bigal10

And me also, Looks like another trip to Chez Steve, for a refit! At least it's a nice day out for me, Having heard the early Earth Movers at the 'Manchester Buzz Garridge' show a few weeks ago, all I can say is Want One! - No actually, I'll be wanting quite few when they come available! Keep up the good work, Charlie and crew! Regards, Alan.

2 years on, and I've just been revisiting this thread, interested in the discussion about the PICAXE modules, mention in posts 73 + 74. I see the kits are still available from Rapidonline. Has anyone ever managed to make them work on DCC? - they would look like a cost effective unit at £6+ for 4 servo drivers..... Regards, Alan.

Good news, Peter! Here's an interesting aside, - sorry if I seem to be hijacking this post, but I think some people might be interested in this phenomenon. I was just testing my own setup of ECoS and TouchCab, to make very sure I hadn't given out duff info, and decided to give the Christmas present from 'er indoors a good run. It is a Bachmann USA Alco S4 Switcher, which comes with a 'value' sound card, which is a cut-down version of Soundtraxx' full blown Tsunami. I (she!) bought this from Hattons, (good price) with a view to replacing the cheapo Tsunami with a proper full-priced, full spec jobby, from DCC supplies. The AT 100 with sound for the Alco 539T turbo diesel is the one, I am assured by Bachmann USA, and is designed to fit in a number of US narrow bonneted Alco models. I researched all the available sounds and functions, and it seems well worth the £75 asking price in the UK. In Soundtraxx' instruction manual, there is mention of startup and shutdown sounds, and indeed, their sound sample on the website does this, and is very impressive. I have experience of some US sound decoders, and they don't have startup on F0, like we do in the UK, rather, they rely on moving to speedstep 1, which invokes prime mover to start... Similarly shutdown is by winding down to speedstep 1, then to 0 which does the PM closing down, and (hopefully) pops and clicks, like we get from Pauliebanger et al.. The 'value' tsunami in the Bachmann as bought, does not do this, well, certainly not on my ECoS, it just is on, or off, although there is a mute function on F8, but the effect is the same, "on" is straight into tickover, not startup. Imagine my surprise when running a train behind the Alco, using TouchCab, and the loco stalled at a wrongly set point, when I restarted, using TouchCab, the Alco did a power up, (addimitedly, not like the full one on the website sound bite, but quite a reasonable one) Further testing using TouchCab produced a few surprises which do not happen with the ECoS, no matter how you carry out the actions, ... ECoS will not do a PM start or power down, whereas TouchCab does, every time, when you change direction. Anyone care to comment? Regards, Alan

Happy New Year to all, And a message to Peter Chrichton, and all who are bemoaning the demise of TouchCab.. When ESU did the previous but one software update, 4.1.0, i thought I had lost the ability to use TouchCab, until Kieth M put me right. There is a new setting on page 3 of the ECoS settings screen, an icon of a PC, which allows for keeping the 'legacy' PC settings, whatever that means, anyhow, it means that if you tick the box, TouchCab on IPhone still works a treat. I got a bit worried at Peter's post above, - especially as it was he, (or one of his fellow LYDCC club members) who introduced me to TouchCab in the first instance. So I checked with my latest ECoS software update of a couple of days ago, ver. 4.1.2 and it still works fine, Phew! Peter, PM me if you're still not happy. Long live Jens, and I hope he has a rethink and carries on. - I would propose that he puts a slightly higher price on the App, which would still be way below anything else. I quite fancy the ESU handheld remote, but would struggle to convince HHMBO that the outlay is justifiable for my loft setup! Regards, Alan.

Crikey, Scott, How can you live without sound? Ok, then, if not sound, what about lights, I know Prarie's were not big on lights, no kettles ever were, which is probably why I stuck mainly to big, smelly oil burners, - but think about flickering fire boxes, and real smoke... Oh yes, DCC can do all of that, and more! - most of my diesels now have cab lights that auto fade to nil, when the loco moves off.. Can't do that in DC I'll bet? Regards, Alan

Hi Sott, Welcome to the Wonderful World of Zimo, and realistic railway modelling! If you wait around long enough, i'm sure Paul will be along with the definitive answers, but in the meantime, (as one of his, and Zimo fans) I suggest that you have a look at Digitrains' website and browse through their offerings for DigitrainsSound on Zimo, and for example, the Class 20 Diesel, in ActiveDrive and read through the notes, which explains about braking on F2 These are new functions on Zimo decoders, developed by Pauliebanger, in association with Zimo, and marketed by Digitrains, and one or two others, in the UK - the usual disclaimers, I have no connection with any of the above, just a happy user! Regards, Alan.

Doh! Because some people, (and I'm one of them) just like to play about with automated things, and have a function button do it for you! Cheers, Alan.

Thanks, Fireline, Perfect, worked a treat! Needless to say, as I popped the bogie out, the other wire also fell off, so both are now re-soldered, and all is well. Onwards and ever upwards now towards rebuilding to my requirements. Regards, Alan

I am in the process of re-working the innards of my Hornby Class 31 It's a lovely model, runs well etc., but, mine is an 8-pin version, and I want to add more functions, so I have binned the original motherboard, and the elastic band driven fan, and am replacing it with an ESU 21pin MTC board and using a Zimo 644D sound decoder (thanks Paulie) and am installing Cab Lights (note to Hornby, - you SHOULD have done it!), largest speakers I can, also a motor-driven fan, and the largest Capacitors I can get in, - there's loadsa room with the original mb and fan gone! I have discovered a problem with the Hornby 31 chassis (no, not the dreaded metal fatigue / expansion, all is well with mine, so far !) Having removed the original motherboard, and the elastic band driven Fan, (which has been replaced by ex-servo motor, and works very well, on F14 Compressor, at present, but open to options Paulie?) I now seem to have dislodged one of the power feed wires from one bogie, and cannot see how to remove the bogie to re-solder the wire. - Any suggestions? With the mb and the fan gone, I can see what looks like a retaining screw for each bogie through the chassis, but the head of the screw seems to be hidden under the Cardan drive shaft. It would appear that the only way to remove the Cardan shafts, is to remove the motor, and presumably the shafts will pop out with the motor. Any thoughts / suggestions? I promise to laugh at the "bloody idiot, don't do it again" ones! I could add photos if it would help. Thanks in advance, Alan. ​

I visited Digitrains yesterday, Wednesday 11/11/15, to have my 00 guage Bachmann 20 reblown to Paul's new active drive scheme, and it's wonderful, thanks again Paul! Whilst I was there, Jeremy was keen to show the Farish N guage 66, which they have just done, and put the YouTube video elsewhere on this forum. It's also quite amazing, from a sound perspective. The speaker is a bog standard sugar cube, no mods, but placed in #1 end, with the cab floor and desk removed, - the lights still work fine, and as the speaker is black, and the loco is weathered, there's not much to see in the cab anyway. A great effort from all concerned, Regards, Alan.

Bloody Hell ! It's got full lighting as well, Paul, please tell me it's got cab lights too ! Why can't Bachmann manage all that in 00 ? Alan

Hmmmm... Tried both momentary, and latched, and not quite sure if I can tell any difference, it may be very subtle, I'll have to keep playing! Whatever the outcome, I still really like the sounds on the Howes chip, and the shuffle (or Waltz in Zimo land) is the icing on the cake! I must persevere with my other LS4's and see if I can get them to work. Alan.

Ken, Ooh... I must try that on a momentary setting... Alan

I spoke to Howes yesterday, and their sound guy, Brian talked me through a workaround for the Class 23 Baby Deltic. My controller is ECoS 50200 so I have the uncoupler routine assigned to F16 and in latched mode, so I have to disengage once the operation is finished. So the workaround is... Once the loco is sitting at idle, a quick double press of the chosen F key (in my case, F16) followed by a latched press makes the 23 do what it should, ie: Engine ramp up, slight forward move, stop, reverse, stop, engine back to tickover. One slight caveat, it only seems to work like that once, - subsequent tries are a bit random. Brian, any thoughts?..... Regards, Alan

I've been following this with great interest, and managed to get 1 of my 3 LS4's to perform the dance. (Pauliebanger tells me that Zimo call theirs the 'Coupler Waltz' as they're from Vienna !) My 1 success is on a recent LS4 re-blow by Howes for Class 23 Baby Deltic which is in a Heljan 23. The Howes file has Aux 1 on F14, and Aux 2 on F15, which I want to keep for future use for Cab Lighting. As there was nothing on F16, and would be visible on my ECoS 50200 screen, following what Ken had done and noting how he modified the CV's for different F-keys, I deduced that the CV's are placed 16 digits apart, so I tried CV348=8 for F16, and it worked perfectly. Thanks to all for the 'Heads up' on this feature. I wondered if there was further room for modification... My Class 23 sits still, with it's magnificent half Deltic humming away nicely, then when you engage the F16 key, the loco moves in reverse for the given distance/time, THEN the Prime Mover ramps up ! - which to me doesn't seem right, I would like to get the PM to ramp up, THEN the loco reverse a bit. - The rest of the shuffle is perfect, the stop, change direction, move forward, stop, engine settle back to tickover. All without the lights changing ends, perfect! And suggestions, folks? Regards Alan.

This is very timely for me! By pure fluke, a couple of days ago I noticed that 2 of my Bachmann coaches, both Pulman diners, with lamps on the tables, had partially died. On each coach, only one row of lamps are lit, and the all the others are out. The coaches are about 3 years old and have been sitting on the DCC layout all the time. I took the body off the Blood and Custard one to investigate, but the wiring prevents any further movement of the seating. There appears to be a set of capacitors hidden in the 'toilet block' at each end, and I presume something has expired? The dead lights are all at one end, and yet the pair that still work, get power from either bogie. Any suggestions? Regards, Alan.

Ooh! This is sounding good! - pun intended.. Maybe your new speaker find could work in other loco's ? Keep us all advised, I can feel there will be a lot of interest. I've just put a YouChoos re-blow into my new Baby Deltic, and with a standard sugarCube inside, and a larger sugarCube in the tank, I suddenly got introduced to the world of Napier! And I remembered Charlie's musings on the twin-engined jobby.. And I'm thinking... Birthday present to self looming... Regards, Alan

I assume the World Tour will be taking in both Wigan and Gaydon in October? I would dearly like to hear (and see) your recent mods to the Deltic (class 55) Will it be on demo at these venues? Regards, Alan

Hi Paul, Is your revised project for "early DMU" available at 15 Clifton Street? I'm planning a trip to your fair city tomorrow, for a new 644D plus a couple of reblows. Regards, Alan

Hi Charlie, You may have just answered a few questions I was about to ask you, Does that same setup apply to the new Bachmann 101 ? What other speakers would fit in the 101, I was thinking about the superb Alan Butcher that you sold me for the Heljan 26 with resin 'tanks' ? On the basis that the ESU speaker is shallower than the ABS, I assume that the seating will go back in as per the 150, with your resin enclosure, but not with a deeper (but nicer, bassier, sound) speaker like the ABS? I've just watched Hornby Mag's review video of Howes' LS4 in the Bachmann 101, which is OK-ish but a bit 'thin' sounding (although that might be the recording equipment used, and certainly not my Bose surround sound system with mega Sub,) please tell me that Biff's is much better? Regards, Alan

I'm with SRMAN on the soldering AWAY from the decoder, I usually put tiny 2-pin plugs in the middle of my speaker connection leads, (so that I can do test swaps on various speakers), but I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, and ALWAYS use heatshrink over the connections to avoid electrical shorts,- it's so easy to use, and you can get multitudinous colours from the likes of DCC supplies or Rapid Online, and yards of the stuff only costs a few Bob, - use of different colours is essential to make sure you get polarity right, if, like me, you use more than one speaker in a loco! And,... To BR(S) C'mon, don't just leave us hangin',... Show us some pictures of your Bass-Enhanced speaker in the 150, it sounds (pun intended) as if its just what I came here for today, to improve what Madam (oops, sorry, I mean Santa) gave me yesterday, a super new Bachmann 101 DMU. First impressions look as if Charley Petty's new "Resin enclosure for Bachmann" will also be a contender, with a decent Alan Butcher speaker. What speaker did you fit, BR(S)? Regards, and a belated Happy Chrimbo to all.. Alan.

Hi Steve and All, Just started reading this excellent topic, (AFTER I started on my own use of servos using SwitchPilot / SwitchPilot Servo) Thanks to Steve for the brilliant photos and videos, I saw your lovely Liverpool signal gantry being demo'd at Warley last year, and had a brilliant chat with your fellow club-member (and near neighbour of mine) who was demonstrating the use of servos with the GF unit. This got me started doing my own, and having loads of fun, - and some tearing of what-remains-of-my-hair out ! Just to add my 2-penn'orth to some recent replies here regarding noise from the servos, I started out using TowerPro SG90's which are great and do 'everything it says on the box' but can be quite noisy in operation, as mine are mounted directly under the 9mm MDF baseboard, which of course acts as a brilliant sounding board! However SG90's are a vast improvement over Peco and Seep, both in terms of noise, and in my opinion, the operation, which can be very slow if required, and more importantly move the point blades to exactly where you want them, and then lock solid in position. I'm currently working on a motorised TensionLock uncoupling ramp, which I have shown on another thread, using a servo, and made simply from plasticard and plastic tubing, and, using SWP Extension have placed an indicator lamp near the ramp, to show when it is in the up position. In one of Steve's earlier posts in this thread, you mention that you've tried various different servo's, so I have shopped around and found E-Sky (at RC Mods in Waterfoot) which are very quiet, even on my 'MDF soundbox' The E-Sky is a bit more expensive than the TowerPro but as it is 'digital' it is very controllable from ECoS with SWP Servo. Keep up the good work, and Steve, don't eat too many of Baxenden's best export! Regards, Alan