Quatford

not good news, but at least it’s happened sooner than later and you have been able to return it to Hattons. Will you be having a replacement or cancelling it? if you do get a replacement your welcome to run it on mine or my mates layout.

hi kiwitrains, I’m in Halls Head, had exactly the same problems with my FS plus the issue with the rods becoming detached when running in. I also had the A4 on pre order but in the end dispute the hassle of re packing it, sent it back to Hattons for full refund which they did within 48hrs of its arrival plus a full refund on return postage, some $98.00. Can’t fault their service. I have also cancelled the A4 for the time being.

Any photo yet of your rebuilt / cosmetic upgraded FS/

The marks on the smoke box appear on a few models and pictures I’ve seen of versions fitted with deflectors, but on the non smoke deflector versions there are no marks , so is this an assembly issue, or tooling error ??

Hattons have again impressed me with their handling of my returned locomotive, posted it back from WA Australia Monday, funds back in my account Thursday model arrived with one smoke deflector broken off and one side cab window, easy repair, but once the model was out of the box, which is not that easy, I noted marks on the smoke box and the top of the boiler showed a seam line which on other models does not show. 5 mins on the rolling road the front pin on the rods fell out and jammed the valve gear solid. The chimney moulding was also damaged / faulty mould where it attached to the smoke box.

Hattons have again impressed me with their handling of my returned locomotive, posted it back from WA Australia Monday, funds back in my account Thursday.

Thanks for the link pH and thanks Jeff for the photo, not seen that one before. Looks like I might need to enlarge the opening on the model to match.

Thanks Jeff. The “local” birds are in fact canaries in Ralph’s aviary, I don’t think they ever shut up during the day !

A nice sunny winters day here in WA gave me the chance to try out my 9F Banker on a good friends garden layout, helping out his Black five with a heavy coal train on the incline. Kim

Hi Ian, From memory setting cv 302 = 75 causes an automated run in forward direction, to assess the basic load factor of the motor. 5m of straight level track is required. regards Kim

Hello, I have just installed a MX696 to a ESU 54678 smoke generator using the SUSI connector and the green wire from the smoke unit control board. It works very well using F7 (fan) and F12 (heater) producing smoke at stand still and puffs of smoke synchronised with the chuff. The chuff smoke is not as good (cv settings set to max) as the smoke produced on another loco I have which has the larger ESU 54679 SMOKE unit.(wired to a ESU xlv5 decoder) I decided to swap the smoke unit over to the larger 54679 unit using the same SUSI connector and again the green function wire from the control unit, but no smoke is produced. I’ve checked all continuity on the wiring and all is correct, plus when the smaller 54678 unit is re-installed it works correctly. I’m assuming that I have to alter some cv’s for the larger 54679 smoke unit but can not find any information on how to set up this combination. I’ve set up the smaller 54678 unit using the SUSI CV VALUES AS SHOWN IN THE ZIMO INFORMATION booklet. Can any one advise on what I need to do. regards Kim.

Any updates re this topic Ray? Regards Kim