geoffers

....the rest were horse and carts....

Survived a 30 mile drive in deepest, darkest Norfolk yesterday evening back from Walsingham. Only saw one car which acted as if the office Christmas party may have clouded judgement.

Many of the senior officers I encountered had their wings, Wing Commanders and Group Captains often flew their jets from their base. A lot of them progressed into higher ranks but this may have ended up with them flying a desk but at least one Air Commodore I came across was still flying. Army Air Corps was different. Never came across anyone more senior than a Major flying. Plenty of Captains and 1st Lieutenants plus Sergeants, Staff Sergeants, and Warrant Officers. With the Air Corps drawing its "members" from various regiments it allegedly led to some "feisty" times in the Messes especially the Sergeant's .

This would be interesting. Having worked on an operational Apache base, and given their Taliban nickname of "the mosquito" because you can't see it but you can feel its sting, there would no doubt be calls from various quarters that this would be unfair and that there should be warnings that they are operating, and they should have a police car livery.

Dapol have kindly answered my questions and have said that the decoder is a Zimo MX.

Ah that's interesting. Thank you. I was suspecting that this might be the case given that CV8=8 rather than 4.

Well think I have sorted this light issue. The sound decoder is supposed to be a 6-function Dapol 21-pin Imperium. As far as I know to reset this decoder you have to reset CV8 to value 4. This did nowt. So I reset CV8 to value 8 and this did the trick. Now I have to sort the sound out as it is far too loud but none of the Dapol advice for volume control works ie, CV266. Have tried CV63 to no avail. I use a NCE PowerCab and have I imagined some debate that Imperium decoders and NCE controller don't always see eye to eye? Or is there some CV sequence I need carry out in order to change the Imperium CVs? I'm confused.

I persuaded myself that a Dapol Class 22 with sound would be a nice idea - 4D-012-010S D6330 in green. I have a query regarding the lighting. Curiously when running in forward both ends light up with headlights whereas in reverse just one end plus the red light at the other end. Does anyone know if there are CVs which I need to tinker with? Indeed are there any recommended CVs for the sound version? Thanks.

As I have done.

Accurascale sent me a Class 37 decoder last week. Would this one have the new firmware on it???

Have had a little play with "lock drive". Press F7 then speed step to 18, wait for the engine to rev and then release F7 and she moves slowly away. Bit of fun with that. Now F2 Brake. How do we get the active braking to work. On the Manor it was CV182=0. On the Class 37 it was actually set at CV182=0. Not sure if pressing F2 has any effect apart from brake noise.

I will try this. Thanks. Be interesting to see if you can rev the engine up then release drive-lock to see if it moves off slowly. I just wonder what the point of it is. Is it replicating the real loco? Or just a facility foe testing the sound?

"....I had such fun putting drive lock on & throwing the handle all the way open...." What is a "drive-lock? And is it available on D6702?

Tried the suggestions above but it gave me no sound and no movement. However I have reset the decoder and is all working again, Will try again as I feel I may have made a booboo along the line.

55020 - thank you for that. I have done some fiddling with CVs from advice here which has improved things but failed to see above. Thanks again.

A question as I am curious. D6702 starts very slowly on speed button 1 on my NCE PowerCab with the sound turned off, but it waits to speed button 8 with the sound turned on. Curious to know the possible reason and if there is any way around it. I stress this is not a problem. The loco was not delivered as a "Sound Fitted" but "DCC Ready" and I have added the ESU Sound Decoder and Accurathrash speaker.

Following on from my comments earlier in this thread I thought I would pass on my experience of fitting sound to a DCC-Ready D6702. I purchased an Accurascale ESU Loksound v5 decoder, an Accurathrash speaker, and speaker clips. Ordered Friday afternoon and arrived Tuesday afternoon (today) so a prompt delivery. Thank you Accurascale. So onto fitting the gear. I kept the original cube speaker in the loco and found a very instructive video online from John JMC regarding the fitting. Thank you John. Firstly I altered the pins as advised to suit the ESU decoder. It was set up originally for a non-ESU decoder. Tested my eyesight though. Placed speaker and clips and decoder in sequence in the loco though decoder was put in upside down to normal which was pointed out in the video. Some faffing around with the wiring routing was needed to fit the speaker and clips and I still have not got the roof as flush as I would like. More fiddling needed perhaps. All started well enough until the sound cut out after a few seconds. So, after advice on here, altered CV63 to 150 down from 192. Sounds still loud enough on my layout for me, and a lovely throaty sound it is too. So a simple task to install sound into a DCC-Ready Class 37 with just a bit of faffing to get a snug fit. Well pleased. Oh! - and stay-alive works.

Yes - taken from Accurascale's notes online. Every model includes PowerPack / Backup Power Capacitor Bank for up to ten seconds of power free running, flicker free lighting and continuous sound

FWIW - my NCE PowerCab is run via a DCC Concepts Alpha System. The Alpha meter gives a voltage reading 0f 17.5 to 18.1 volts consistently. The sound on 7812 "Erlestoke Manor" works fine, if a little muted. Fingers crossed that the sound will work on D6702 with the bits arrive and are successfully installed.

I have bitten the bullet and ordered the Accurathrash speaker and Class37 speaker retaining clips. Hope it is easy to set up.

More expenditure though.

"...Last used it before I went to Saudi in 1996, didn't take it with me because they are a bit funny with photographs, and such a small odd camera I'd probably have been arrested as a spy..." Felt the same in my time in Saudi in the mid-80s. Have no photo memories whatsoever. Much more relaxed in Bahrain though.

"...I am in my mid 50s, and we never touched slide rules at school..." Never used a slide rule at school but used log tables. However, in my professional career as a meteorologist, we used a meteorological slide rule to work out dewpoints and vapour pressures when doing weather observations. I still have one. They were discarded when semi-automatic observation stations were introduced and all worked out automatically.

Ah - that's disappointing. Fingers crossed that the sound is okay. Possible waste of money getting the sound chip then? Thanks for reply.

Well I can only admire D6702 at the moment as I do not have any 21-pin decoders on site. It does look rather special. For some reason I thought it was a Next18 fitting, so I have to wait for Accurascale to send me the Accurathrash ESU sound decoder I have ordered. Which leads me to a question - does the DCC-Ready version have the Accurathrash speaker installed, or is this just installed in the DCC-Sound version?