badgerV8

Looking for an OO gauge model of Union of South Africa in BR Green please, early or late crest. I'd prefer a Hornby R3198, I'd maybe consider Bachmann but unsure of fitting DCC to split chassis models, never done one before.... Thanks.

Thanks folks, just the answers I was hoping for.

Hi folks. I am looking to add a power booster to my layout - I intend to isolate the combined steam and diesel MPD from the rest of the layout and run it through a power booster in order to enable some 20-odd sound equipped locos to be "running" (with the odd loco movements), whilst the main lines and branch line are left to run via the e-Link unit with it's 4A power supply. Hornby's own power booster appears to be no longer available (or overpriced!), so here's the question - can another manufacturer's power booster be used, to simply take the existing DCC signal from the e-Link and boost it to a new power district (my MPD)?

Thought I'd throw in my "tuppenceworth". Having spent a great deal of my life working on cars for a living and now working as a Vehicle Assessor, I've probably seen most fault trends on most vehicles. My current car is my old company car which I bought from the lease company as it turned 3 years old, a 2015 Kia Cee'd Estate, 1.4 CRDi. It pulls well for its apparent small engine size, has no problems overtaking, returns 63+ mpg overall (including town, fast "A"-road and twisty-turny roads around the north of Scotland). It handles acceptably within the confines of our speed limits and the brakes are lovely - powerful and progressive with plenty of feel. It has a 7-year/100,000 mile warranty, no issues in 51,000 miles. My wife has an older Pro-Cee'd 1.6 CRDi, it's well over 130,000 miles now and has only needed a small switch on the clutch pedal (£25!) in all that time, other than normal wear & tear / servicing. My daughter has a Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi….. you can see the trend! Yes, Kia and Hyundai are effectively the same company, most of the engine range is manufactured by Hyundai, the cars share common floorpans and underpinnings with slightly different outer panels and trim, yet Kia seem so confident of their product that they are prepared to give a longer warranty than Hyundai... Within the next 12 months, I shall be buying another car - my Cee'd estate will go to the wife, I shall use her 2010 Pro-cee'd as a trade-in against a newer Pro-Cee'd for myself. The engineering quality of these cars really is so good, I would never ever contemplate anything from VAG (VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat) as we were forever seeing diesels coming into the workshop suffering with EGR faults and petrols with coil pack failures. I wouldn't touch anything French unless you like playing Russian Roulette with electrical gremlins and I wouldn't touch most modern Fords either - the Ka is now a Fiat 500 derivative with the usual dodgy Italian electrics, Mondeo's suffer from wheel bearing wear and suspension bushes (Focus suffers from suspension wear as well). BMW and Merc are just way too pricey for what they are, and let's not even consider the current abominations from Vauxhall, who's new models will undoubtedly be re-badged and slightly re-styled Citroen's now that ownership has passed that way! So, as much as I was brought up on a staple diet of British Leyland (my father worked for them, so got good staff discounts!), Ford and Vauxhall, it's Kia all the way for me nowadays.

I used 8 ohm sugar cube speakers with a Loksound V4 Micro, which is rated for 4 Ohm speakers, so wire in parallel.

Philou, regarding the Railbus. I have used a single ESU sugar-cube speaker with the thinnest enclosure, mounted underneath the chassis at one end, hard back against an air tank. I drilled two holes through the chassis after removing the 4 screws holding the upper (roof) frame and lifting the plastic seating up to see where the wires are routed underneath it. Once the holes were in the chassis, I replaced the plastic seating and continued the drill holes through that, then superglued the speaker in place and ran the speaker wires neatly along the inner edges of the seating and up to the pcb, holding the wires in position with a dab of superglue as required. After painting the exposed wires and solder tabs on the speaker matt black, you can't tell it apart from the rest of the under-structure, unless you were intimate with the real thing on a daily basis! I fitted stay-alive (Zimo Supercap) inside the roof, painted matt black. It's visible if you look for it, but not really noticeable unless you go looking, an acceptable compromise in my opinion to get good slow-speed running over point formations with only 4 wheels and no compensation! Both my Clayton's have twin sugar-cubes, one each end, with all the foam removed to (theoretically!) allow better air circulation around the motors! Probably makes no odds in real terms. I used ESU Loksound V4 Micro decoders (C&PRR sounds - very good indeed) as these locos only draw a max of 1/4 amp, the decoders are mounted exactly as-per Pauliebanger's. I can crawl at the slowest of speeds across point/double slip formations with no issues - after dismantling the bogies and easing the pickups out a touch so they all contact their respective wheels at all times, unlike when they left the factory! No stay-alive with the Claytons, simply not needed, and they look (and sound) awesome running double-headed with a long rake of tankers behind them, just as they would have done "back in the day" up the hill from Grangemouth to Falkirk Grahamston Junction.

Thanks Izzy, that's exactly what I've ended up doing. Suzie, the 8-pin decoder could sit in the same location as the 21-pin one, the speaker wires would already be attached to the decoder, as would the stay-alive wires in the case of a Zimo MX645R. John, thanks for the link.

So, after further searching...… Connector CN6 con-checks to the correct decoder pins, but I've drawn a blank trying to find the correct plug and I'm not sure I trust my soldering on something so small...… Really NOT inpressed at Heljan for making what is a really nice model so complex when a small 8-pin would have sufficed! At least give us solder pads please, or enclose a plug with the model!!!!!

Hi folks, after 30-odd sound conversions done to date, I'm doing my first 21-pin one! (All the rest have been 8-pin or hard-wire). Naively, I assumed Heljan might have had a couple of solder pads on the circuit board for wiring a speaker in, but no, I can't see anything. For those who have fitted sound to a Heljan railbus, where do I connect the speaker? Do I have to solder to the decoder? (Hope not!!!) Cheers.

Thanks Iain & Harold. The locos are both well run-in and free, the speeds are actually about as close as makes no real odds when sat at a given speed, it's the fact that one loco has definite noticeable (and audible, if sound is turned off) "steps" in its speed "curve" whereas the other is smooth as it accelerates, both speed tables being identical. I can't understand why one will seem to fail to accelerate with throttle input then suddenly step up a notch - it's almost like it has 8 speeds instead of 28 (or however many!).

This has been driving me nuts all day..... Two Heljan Class 17's, both draw the exact same current on DC at startup (0.11A), full throttle (0.21A) and stall (0.45A). Both have the same ESU Micro V4 sound decoders (from the same source), the exact same speaker installation and every single CV value is identical, with the exception of the top speed CV being 120 on one and 115 on the other to give the same speeds. One moves off smoothly and accelerates smoothly and seamlessly to top speed in response to throttle. The other one starts accelerating smoothly, but has about 3 noticeable "speed jumps" where a throttle increase of only 1mph (Hornby Railmaster) gives a distinctly noticeable jump in speed. I thought it may have been down to the speed tables being different but nope, they're identical.... I want to run these as a double-header, so any help / pointers / suggestions would be very welcome, thanks.

I had this on a Heljan Class 26 recently, with a Zimo MX645 decoder. All was fine until the sound was selected on, at which point the lights at one end stayed on irrespective of direction of travel. I ended up taking the ESU decoder from another Heljan 26 and trying it, lo and behold it all worked fine!! Fitted the Zimo into the other Heljan 26 and it all worked fine too....! No answer, don't know why it happened, but needless to say I am convinced lighting can do weird things with DCC.....

Previously posted in Wanted section.... I'm looking for any pictures or info on the old station at Dunning, in Perthshire. I have a track plan from around 1885-1900, I have pictures of the station building and both platforms looking north, but not the south ends of the platforms. I could do with any pictures of the platforms looking south and anything of the goods yard and buildings, station approach and building from the approach side, also anything of the original late 1800's signal box. Phone pics of any originals would be more than acceptable if anyone has anything, thanks.

Hi all, not sure if this is the right place to ask.... Anyway, I'm looking for any info or pictures of Dunning Station, Perthshire, for a future layout. I have the track plan, I have a photo of the southbound platform and platform side of the station building looking north, a partial of the northbound platform looking north, but nothing of either platform looking south or of the road side of the station or any of the small goods yard. If anyone can help I would be extremely grateful, thanks.

I enquired about the different colours on Saturday and this is the explanation I was given by one of 419's footplate crew.... St Rollox painted all their locos in the shade of 828, this is the colour I remember 419 in when I first became involved with the SRPS back in 1979. Perth, however, apparently mixed their own blue and this is the lighter shade that 419 is now painted in. Personally, I much prefer the darker shade of 828, the lighter shade makes 419 look "cheap" and too close to "Thomas" for my liking! I am told the paint was supplied by the Caley Society, so that was what had to be used......

Thanks Phil, wasn't aware of that! I only mentioned K1 because a youtube search brought up a couple of K3's with K1 sound files. K4 is 3-cylinder so I'll probably go with that.

Okay, next project! Looking around on the internet, I'm not finding much in the way of dcc sound files for an LNER K3. Even less on YouTube to try comparing...… YouChoos list a K4 which ought to sound very similar, other than that I've only found a couple of K1's..... Anyone done a K3, any personal preferences or suggestions? Cheers.

Hi, the speed steps will be as programmed by the vendor, only thing I've done is alter the top speed CV5 from 001 (flat-out, way too fast!) to a more realistic 120, and the mid CV6 to 070. Oh, and turned the volume down with CV266. What do you mean by the speed steps selected in the control system? I use Railmaster to control the layout, every other loco (over 20 of them, some with Zimo, some with ESU) all work correctly with no issues. It's now behaving speed and direction wise, but the lighting is only operating as it should in one direction only (reverse), with head and tail lights working correctly, but when I select forwards, all the lights are on at both ends. Now, here's the weird bit - it ONLY does this when the sound is turned on, if the sound is off, the lighting operates correctly, both directions..... It seems I can have correctly operating lights, or sound, but not both at the same time..... All wires have been checked and re-checked as well, there are no shorts or bad connections.

Hi folks, got a weird issue with a Zimo MX645R that I've just fitted to a Heljan Class 26. Decoder powers up fine, loco movement is good (but reversed directions), sound is good. Until I turn the lights on!!! The lighting switches ends as I select forward or reverse with the loco not moving, but in the opposite sense to the drive, i.e. tail lights forward and headlights at the rear. That in itself is a reasonably easy fix, all I need to do is swap the motor wires over, as switching direction via CV29 also alters the lights, leaving them still the opposite sense to the drive! My problem however, is that as I move forward, the tail lights that are switched on at the front, start to dim then pick up brightness with speed, whilst the headlights that are on at the rear go out completely.... movement backwards with the lights on is perfect, but movement forwards requires a far greater controller input to move than with the lighting turned off. I have to input a speed of around 20mph to get it to crawl at 5mph, backwards direction is fine. Turn the lights off, all is back to normal and good! Anyone got any ideas with this? Cheers.

Ah, thanks for that info Richard. In that case, I won't go cutting holes in it or risking breaking the grille! It's just a little quiet and I've found that most decoders seem to be sent out with the volume pre-programmed to max level, although I've only tested this on the default address, I've not read any CV's yet or checked to see if I can raise the volume a touch. I did have to dremmel some lumps off the inside of the body to allow it to sit back down correctly over the MX645, it's still touching despite trying it different ways round (one way up then the other, main harness at either end), but the body is down (just!) so it will do for the time being. There are no wires trapped anywhere to raise it up either, I made sure of that.

Installation is going reasonably well, but I've opted to put the supercap in the cab just for the time being, purely to avoid hardwiring the decoder at present. It fits in without any modifications and there's a big enough gap for the wires so no damage done. I may look into moving it in the future at some point though. One question - how does the radiator grille detach from the Hornby 08? I was led to believe it can be "pinged" off with a small blade, but mine does NOT want to give up its grip on the body and I don't want to damage anything..... I need to make holes behind it to let the sound out.

Richard, sorry, my mistake - it's a 645 for exactly that reason, typo on my behalf! I don't think I'm going to get a chance to do a trial-fit today as I'm busy getting things sorted for a very early start tomorrow morning for work, . I'll certainly look into installation as you suggest though, cheers.

Well, I've bitten the bullet and after some careful measuring I've opted for the YouChoos MX648, supercap SC68 and two 8-ohm bare sugarcube flat speakers that will fit onto an ESU double speaker backing panel. The supercap and speakers will go in cab and behind radiator (either could fit in either location, as yet undecided what one will go where) and the decoder.... well, it'll fit somewhere, lol.

I've done both of my 37's, both are early 8-pin variants with no nose lighting.. One has an 8-ohm sugar cube in each nose, wired in parallel for 4-ohm. The other has a large 4-ohm bass reflex unit in the fuel tanks, ballast weight removed and tanks opened out to accommodate. Both have the same Loksound V4 decoder with (mistakenly on my behalf - I forgot what one I already had when I ordered the second one!) the exact same Legomanbiffo sound file, and guess what.... You cannot tell what one is what when they are both running! They sound absolutely identical, possibly just a slight increase in turbo whine as the engine comes off the power and spools down with the sugar cubes!

Yes Charlie, I'm thinking possibly MX645 and stay-alive for this one, instead of my usual choice of ESU..... Allegedly simpler to connect the stay-alive, not sure I trust myself to try soldering 3 little wires onto a V4...