John ks

On 07/12/2020 at 03:24, hellotojasonisaacs said:

To deviate away from DCC, but staying on the topic of APTs, what was the function of RDB977527? Has there been any info on what form this vehicle will take in model form? 

Apologies in advance for potential repetition.

The following posts include pictures of the RDB977527

On 07/01/2020 at 05:22, Chris Chewter said:

 

Do you mean a bit like this?

 

 

 

On 23/01/2020 at 08:49, 7APT7 said:

For those who are questioning the Hornby R4970, BR, InterCity APT-U Ex-TS Development Vehicle, Sc48204 / 977527 - Era 7

 

The APT-P Ex-TS Sc48204 aka 977527 the APT-U Project, (the Next Mark [MK] of Coach) Test Prototype Coach although it was NOT a Tilting Coach, I believe.

But it goes to show just how far ahead of  its time the APT-P was, including the next generation of coaches in the pipeline, when you consider MK5 have only just come out in the last what... 18 months 2-years or so... A true marvel of engineering at its very best.

 

 

This should be in your Rake, even if its just the only spare coach you have, then this coach should be the extra APT Coach to buy for £39.99

 

Regards

Jamie

On 23/02/2020 at 12:38, 7APT7 said:

Hi

 

The Ex-TS No. 48204 Twin Bogie Coach aka MKIV (What would have been) and can also be seen in the bottom photo next to the NMD Centre Power car from when I last saw and spoke with Kit aka Mr APT at Crewe, his knowledge is beyond all compare... 

 

Hornby R4970 Ex-TS No. 48204 / 977527 Twin Bogies

 

 

 

 

Jamie

John

2 hours ago, jpendle said:

You've wired the second point motor wrong. The black and red feeds to the built in switch should be reversed.

The top left corner shows the 2 wires that need to be swapped at the point motor(what jpendle said as an image)

The physical orientation of the point motor can determine if the frog polarity is correct

Assuming that DCC red & black wires to the seeps go to the red & black buses respectively 

In the slips shown below if the top one switches the frogs correctly then the RH frog on the lower slip will be incorrect

The lower LH seep is orientated 180deg compared with the top LH seep

To fix this the red & black wires to that seep would need to be reversed 

I hope this explanation will give you an insight as to why you went wrong

John

If the short happens when you go from the plain board to the scenic section (the place where the loco is shown) then the wires marked "power bus bar" may the be wrong phasing (DCC for polarity)**

Try unplugging the seeps on the plain board & running the loco across the points (it may stall at the frog, push it through the point until it runs again

If there is no short then the phasing of the plain section may be incorrect (as previously mentioned)

If there is a short then 43110andyb might be correct

**You can check the phasing by testing for voltage between

A-A     Full volts  indicates correct phasing , no volts indicates incorrect phasing

B-B     Full volts  indicates correct phasing , no volts indicates incorrect phasing

C-C     No volts  indicates correct phasing , Full volts indicates incorrect phasing

D-D    No volts  indicates correct phasing , Full volts indicates incorrect phasing

John

Schooner

As shown the cobalt's wont work

If you want to use the Gaugemaster to power the Cobalt's the the point lever will have to be wired as a DPDT switch 

(if the point doesn't move when the lever is thrown then chance the wires to terminals 4 & 5 on the lever IE black to 4 & red to 5. 8 & 9 remain as shown)

OR

You can get a Cobalt CDU2 power supply & wire as shown

Quote from DCC concepts 2 posts down

The CDU2 is totally unsuitable for operation with an analogue slow action point motor.

It is a capacitor discharge unit and designed for use with solenoid motors and will damage the Analog IP 

(You may be thinking about the PSU2 - which is a +9v/0v/-9v unit - however - no longer available and replaced with the SPS12 unit as a split voltage supply.)

Regarding the crossing gates . I've only looked at their webpage & I think you will need to wire the servo something like shown

John

3 hours ago, sandwich station said:

This on Ebay.com.au

 

 

 

 

Tell him he's dreamin

John

5 hours ago, hellotojasonisaacs said:

what was the function of RDB977527?

If the RD in the number stands for Research Department then that should be a bit of a give away

If i understand correctly it was used as a research vehicle as part of the development of the MK4 coach

The mark 4 coach was going to be tilt-able. There was provision between the floor & the bogie for a tilt mechanism to be retrofitted 

I Believe all the above to be correct but if i have made any errors then i am sure someone will correct me

John

10 hours ago, APT Fan said:

when the actual hardware costs are what £20 maximum?

My understand of APT Fan comment was that the components (hardware) cost less than £20.00

The brains of a Decoder is the PIC chip & these can cost only a few Pounds when bought singularly

The rest of the components on the decoder should only cost a few more Pounds 

When bought in bulk the component cost drops 

I think APT is being generous with the £20.00 price tag

The next cost to make a decoder is the software & I don't know enough to comment on that

John

5 hours ago, burgundy said:

many of us on this site probably routinely mix metric

I tend to use imperial when referring to Gauge, in Queensland the gauge is 3' 6" & standard gauge will for me always be 4' 8½"

16 hours ago, Reorte said:

there's talk of removing 1p and 2p coins anyway

Here in Oz we went metric in 66 & The 1c & 2c coins were deleted in 89 & 90

LSD become $ & c

£1 become $2

Notes were $20, $10, $2 & $1 The $5 note arrived in 67 followed by a $50 in 73 & a $100 in 84

Coins were 1c,2c,5c,10c,20c & 50c

The $1 & $2 notes were replaced with coins in 84 & 88

For cash purchases the rounding is as follows (there is no rounding on card purchases)

1c & 2c are rounded to 0c

3c & 4c are rounded to 5c

6c & 7c are rounded to 5C

8c & 9c are rounded to 10c

The rounding applies to the total purchase

The first polymer note produced was the $10.00 note & they look like this

John

If I remember correctly Pounds, Shillings & Pence was abbreviated as LSD

John

I not sure that this has already been suggested or tried

Remove the brown wire as shown in the picture, this should disconnect the motor from the circuit 

Put the loco on the track & test it 

The motor should not run & the lights should work as expected

if the lights do not work as expected then there is a problem with the lights

If the work OK then reconnect the motor & try again

If the results are the same as the original post then as Pete suggests it could be some sort of back EMF problem or possibly dirty track

On 24/11/2020 at 00:25, Pete the Elaner said:

A motor is also a generator, with the generated voltage being in the opposite direction to the applied one. It is a little spiky as the brushes pass from 1 pole to the next. Could this be causing the LEDs to come on in the wrong direction?

In the last week i have just installed DCC to one of these HST's & when I removed the capacitor I saw that it was held in place by doubling its leads & squashing them against the brush retainers. after time these may become loose

before replacing the capacitor try squeezing the leads against the brush retainer

John

1 hour ago, MGR Hooper! said:

@Accurascale Fran what's the updated ETA for the Class 92?

Goto to the video at about 5m50s

My Irish is a little rusty  but I think Fran says Q3 2021

Unless there's been a more recent update

John

On 17/11/2020 at 23:00, Accurascale Fran said:

Hi Everyone,

 

Here you go! 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Fran

8 hours ago, Alex TM said:

Did they mention the elephants, or turtle, at all?

The story i heard goes something like this 

Q what holds the earth up

A an elephant

Q what is the Elephant standing on

A A turtle

Q what is the Turtle standing on

A another Turtle

Q what's that Turtle standing on

A It's Turtles all the way down

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

They believe the earth disc is accelerating upwards at about 9.8metres per second squared. 

I've been wondering about that acceleration

I found a velocity calculator on line & it gave the following results

If the flat earth is accelerating at 9.8 m/s squared then from rest it will be traveling at 3,048,190km/h after 24 hr or 1,112,590,000 km/h after a year (which is about 1.03c where c is the c from e=mc squared)

Your velocity will reach about 1,079,000,000km/h after 354 days which happens to be the speed of light

My understanding is the max speed possible is the speed of light

& as an object speed increases it length decreases

So Logically speaking if the earth started as a ball & was accelerating at 9.m/s sq  then its length (diameter in the direction of travel) would decrease to 0 as it approached light speed 

after 354days the earth would truley be flat

OH Damm !!!!!!! I think I just proved the earth is flat

Sorry

John

6 hours ago, Dave0-6-0 said:

On the upper diagram, can I just doublecheck what’s happening on the left-hand side of the terminal block. I assume top left of the TB (strip 1) is a wire soldered to the solid frog wire .YES

Bottom left of the TB strip 1: can I just check that there are actually two wires connected to the one screw area, one +ve and one -ve with each one going to the appropriate place at the bottom of strips 4 and 5 of the block? The three terminals (Edit1,3 & 4) 1,4 & 5 are looped together, this makes the point electrically the same as it was straight out of the box 

 

 

John

Edit I didn't notice this is in the DC section

The label "DCC bus " should be replaced with From DC Controller

This diagram will work with DCC & DC as is

If i understand correctly then this is what been suggested but as a drawing

In the top image the frog is switched by the point blades as it was straight out of the box

in the lower image the frog is switched by a switch which can be part of the point motor or a switch mechanically interlocked to the point blade

 Edit  only applies to DCC (the switch could be replaced with a frog juicer) 

The point blades are always alive & there is no reliance on the point blade contact

Hope this helps

John

It would be interesting to see a close up of Digitrax decoder with the blue heat shrink removed

It might be possible to determine which part of the decoder failed & narrow down why it failed

John

5 hours ago, Nigelcliffe said:

putting a multi-meter over the PCB to check that tracks are not connecting "pickups" to "motor leads" when the decoder socket is empty.  

I have had this problem on an Athearn loco. the track + wire was bridging to the motor + on the motherboard (these 2 connections are joined on the DCC blanking plug so this fault will only become apparent on DCC)

With the blanking plug installed the loco ran fine on DC, when I fitter a decoder it ran ok in one direction but the magic smoke was released in the other direction

Have you tried the decoders in a decoder tester or another loco

John

On 02/02/2018 at 14:48, John ks said:

TTS decoders for my class 67 have arrived a few days ago.

Put the first one in an early version Class 67, IE no provision for speaker

It was working fine on Digitrax DCC with a Hattons decoder

Fitted the decoder & found a place to mount the speaker

 

Placed it on the track pressed F1 & the sound came on

F2 & the horn sounded, F3 & the other horn sounded, F0 & the lights came on, changed direction & the lights changed accordingly

Opened the throttle & it started to move

 

That’s when it refused to obey any more instructions & kept going at it last throttle setting.

Power off & on returned it to normal until I opened the throttle again & it again refused to obey any more instructions

 

Disconnected the capacitor next to the motor, no change

Then I remembered a post where it was suggested that all inductors & capacitors in the motor circuit should be removed.

I did this & now it is working ok.

 

I have a class 43 HST That I fitted with TTS & it had a similar problem and a similar fix

John

 

I had what sounds like a similar problem & fixed it by removing the suppression capacitors & inductor next to the motor

John

Swoopy chicken at rest

John

A few questions

What scale are the points?

Are you using separate Track bus & accessory busses? If so then the frog wiring should come from the track bus not the accessory bus

If OO peco have you cut the links under the rails from the point blade to the frog?

I have a few OO9 points on my OO/HO layout & had problems with the frog shorting

The blades are not isolated from the frog which meant that if the point motor was not aligned properly the the switch in the point motor would change over before the blade moved away from the rail causing a short until the blade moved away  from the rail

6 hours ago, Halgate1964 said:

Another common (no pun intended) denominator is that the problem turnouts all had the motor power leads 1 & 8 switched over to coincide with the correct action of the command on the throttle (throw or close)

I don't see how this can cause a short, they are 2 different circuits

John

Addiing to Allan Andi & Oldddubbers .

Depending on which way the tortoises are mounted, I.E. before the throw bar or after will determine which connection on the Tortoise (2 or 3) goes to railA

In the drawing if the Tortoise on the LH gives the wrong frog polarity then change the wires from the DCC bus to the Tortiose as shown on the RH side

hope this helps 

John

3 hours ago, lyctus said:

My query is, can I set up a central supply point with say, a 5w wire wound resistor to the +ve output terminal , a common -ve terminal and then distribute power to each LED ? So, I need a 560 Ohm resistor to power the  LEDs off 12v DC  and calculating the total wattage limit - can I power a number of LEDs  to the limit off the 5w resistor ?

If the following diagram is the circuit you are describing then my answer is no

The following 2 diagrams should be ok for building lighting 

By adjusting the resistor values in the top diagram each LED's brightness can be adjusted by varying the value of its resistor. 

I would start with 1k resistors, if too bright then try 2k2, 4k7 or even 10k

In the lower drawing the 3 LEDs in series should be identical(from the same batch) for best results

I would start with a 1k & adjust the value up or down to get the required brightness

Hope this helps 

John

I tend to agree with 5BarVT

The added beam should provide some added strength & rigidity

John

On 05/09/2020 at 00:30, FoxUnpopuli said:

Couple of coats of clear (nail) varnish over the vees? 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/38137-peco-crossing-shorting-issues/

 

 

This problem has been raised before & several people (including me) have come up with the nail polish method

Disadvantages 

it increases the length of the dead section at the V 

It will ware off eventually

Advantages

Cheap 

Quick

Easy

What FoxUnpopuli said but with pictures

The red part is the minimum area needed to be covered with nail polish 

John

Glass, Wood, Uranium, Mercury

One is transparent

one is a liquid 

one is radioactive

one was alive

John

On 15/06/2019 at 17:20, John ks said:

My Class 90 arrived recently. Seems I am not the only one with this problem

 

One of the bogies had an excess of sideway & back/front movement

On investigation I found that the boss (pivot) that locates the bogie was broken

If looks like the screw holding the bogie to the chassis may have been over tightened to the point where the boss broke or was that stressed that the shocks during transport caused it to brake

I tapped the boss to 2mm & super glued it back in place, next day I run the tap through the boss & into what was left of the bogie frame, & held the bogie into the chassis with a longer screw that so far has been ok.

 

Photo shows the boss super glued in place, look closely & you may see the excess glue

 

 

While reassembling the loco I noticed the second bogie was not right,

Turns out the boss on that bogie was also broken

The screw was tightened to the point where the boss was distorted & very tight in its piviot hole

 

 

 

 This drawing may help to explain how I repaired the second bogie

 

 

If the first bogie fails I’ll try this same repair on it

 

If anybody is interested the servo looks a bit like this

 

 

Should I have sent this back for repairs? Maybe. If I sent it back then that could be another month(I live in Oz) or more before I see the model again

I have contacted my retailer Requesting replacement bogies but from previous posts I get the impression that they may not be available

Time will tell.

John

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

I bought one recently from derails, I had Dan pack a small square of cardboard under the battery box. Just enough to expand the plastic packaging so the bogies had a little movement In the box.

Loco arrived fine, indeed all 4 of mine arrived fine.

I have bought a broken one (for its pantograph), but note that the towers look like they can be repaired using a BA Nut/Bolt from under the tower into the chassis, rather than screwed down from above.

In case you missed it, this is how i repaired mine

John