Frank Sharp

I've found out on the intenet that the BR shed code system was based on or an expansion of the LMS method. I know BR locos carried their codes on small oval plates usually mounted on the lower half of the smokebox door. I haven't picked this out on photos of locos in the prewar LMS era. Does anyone know where and how the LMS put its codes on their locos, particularly interested in late 1930s. Thanks Frank

Even with the mainline stock with buffers you do get coupling shafts, two different lengths. I assume the shorter one fits the suburban bufferless stock so maybe the longer one will do the buffered version. There's also a cable link which won't be wanted until the electrically lit versions come out.

Alex turned up yeterday. It has only been tried on a foot of track and a rolling road but runs fine. It will be renamed and needs a crew. To the latter end, has anyone managed to remove the cab, there are lots of screws under the footplate edge.

Thanks to Kevin Martin, Constructor review explains all I need to know.

You are getting a reading of 7 volts, almost certainly one of the rectifier diodes as gone and you are effectivley getting half wave rectification. I've fixed 3 various Gaugemaster controllers at shows with the same problem. None of them belonging to our layout! It may be that something else has gone in the circuit and is overloading the diodes, but a new set of 4 diodes, try 3amp versions, even at show prices will only be about 60p

I have bought an old Compspeed Rambler Minor. Push button control on a hand controller and the purpose of the buttons is clearly marked on the front. Once I got all the pins on the DIN connector extended to the same length it works. However there is a slide switch on the top which appears to be original but it doesn't seem to have any obvious effect. Anyone one still using one of these and knows what the switch does or is supposed to do please?

Modelex, standard controller good for 2.5 amps but they do a 3.5 as well. Bit of an odd shape if used as a handheld but I see quite a few at exhibitions.

Towards the end of their trading Kent Panel Controls produced a Kentrol Controller. There were modules you could add to it. I have the fine control but I'm looking fot the Inertia/Momentum module and the hand control module, I have a hand controller but not what it plugs into.

Moonraking Red, I have one of these apart at the moment. There is a transformer with two separate windings and two otherwise not connected printed circuit boards. They should therefore run common return without a problem. The terminals marked c are for adding an add on hand controller. I now have two but no wiring diagram, that's why I have the case open. The HCs are quite crude in so far as they handle reversing. There are 12 wires but 8 are paired to become 4 and that's to handle the two amp output to the reversing switch on the HC, you take power out of the box connections, to the HC reversing switch and back to a new connector and to the track. As far as I can see the 4 other wires must go to the AC out and to C C, but as yet I haven't had time to sort out what goes where. Once I've sorted that out I'll put a DPDT relay in the box and a 6 wire connector to a plug and socket on the case, it will be a lot neater. The Orbit has a output of two amps, it really needs 16 0.2 wiring not the usual 7 0.2. 12th Feb 2022 I've now sorted this, so more info which might help someone else. Be wary, I have several of these dual track controllers and they aren't all alike. I have seen a hand controller on Worthpoint that terminates in a DIN connector. On the back of the controller are a set of connectors of the chocolate block screw up type. Looking at it from the back, starting on the left. First pair are controlled output from the knob at that end. The second pair, black and white are marked CC for the hand controller but read on. Third pair are usually empty. Fourth pair are brown and blue AC from the winding on the transformer that powers the RH end as we look at it from the back. Fifth pair marked CC again black and white are for the hand controller at that end and finally the power out from that end. If you have the hand controller that I have, it terminates in wires as I've said above. the paired wires go into the switch on the hand controller, you should be able to work out which come from the power out on the box and which should go back to another connector to feed the track. The black and white wires that come out of the box into the connector connect to the black and white wires going to the hand controller. The brown and blue are 16 V AC and it doesn't matter which way you connect them to the hand controller. If you want a hand controller on each output you will need to go into the box and connect a brown and blue wire for the left hand side. You will need a 1 amp thermal overload. One end of that overload floats, see how it has been done on the existing side. I've found that I cannot properly turn off the hand control, the motor keeps running slowly. The circuit is I think picking up enough voltage by induction to trigger the transistor. The cure is to connect a 1 MEGA OHM resistor between the white and black wires in the hand controller to sink this voltage. I've fitted DPDT relays in the box, driven by another transformer, twin windings 6 volt 3VA total. So all I have on the back now are connectors for the output and two 6 pin sockets into which the hand controllers plug on 6 core 7 0.2 wander leads. As the track power is switched internally by relays I don't have any heavy wire outside the box. Hope this has helped someone

A long time 'late' but I've just obtained one and had to work out the wiring. There are stupidly small numbers etch into the circuit board that show under the connectors on the outside of the body. However if you count from the top left hand side. 1 and 2 are 16v AC in. with the selector set to 1, the black button works no 15 and the red button no 3 set 2 Black 14 Red 4 set 3 Black 13 Red 5 set 4 Black 12 Red 6 set 5 Black 11 Red 7 set 6 Black 10 Red 8 which leaves No 9 which is the return from all the point motors 9 is connected internally to 2 If you have to run it on DC which should work, connect DC positive to 1, DC negative to 2 Hope it helps someone I should mention that it isn't just a selector, it is a Capacitor Discharge unit

Gaugemaster do seem to have sewn up the controller market. Morley seem to be their main competitor but their controller had a centre off and no direction switch. In effect with a reversing switch as Gaugemaster you get 270 degrees of rotation but with Morley only 135 degrees each way, which just makes dropping on exactly the right speed setting that bit more difficult. Avoid anything with feedback that you cannot turn off. Coreless motors are becoming more common and feedback is usually not recommended with FB. I collect controllers, there were umpteen clever electronic ones using chips which were never intended for model raiways. Some are great but it is noticable that Gaugemaster and I think Morley are back on discret e components (transistors/capacitors/diodes/resistors. Momentum is fun on a really big layout or garden but you will probably soon tire of it.

I've fitted one of the 'computer' motors into a Lima diesel chassis. It is actually under a Sierra Leone/Welshpool 2-6-2. Formerly it had two speeds, stopped and rocket. The new motor has made virtually no difference except that now it has some degree of controllability provided you use feed back. Mercian do/did a Fowler Dock tank, an 0-6-0 but the coupled wheelbase is within a fraction of a millimetre so that will be the basis of two others I have to make......sometime. Incidentally that means it will do Russell.

I collect old controllers. I've just bought on e-bay several ECM block modules which plug into 11 pin sockets (I think). The vendor says there are no sockets which isn't a problem, I can buy them. He also says he has no instructions. I can probably open one up and try to work it out, but it will be easier if anyone still has instructions and could scan them please. Thanks

Hornby did this with Rails. Rails announced a Terrier and Hornby quietly did theirs to arrive just before. Whether that's co-incidence or an active policy to stop the dealers from becoming manufacturers only time will tell. In this case of the coaches Hornby could have complimented rather than rivalled by producing a similar set but of Victorian/Edwardian bogie coaches. Now we've got these coming what locos are there that would look right pulling them. Terrier, Beattie Well tank suitably back dated, Dean Goods, but very few. It has been a boom year for hobbies as we cannot go out and some still have money coming in. Bear in mind that all this money the government is spending will have to be recovered, that means more tax, less disposable income. Hornby and others are riding a fragile bubble.

One from the archives. I have two Doverbeck Dynacontrollers. They are for panel mounting and are about 16 inches long and about 6 inches high. There are more knobs and switches than a spaceship, but the main controls, regulator and braking are big red handles. The panel is huge, just the thing to impress your mates. Input and output is a long row of grey 'chocolate block', far more than needed for AC in and DC out. It is according to front pulse width modulation. This is a long shot, but before I try to connect it up and make it smoke does anyone recognise the description, know how to wire it or even have the instructions? Frank

Mike Sharman apparently claimed to have water columns for every railway but someone said he didn't do Tibet Railways. So as a joke he did. These have a leg in doublet and hose and a wooden leg as a base and a delivery arm with a dragons head. With a replacement lower column they are just the thing for narrow gauge!

BR 60103, David, Thanks, exactly what I needed, now all I have to do is go through half a dozen big boxes until I find it! I print new facias using Photoshop and laminate with an adhesive backing. Saving the file turned up a fascia for the all in one version. That means I must have at least one as the style is clearly lifted (scanned) from an original. I wonder where that is? I've lived in this house in the middle of a field for seventy years. For nearly half that time we hadn't a proper road in so you brought in what you needed but never took anything away. The habit remains, heaven help my executors! Frank

I have been resurrecting some Codar Controllers which are probably 40 years old. There were several versions. These are panel mounting in a very basic folded aluminium case. On each end at the back are pairs of screw connections. These were so you could add on a inertia / braking rotary switch. Somewhere I have one of these if I can find it. However I haven't the diagram or instructions on how to wire it in. Please does someone have the instructions? There's no point in me posting pictures of the controllers, I bought them S/H and they'd been somewhere damp and the aluminium face plates were quite corroded so I've rubbed them back to bare metal and made new facias. They are now fuchsia in colour! I have a small collection of similar dated controllers, you wouldn't believe the number of different ideas that were tried to get good slow running out of fairly indifferent motors. Some of them relied on the motor to sink the last bit of power and never truly turned down to zero output. Modern motors like Mashimas won't stop! There's a wiring diagram of a Codar on this site but it isn't what I've got!

Peter, Long forgotten this thread and turned it up looking for something else. Bimetal strip cutouts aren't as sensitive and once reset aren't bothered by remembering that they've recently been tripped. I'd go with the 1.1 amp. If you go too high you risk burning out the electronics. Usually that's the four diodes that make up the rectifier. Usually they are just 1 amp. I've repaired a few at shows in the past, usually with 3 amp diodes which almost makes them bomb proof.

Just spotted this looking for gen on Townsend Hook. So just for completeness, my version. The Dioscuri were the Greek equivalent of Gemini, the heavenly twins. The pink book mentioned by Andrew I've just ordered for a fiver, there is another at £87! For TH I'm thinking Alan Gibson frames and coupling rods, High Level gear box, Mashima and a flywheel. THis is my first go at posting anything, so anything might happen. Frank Frank.

Simon, Just dropped on this, hope it isn’t too late to be of help You are on the right track. I assume that like all modern controllers this unit doesn’t have a bimetal strip cutout that is either on or off but a device called a polyswitch. These are cheaper than the old cutouts, but very fast acting, won’t reset or try to reset until the fault is cleared and very sensitive. Even if your controller is nominally good for one amp, and you check an older loco and find that it draws 0.75 when running, it might draw fractionally over one amp as the motor starts, that’s enough to set a polyswitch to action. The switch, and there’s no ‘moving’ parts in it, sees the overload and raises its resistance, now it is drawing not only the current wanted by the running motor but that needed by its own higher resistance, so it warms more, resistance increases and eventually goes high resistance. As you say, a few seconds delay, and not a sharp shut down. I’ve had the same with Athearn motors. Though a polyswitch reset with a low amp motor takes a few seconds, in fact they take hours to properly reset and can be very sensitive during that time. I’m coming to a belief that they also become more sensitive with age. Cure. Disconnect mains, open up controller. You are looking for a yellow disc, rarely a square with two wires, egg yolk coloured . It should be somewhere either on the 16V AC feed from transformer to the control, or more usually before or after the 4 rectifier diodes. Black cylinders with silver bands. The controller instructions should say what the controller is designed to deliver. You can replace the polyswitch with an old style bimetal strip type. If the controller is intended to give 1 amp, get one that trips at 1.2. Squires or Rapidonline will have them, All components may also have them. You'll have to watch for overloads and do something about them straight away whereas the polyswitches wouldn't reset until faults were cleared. If you or someone at the club knows what they are doing it is possible to wire polyswich and bimetal strip on parallel with a switch to select between the sensitive (polyswitch) or robust (thermal)overloads. Frank