Tankdave

I used DMU couplings on mine, had to remove a bit of material fron the end of the couplings swallow tail, easily done by rubbing the coupling on a bit of emery. This moves them about 6mm closer.

Sounds like you will have to take the refund? I was waiting for these weathered ones and I also think they look like junk. I went for the clean ones instead but I do model Tops era and I am very pleased with the hoppers, BTW I only have a rake of 9 and I think it looks ok at about the same length as 5.5 coaches.

I just had the "product now in stock" email about these weathered ones but I am just not convinced they are worthy enough to press the button. For now at least. I should have finished this statement with, I will probably go for the earlier released "clean" ones?

Thanks a million Paul, all sorted The exponential braking and acceleration still appears to function, (Great feature for realism), I was not expecting too as it don't seem to work on the later decoders, that already have the brake on F2 I am thrilled to bits that you gave me the insight to do this and that I managed to do it, so I have a few more locos to do this now. Regards Dave T

Thanks so much Paul That was a lot to take in, but I did get to hear the cuckoo. I put the brake squeal o F2 and then set CV309 to value 2 also, I then put the Horn1 on to F11, the squeal "was" on here. I then turnded down the squeal with CV517 (F2) and turned down Horn1 a bit with CV544. This was the very first time I messed with this CV300 Voodoo, "oh yes" I have messed up F0, probably when getting to grips with the CV300 process. I learnt so much today but now have an F0 that turns on my lights to the sound of a horn I tried setting CV300 to value zero and pressing F3 but it not removing the horn. Thanks for getting me so far today Paul

Hi Paul Thanks so much for the info. Yes, I used the CV400's method, I assigned a value of 20 to CV402 and that moved a horn to F20, and as you predicted F20 DOES apply the brake now So to put this back to normal I can set a value of "0" back to CV402, or even set the value to "2" The bit I don't fully understand is about moving the sound "i.e. horn" from F2 to F20 in a way that I have not already done? Am I to assume then, that a sound can be set against a function key that DOES NOT use the mapping (CV400 - 429) method I used. I believe the Soundfile is "ZS52D" and I did get the Ver from CV7 & CV65. Thanks again and looking forwards to having anothe "stab" at this DT

After spending quit a bit of time searching for the answer, I thought I would have a go at this with my newly discovered knowlege. Checked the FW Ver. and I'm at 35.15, high enough according to my research (above 34) I moved the sound already on F2 to an unused key I set CV4 to a high number. (i.e. 64) I set exponential braking to Value 0 I then set about adding this "manual" braking feature to Key F2 I set CV309 to Value 2 (as I'm using F2) this is "supposed" to assign the feature to a key I set CV349 to 5 (same as my loco's that already have the feature) this sets the effects strength Well, It don't work, moving the F2 sound away from Key2 worked fine but the Brake feature I tried to assign to Key2 is not working. So what am I missing? I personally still reckon it's the FW version being too old?? it's a Zimo 644D decoder and I believe it has Paul Chetter, Multi-Drive sound file.

Sorry for late reply but its style 2 please

Have the factory packaged these up before the paint has dried?

The F5 function on my "wheelslip" loco has not done anything like this, do I need to make F5 latching, would that do it?

I've managed to get decent performance out of these, some loco's a bit better than others. Just put one in a Heljan DPU and it runs good with EMF set to 15. The lights are VERY bright on this model so as anyone managed to get the "lights dimming" function to work? I have seen that you can turn on flashing lights etc, I've looked at the DCC Zen list of CV's and for the dimming CV's it states "advance" go to website for info, would be great if I could find the advanced info on the site but it don't seem to be there? What I did find, was CV64 on the Zen's controls dimming, the Hattons is set to 64 as per Zen, but changing this value makes no change to the brightness?

Thanks for the reply Peter, my ECoS will me to allow me to swap Function buttons on ESU decoders easily. It loads up profiles, making it able to re-allocate slots to Fn Keys, but sometimes it won't and I'm still trying to understand this? "this may be stupid but I do not know?" Where do I get a V4 decoder comtaining these new files loaded o to it? I don't believe my usual source supplies Leggoman files? I have two Bachmann 37's with 21pin sockets, suitable speakers will also be needed. Thanks in advance.

Would the F5 brake be able to swapped with F2? I have an ECoS and the brake on F2 will enable the 4Way toggle to be used as the brake. I have moved Fn's on LoKsound decoders, but I don't know if this F5 brake is locked or just plain too complicated to move. Sure sounds interesting.

Would be good to know if these are happening? if not I'll search for something else.

I have a bought a few 8pin ones and find them inconsistent when setting top speed, they change from one running session to the next "on the same loco" and when loco's accelerate they get to about 3/4 speed then take off like a scalded cat. I have since been using the Hattons £10 ones and they are much better, I will use the Lais ones I already have in my DMU "dummy" power cars, they are fine for that.