Sir TophamHatt

Just thinking for the future really. There must be a way but would like some more info on it. I want to link a colour signal so it'll be red unless the point is changed (where the light will then be green), to aid me in seeing what position the point is in. It'll be rarely used but would like to know the procedure for this. I already have Peco point motors in play. Thanks

Now £25 :/ There is a video on how to make your own version which I'm tempted but not got started as yet.

I had better running with these settings: CV5 = 255 (0) CV6 = 128 (0) CV49 = 17 (0) CV51 = 0 (32) CV52 = 0 (-) CV53 = 140 (-) CV54 = 40 (-) CV55 = 28 (-) CV56 = 255 (-) CV124 = 4 (-) The value in the brackets was the default for my chip. Also, the Hattons chips didn't have anything above CV52, so not sure why they suggested that. Give Hattons a call/email and tell them what loco you're running and see what they say. But ultimately, I sent both mine back.

If you have a smart phone, you can always try offline sat navs. My favourite is HERE (we go) by Nokia. It has a nice little section which pops up at junctions and roundabouts to show you which lane to get in. I believe Google recently made their maps available to download too, so turn-by-turn navigation can be used offline there as well. As soon as Smart Phones were about, I knew I would never need a sat nav.

Ah, yes, you're right. Sorry, I missed out the intermediate steps Once the goal has been reached though, it's likely to be made rather than blindly sending money and who knows if it'll be made or not. I've "invested" in a couple of things before but the hype didn't live up to the product which has put me off. But I have the Kickstarter app and will give it a look through every so often. Just a shame that many of the products never really make it into mainstream stores or become well known household names.

My game of Traffic Giant doesn't work with Windows 10. Means Windows 10 is a complete failure... or rather a game that is pushing 20 years old (over 20 maybe) is simply too old to work. (actually, it does work but I can't change the resolution from 640x480 - really hard to play it)

Not sure if it's relevant, but I don't have a problem with crowd-funding... so long as it's done properly. Thinking along the lines of Kickstarter. You sign up to invest and don't part with your money until the product is made. It's essentially a promise note that you'll buy the product. Like Model Rail and the J70 - registering interest to garner possible numbers, then risking a bit of cash to start production based on that. If it means Bachmann release only 500 units of their new tooled 158 quicker, sign me up! If companies are expecting me to part with £200 so they can pay their suppliers for something that may never see fruitition, I don't think so.

I don't mind it being a BIN or Auction. But I hate that eBay thinks it's a normal retail website. Right now they have some 20% off promo but it isn't valid for all auctions/BINs. In fact, it's only valid on about 6 "shops" - disappointing.

To be fair, you do have to have some sort of education in meteorology to be a weather presenter. When they're not presenting, they're preparing the weather graphics and scripts. He should have a national spot ! He used to! I've seen him presenting weather years ago on the main BBC News. Perhaps one of the last more traditional weather presenters.

Just to add my thoughts Keith. I appreciate the updates on your situation though. Has made me think a bit more about how I store my stuff.

Take a look at Everard Junction on YouTube too. He uses Medium ballast grade. I mixed fine/medium but wish I'd just stuck to medium. I, the same as you, wanted to do it cheaply. But decided as there wasn't much ballast around that was cheaper, to just go the Woodland Scenics route. Bought 4 of the large tubs and I have about half of each left I think. BEWARE OF POINTS. Did one set of mine, then found the motor wouldn't throw the point as much. Broke up a fair bit of ballast and fixed it, but have to relay the ballast in that area now. Worth the effort though. Haven't tried hoovering up the last of the bits I did yesterday as I don't think my hoover, despite it being a small dyson, would be able to reclaim any - even if I empty out the dirt collecting bit first! Everard Junction man uses a smaller hoover meant for cars and keyboards, which may proove better but I haven't researched anything into those yet.

How do you paint a white line on a platform that has a curve? To make it even more fun, I'd rather not move the platform (and have screwed it in from beneath) as it's very tight for some trains. I thought masking tape but don't know if I'd get the curve right.

Thanks all

I have an old Hornby controller to run my points (and later lights, maybe). Happy to leave the Prodigy Advance 2 for the trains and track.

Hm. I have a plywood board and then some grey lino flooring. The track is pinned to that in a few places and I've ballasted on top. So to be honest, not much of my "profiling material" is actually stuck down. Seems okay so far though.

Is it okay to cover them in rubber tubing? Say I'm adding some LEDs somewhere, so need to sheath the bit between the led and the resistor, then from the resistor to wherever the wire is going. Would be easier to just use a longer length of tubing. Obviously I can't shrink the tubing round the resistor but didn't know if it should be left "out in the open"? Cheers

To be fair, I didn't. The 48xx/58xx: I didn't check but heard it was a pig to get into. The Pannier: I didn't remove the capacitor / supression disc. It was DCC Ready though so thought I'd leave it as standard as possible.

While this has no bearing now, heres a video of the Hattons decoders: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ofkiZH8G-wTg8enk-y-eonZjnYY64h0Z I had to push it twice but you can see it randomly starts and stops. Same as the other video and as described above. Fitted the Zimo and get none of these problems. No messing about with CV numbers, just use the default Zimo settings.

If I was Hornby, I'd look at what Bachmann were making, and get it out to market before them. They announced the new 158, what, nearly 10 years ago? I am sure of Hornby got their cogs moving, they'd have been able to get a much better than the current model out in under 3. I would never announce a product before it's pretty much ready (IE, in production) unless I needed the pre-order pledges/cash to actually manufacturer it.

Yeah, I thought about this, especially as it's quite sentimental. I really don't have a DC layout or want to have a dedicated line of DC though. However, it's giving me confidence to learn the ins and outs of model trains. While my terminology is rubbish, I really enjoyed tinkering and converting the OBB 2043 diesel and now seeing it trundling knowing how much work I put into it (not a lot really - but a lot for a beginner!), it brings much satisfaction. Here's a couple of pictures of the bush area: So it looks plastic...

This is me. I work at a small village station that sees few services, and even less after the morning "peak". Not thought about bringing models to work to work on before though. Not sure if I would do either, but if I'm just doing a simple clean, might be worth it.

In a conclusion: Took it apart and scraped between the circily disc ( ). Got some gunk out from there. Popped it in a pot of isoprop cleander and shook it about for 30 seconds. Dried and replaced. All good - no more sparking and working better than it has in about 25 years! Thank you

Following on from a previous topic on converting an older train to DCC including adding LED lights, I now have another train but this one doesn't seem to be as simple. It's a Fleischmann 4400 Rail bus, oo gauge. Actually, it's something like a 4100 but there's very little difference between them. This train has two LEDs bulbs, red and white. What is the small green box here? I see from the back section, it has two sets of pickups from each wheel. One side goes to the front coach, I assume to the motor. The other side goes to one of the bulbs. The other bulb has a wire that goes to the green box, then heads from there (it looks like) to the other side of the train and to a bulb there. The problem is, the motor only seems to have one side that is connected, and has a coil of wire. This leads to a pickup, which also has a wire heading to the rear coach. So any pointers on where to begin would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Hiya. Yeah, I do. A couple of years ago, before moving house, the computers seemed to find each other fine and share files. However since moving, one PC "sees" the other but can't pull any files from it. The other PC doesn't even see the first one. Haven't figured it out as yet as networking isn't really my strength! However someone suggested looking at account permissions and perhaps even creating an account that shares it's files and folders. The hard drivers are shared but they're clearly not! Will come back when I have a further update to it.

Here's some things to think about: 1) In the end, you will have to upgrade. There are no more consumer updates to XP and the older an OS gets, the more bugs it will have. 2) The majority of people upgrade fine. You don't find posts upon posts of people saying they upgraded fine as they don't really care. 3) I upgraded two machines fine with no problems. Both took under an hour. 4) If you don't read any marketing about "what's changed" and things disappear, there's only one person to blame really. 5) I find there's a lot of people who are anti-Microsoft who seem to have problems. There's an easy answer - buy a Mac or use Linux. 6) The update isn't "dangerous" or full of "spyware". Remember, your PC is one in millionns that'll send basic information to Microsoft. They don't care about you as an individual. You can change the amount of information that is sent to them when setting up the latest Windows 10. I'm not against people who don't install updates, many people have legitimate reasons. But there are many people who share their experience, then state that as a fault of Microsoft when that's not really true.