from doing it all in N and keeping the flangeway gaps down to a reasonable level I think it will be fun working out the wiring ……. Bob

If the decoder runs okay under DC my first thought would be, what address are you trying to use with it? Could it somehow have been changed from what you believe it to be? If you can’t read it to confirm what it is then while it doesn’t need one for DC that might be the issue under DCC. Bob

Well, I've got my converted Jinty, 4F, and Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0 around radius down to 300mm/12" but that's because they were N gauge and designed to get around small radius in the first place so have narrower than standard frames/chassis than is normally used in 2mm/2FS. I've also managed to get my N7 0-6-2T to do the same by dint of allowing the maximum sideplay on all the coupled axles as well as the pony truck. The real locos had narrowed rear frames for the radial/pony truck for the self same reasons in real life. So as per @bécasse post it's down to dealing with each particular loco on an individual basis. I'm about to start building a LNER/BR Thompson L1 2-6-4T which will have to get around at least 450mm so I assume that it will be a case of allowing the rear bogie to have controlled side movement at it's pivot point. It really is a case of experimenting to see what's possible. Obviously if you intend to use tighter than normal radius as I said before using the maximum gauge widening you can will be a big help. You can actually do bespoke widening which is considerably more than the 3-point gauge will give. I'll have to double-check what I did but I think you can set the gauge to 9.7mm before the wheels drop between. With locos with larger diameter wheels such as steamers it's not so much the sideplay that's the ultimate issue but the angle at which the leading edge of the flange strikes the rail head which becomes the limiting factor (causes the wheel to want to ride up the side of the rail and thus derail). Bob

Can I just say a big thank you to everybody that posted photos of both the layouts and the goings on. For those of us no longer able to get to gatherings of any kind it does make you feel as if you are joining in and not so remote from everything. Looks like a great selection of inspiring layouts were present as well which is a real bonus. Bob