Sir TophamHatt

Do you just need instructions on how to fit? Most locos operate in the same way - screws underneath and clips to release the body from the chassis. Then just look for the blanking plug and swap it for a chip. However the manuals are available on the Hornby website here: Hornby Locomotive Maintenance Sheets. The Class 67 doesn't have any screws I don't think (the manual doesn't seem to say so) but check underneath. Don't know about the 90.

I'm a separate notion to the above, in theory is the website here: https://dcc-arduino.weebly.com/power-monitor.html Recreating this: dccconcepts.com/product/alpha-meter-for-dc-or-dcc/

Morning everyone I'm looking to build an auto shuttle with Arduino, purely on a cost basis compared with an s88 board. It'll be run using the shuttle feature of an ECoS (don't have yet but plan to buy). Looking to buy an Arduino Uno from AliExpress, along with some dupont cables. The videos I've seen refers to there being 16 ports available on an Uno but I only count 13. I read further back in the thread that the analogue ports on the Uno can be used but that bumps the port numbers up to 19. I'm not really sure how there's 16 ports. The method uses reed switches. Are there any ones that are recommended to use? And for this, I don't need a breadboard or anything? Finally, I am no good with schematic diagrams. Does each end of the reed switch go into the same port on the Uno? (there would be two switches for the shuttle) And then the other reed switch will go into another port? I run an accessory bus under my layout, which feeds point motors (seep motors using DC + toggle switches) and LED signals (using their own control boards / sensors). Can I tap into this 12v (or maybe it's 16v) supply to power the Auduino? I guess not. Is there some sort of converter I can get to put between them or should I just get a separate 5v supply? If I added other Auduinos in the future, could I run these from that same power supply? I understand I connect the s88 port from the back of the ECoS to the Auduino? Is there a cable for this, or it is a case of some duponts? If the latter, does it matter on the order I plug them in? Finally, the "ground" thing. That's 0v, correct? Where do I connect this to? Would it be to one of the power bus wires under my layout? How do I know which one? (for added info, don't really know how to use a multimeter as I've not really needed to use it before, but do have one). Thanks

Saw this: Then this popped up!

So much political warfare around the world at the moment. I wonder if this is what it's like living in some European countries that have been like this for decades... life goes on but it's all a bit weird. Today is research day. And meal plan day. Should have brought my flask to work. Now have to wear masks around the office, so I could have filled up a flask with hot water so I don't have to faff about making a drink.

Been researching today. I have some Lenz BM1 modules for automatic running of a branchline. After testing a couple of years ago, couldn't get them to work reliably. Fast forward a couple of years and I understand I could use an s88 occupancy detector and some reed switches / magnets on the train. Seems fairly simple, but the s88 detector is £40. Shame as just a few months ago, three plus another board sold for £40 on ebay! Looking further though, there seems to be a small Raspberry Pi type of computer that you can upload some code to and it'll act like an s88 board. The board costs £5. Add another few components for about £5 and I should be good to go. You get 16 slots for detection, which is the same as the s88 board. Will add a build thread when everything arrives. Just a case of getting the best one I need (some come with extras, others not).

Which surprises me as: Accurascale could re-use a lot of the info / stuff from the 92s. If Rails want to make a go of this, get some marketing out there.

Morning all. Got access to an old (but new) system at work, which means my job is even easier! A welcomed and perhaps unusual change for the railway. Trying to be good this month and not spend any money. Hard when car insurance is due next month, I want to buy an ECoS (sure they make announcements for new systems in the early part of the year?), a new TV (need to wait until April, when new models re announced) and new car (petrol or diesel?). But so far, so good. Baby TH is having some settling in days at Nursery this month. Can't believe how quick his first year has gone!

Evening. Trying to get my head around adding a new detection system to the railway today (I'm on the skiving desk at work again!). I sort of understand it but not really and feel a steep learning curve will be in order when the bits I need arrive. But then I'm not very technical when it comes to wiring diagrams (watch closely, a forum post will arrive in the next month or so). I can understand when someone draws it out like a child with a rectangle and "resistor" label instead of the international sign for resistor, or wires that have labels showing what colours are what. But those diagrams are only really ever drawn by me to help me understand the original schematic! Makes me a bit sad. But then PCs and stuff, I'm great so I guess it balances out.

To be fair, they simply say "need to convert it" - I'm not sure why anyone would translate that to "needing to re-wire it" One does not simply re-wire USB cables.

As @simonmcp said, the amount of settings that may require tweaking can be huge. With potentially large downloads behind a "sign up so we have your details" website, maybe people think this, coupled with messing with settings mean it's just too much hassle than it may be worth. Plus, doesn't Shapeways require files to be quite particular? Means yet more potential changes, which will put new people in 3D printing off completely. Many websites want you to sign up so they can email you with rubbish. I certainly expect it with nearly every website that wants my email, otherwise why would they want it? Did you show photos of it painted and on a layout? That can always showcase things better. I'd expect as 3D printing becomes more popular, there will be more requests for files - likely ones that are already available on the two main resources for STL files - Thingiverse and Cults3D. Like other areas of the forum, patience will be required with the slew of questions that appear again and again. But isn't Shapeways a site that creators upload their stuff and Shapeways prints it and sends it out for money? I've always seen it as this, but then the circles where I see Shapeways mentioned are quite different to model railways. Clearly this isn't the case with your files but if someone can't be bothered to create an account to download, no point in going round in circles. Although do you get loads of emails asking for the files? I've had the odd one or two messages in the past so just provide the link to Cults3D where I got the file from. Never get anything back. I agree with others though - using an accessible link like Google Drive allows you to better control the files being distributed. But if you've bought into Shapeways and their system and believe that is better, crack on.

People seem to shy away from doing "administration" of their lives. Mrs TH hates writing down things she needs to know, like passwords (yes, against advice, you should write them down!) or finding out when the car MOT is due. However, once you start getting your house in order, calendars become a wonderful tool. I've set mine up so I have yearly reminders about MOTs, insurances... reminders about new mortgage rates before the old one ends, this and that - it's great. Yes, a bit of work but now it works for me. Spent an afternoon adding in everyones address and birthday too, which means I know how old they are and can send a card. Just remember to add this to Outlook / Gmail so if you change phone, it's all in the cloud rather than on the device.

You can also try a rolling road. Lift up the loco and see if it still runs. Notes: Lais decoders have been known to run the loco in the opposite direction to which it was running when power is cut. The tiny 470uF capacitors that come with many "decoder and stay alive" kits are useless really. While some people are happy their locos will be given a tiny amount of power, I'd want one that will help the loco travel a minimum of 5cm just in case. You'll be amazed with lights and sound how much juice is needed.

It's okay, don't worry, no apology needed. Perhaps some of these comments are born from the fact the most well known systems all have some sort of controller that isn't "command station" based - I just didn't link the fact the ECoS was a command station controller when I first saw photos. But something fairly different to other controllers and (I guess) technological, I would have expected it to come with inbuilt wifi. My TV from 10 years ago has it, as does a game console from 15 years ago, so easy to assume something much newer that has the capability to be connected to the internet, doesn't have a wireless option. But both of those comments were from months ago. Moving from a walk around (I barely move within a square metre anyway!) to non-walk around won't be too much of an adjustment, much less worse than I first thought when I realised I don't really move around very much anyway.

Having many a shift on what could be described as the "skiving desk" isn't good! Spent ~£230 odd on a sound loco today. But it's out of stock, AND I had £60 on my PayPal account AND the non sound was only £40 cheaper, plus I'm selling another sound loco I bought on a whim because I was sad my 66 wasn't great. So I see it as a large exchanging of goods Problem is, I have another 8 days of this same desk - eek! Not to worry.

Yes, I should have checked and was only reminded of the site when I searched for some key words that are quite specific. Have bought from Neil before - great service. Got a sound fitted version for +£40. Had a refund for about the same price from PayPal so essentially free.

Like sound locos, I wasn't interested in it in the beginning, now I am. I'm not quite mid-life yet and while I could die tomorrow, I envision I have plenty of time for more layouts that would use all the features of the ECoS. But perhaps you have asumed what I want out of my model railway layout in it's current guise. Some people are all about tech with wires and boxes all over the place under the layout. Mine isn't like that at the moment and I doubt I'd really want it to get to that stage. Clicking one button and sending the train off seems boring to me AT THE MOMENT. However, buying this controller may save me money / time / effort / much hair puling. I bought some branded shuttle boards that were supposed to allow me to run a train as a shuttle - out and back. Could I get them to work? Not really. It used the braking effects stored within the chip to work (think Zimo ABC). Can't remember the brand of the boards. Have I looked at another solution? Yes. But this will cost me ~£40. This version uses a control board much like above but the rate of accelerating/braking/waiting is done within the board instead. Method of detection seems to be the same. The ECoS however, appears to have some sort of inbuilt system for this. While it may require further cost for additional equipment, it seems simple enough for the layout I currently have. Do you fully utilise all the features of your PC, phone or tablet? What about fully utilising all available washes of a washing machine? Or all features of your TV? Because applying your same logic will no doubt mean getting that higher model was a waste of money. No doubt you didn't try the washing machine or fridge before you bought either! I didn't try my PA2 before buying and it's served me well. Now I'm advancing into other areas, I am interested in something different - not that I use all features of the PA2. The features it does have that my PA2 doesn't (or many others that I have seen) include dual control for locos, clearer access to F numbers and a more enjoyable graphical user layout. I'm a bit of a stickler for looking to use the best where I can afford it. Cheers for the input though.

Bumped into this: https://www.dcctrainautomation.co.uk/roco-73234-obb-rh1116-railjet-electric-locomotive-vi-dcc-video.html Is this going to be a thing now? I can see the appeal.

Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who may sell the plain red OBB livered br193 loco? The only ones I have found are sound added, which I don't think I need / want.

However, I should commend them. Had a message just before Christmas with a code, which as I was browsing was actually available on nearly everything I looked at. Meant I spent £20 on something that's easily worth about £40 (seller was underselling it at £30 anyway!).

Evening all. The person who enjoys taking over my role has done so again a fair amount today. They're just a nightmare... said they'd be coming in late due to a hospital appointment, which now turns out to be tomorrow. Still, they had time to stop in and pick up lunch! Just don't know why they don't take the easy role and chill out for the day. At least they haven't criticised anything I've done Baby TH had a tumble yesterday and cut... well, it's not his eyelid but the bit just under his eyebrow. Didn't do much crying about it but got back to playing pretty much straight away. Hoping he'll be a fighter but it does give me bad thoughts... what if he falls and pokes out his eye? Or falls and chops off his hand? All part of parenting I guess.

So @lwnameplates - as you can see, very divisive opinions. I think the only common agreement you'll get is that at the end of the day, it's more the look and feel of the physical controller than anything else as they all do pretty much the same thing.

Although the wired connection to the far end of the house gets the full 100Mb, which is through a Powerline that goes through an RCD, outside, round the house, through a consumer unit and into the back of the house. It's just the wifi through it is a lot slower, which is strange. Mesh wifi is a fancy name for not very much in a way and totally unsuitable for my needs. They're just relays for the existing wifi network of which there is no where that's far enough away to relay the wifi signal, but also close enough to pick it up at full signal/speed. That's why I chose the powerline option. I have three coax cables in three rooms upstairs, which I was thinking about changing to network ports instead, having a router on the landing upstairs somewhere but then there's an issue of powering that. Can't really run a network cable outside as that is always my first port of call (on a side note, I ran something like 30m round a house once just so I didn't have to faff with wifi). Have an engineer coming on Wednesday, will see what they say.

Although interesting that only a day later, PayPal have informed me they're refunding me! Still a bit on the fence but since I use LastPass to save my card details, it's just as easy to enter the saved card rather than log in to PayPal. Wonder what will happen to the package when it gets back to the UK though...

Yeah, had a browse through the manual but my questions are far and few between these days and are hard to pull out of the manual for the (now very specific) answers I seek. I have a hybrid setup though - DC for points and external lighting, DCC for locos so won't be worried about tying myself into a system as I don't need anything else but the controller for the trains. Although I didn't go out and try my current system and it's been quite satisfactory up until I delved into sound.