NIK

Hi, If you were considering buying Hattons decoders you might want to check the topic on RMWeb for possible problems with the recent Hattons decoders (Blue packaging?). Regards Nick

Hi, During my evaluation of the Heljan OO Class 16 as a donor chassis I set added an average speed sensor to my test track. Once a lap a MERG infrared sensor is triggered by the loco and via MERG CBUS modules that pulse is sent back to JMRI. I wrote a script to display the time for each lap. When I've run a loco round enough times I cut and paste the results into a spreadsheet. I found that all the locos I've tested speed up over the first dozen laps or so but some are much slower at first than their prototypes maximum speeds. This might not be a good thing for large mainline exhibition layouts where a loco might be required to go quite fast before it reached the first scenic section. If it is not required to do another lap for a while it seems from some of test track results at least that the speed goes down the longer the interval. This test was on DCC and the speed step was 90 and momentum was low. CV 10 on the Zimo decoder had been set to the maximum of 252 in an attempt to see if the Back EMF feedback (intensity at maximum) would regulate the speed of the loco. A Dapol class 73 in OO also was slow to get up to speed but it started way below the prototypes maximum speed. I then measured the current of that loco on a rolling road at 12V DC every 12 seconds to try and replicate the timings on the test track. I couldn't get good readings from the test track as the current meter was oscillating too much. I've inverted and scaled up the current to see how the curves match up. So it looks from the Class 16 test as though the back EMF feedback of the Zimo decoder couldn't get the mechanism to the demanded speed until something had righted itself. I may make up an optical speedometer to measure the speed at the wheels when a loco is suspended by its buffer beams and the supply to the loco is fed directly rather than going via the wheels and pickups. Regards Nick

Hi, My Lidl temperature controlled soldering station stopped working the other week. The entire end fell off the iron and fell inside the housing. I'd used it only few times. A friends Lidl temperature controlled soldering station pretty quickly melted itself - the holder for the iron misbehaved and allowed the hot iron to touch the housing. Regards Nick

Hi, Its number may be W4322 (last letter behind a post). Not sure about the W as its blurry and I'm don't know about Western Region allocated Bulleid coaches. Regards Nick

Hi, I've just fitted speed sensing to my test track using a MERG Infrared Detector and MERG CBUS input module and USB interface. I wrote a JMRI script to calculate the average scale speed per lap from the times the detector was triggered. So the first lap of the test session was the slowest and the speed came up fairly quickly. A Bachmann MLV was a similar shaped curve but higher speeds. The best so far has been a Hornby 5-Bel power car. Maybe it has a lower gear ratio than the others so there is less gear friction. Maybe the pickups are better. I may have an experiment with my DCC fitted Class 16 to see if raising the Back-EMF feedback cutoff speed step to a high value helps stabilise the speed albeit at a low value. There could be something odd about my test track that doesn't represent how locos behave on others layouts. Regards Nick

Hi, I don't know of a table that will identify a specific decoder based on the values in CVs 7 and 8. Could you send me a link to a table please. For example Zimo have dozens of decoders and they are on software version 27 or later so its not clear how they could identify an individual decoder using the eight bits of CV7 alone. Regards Nick

Hi, A clear photo of both sides would be useful. Regards Nick

Hi, I think I remember reading on RMWeb probably that the newer Hattons decoders (delivered in a Blue container?) are prone to stop the loco motor of their own accord on standard cleanliness track. Perhaps this is something similar. I understand the DCC80 uses the short circuit current flowing through a relay coil to operate the change of polarity as opposed to those frog juicers that use solid state detection and switching. If that is the case then the DCC80 will probably allow the short circuit to exist for longer. Maybe longer than the new Hattons decoders can tolerate. You could try turning off the DC mode on the Hattons decoder to see if that helps. Regards Nick

Hi, As a temporary measure I put some conductive grease on the backs the wheel rims of my misbehaving Class 16 (the sort of grease that contains some conductive particles that make a contact when squeezed between two metal surfaces). The Class 16 then ran very smoothly and seemed good enough to shunt with Spratt and Winkle or Kaydee couplings. I was using a Zimo MX634D DCC decoder. So I guess the pickups are causing problems on my loco but I had disturbed them in order to look at the gears. Regards Nick

Hi, Does n/s stand for Nickel Silver?. Also my Class 16 may be at the other extreme as I could find no grease on its gears and its only had a little electrolube added. I may rig up a coach with good pickups that can be connected to a test loco to see how fast it will go with good pickups. A Bachmann OO 2-EPB trailer may be a good candidate as I think it has split axles and pin point bearing pickups. Regards Nick

Hi, Out of interest which 14mm wheels did you use? - I only ask as I've found the state of the pickups and the track affect the top speed so I wondered about the quality of the wheels. Certainly I remember Lima locos running better with Ultrascale Nickel Silver wheels. EDIT I wonder whether the faster a model goes the quicker the pickups clean up or the better the pickups work. I guess the faster the loco is going the quicker it gets past any particular piece of track dirt or poor trackwork. I just stopped my Class 16 and cleaned its wheels and it was much slower on its first lap afterwards (it got faster the more laps it did). With a Heljan class 128DPU the first full lap of many circuits round my test track was the slowest by far - maybe not good for a mainline exhibition layout where the loco has no time to 'warm up' before leaving the fiddle yard with a train. Regards Nick

Hi, Having seen a review in one of the mags saying the new Bachmann H2 Atlantic had a five pole motor* I wondered if there were any other Bachmann OO locos of recent years that have five pole motors?. I'm looking for another donor motor for kit built EMUs and DMUs to compare against the standard Heljan and motors from Hornby/Dapol and specialists. Also are the Bachmann 2-EPB/4-CEP/MLV using three pole motors?. Regards Nick PS * I'm not sure from the photos it is a five pole motor but it might be nice if it is.

Hi, I've just tried a Heljan Class 16 Chassis with DCC Concepts Powerbase. I used two of the magnets from the OO/HO starter pack. I stuck them on one bogie only of the Class 16. Due to the bulge in the bogie keeper plate for the gears I mounted the magnets in board of the wheels. These magnets were clearly visible when not obscured by the wheels. The pull @ 12V DC increased from 66 grammes without magnets to 92 grammes with. As I don't want the magnets visible I will go for a thinner magnet so the test above is probably a best case. I may cut down some Powerbase strip to go between the rails to see what effect that has (can only be used on non-scenic sections unless something like DCC Concepts own Stainless Steel rail is magnetic). EDIT - I've just dug out some DCC Concepts Stainless Steel track and the rail is not magnetic. Regards Nick

Hi, Good point. At our clubs open day on Saturday a Heljan Class 33/1 wouldn't couple to a Kernow 4-TC when using Kaydee buckeye couplings but another Heljan 33/1 would just couple to another. Regards Nick

Hi, Do your locos have sound or stay alive fitted?. I only asked as you said one of the times the PS-X trips is when the loco is brought to a stop and reversed. When a loco is moving slowly the pickups become critical and if there is a large capacitance inside/attached to the DCC decoder there can be large currents drawn for short periods. This is exactly what the PS-X is looking for to trigger on. As others have said adjusting the trigger period may cure the problem. Alternatively it could just be an intermittent partial short in the wiring or track exacerbated by the track voltage rising slightly such as when locos come to a halt (too low a current or for too short in duration for the Power Cab to trip but high enough and long enough for the PS-X set on 1.27 Amps and a fast trigger to trip). If you were getting enough shorts to fit a PS-X then there is probably a problem with the pre-existing layout. Regards Nick

Hi, We made a mistake when dismantling the layout after our open day on Saturday which could have proved costly. We took down the 'Queen board' which is the only one with two sets of legs too early and left one scenic board suspended held only by the bolts at the other end. We didn't notice immediately as the board didn't creak, sag or break and fall to the floor. Still it shows the stiffness and strength of the ply construction including two layers of 6.5mm birch ply on the mating board ends. The board may have weighed ~ 7 kg. We don't use diagonal bracing between the legs and the baseboards so the ends of the boards take the load of the legs and keep the layout in situ. Regards Nick (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for new members).

Hi, Many thanks for the photo. Any ideas what the white disc on a stick is - just a marker?. If the technology is infrared barcode I don't suppose they've made allowance for DCC Concepts Powerbase magnets restricting the space under a chassis to fit a barcode. What was the famous eureka moment that led to the current delay in LD appearing on the market?. Regards Nick

Hi, I assumed all D+E from the Class 25/24 onwards had the three pole motor and that the steam outline OO had the same (apart from those models with coreless motors). I've since read that the MRM Ivatt C2 Atlantic was to have a 5 pole motor. Maybe I will see what the price is of a Thomas motor to get one for evaluation. Regards Nick

Hi, I've tried to expand my experimental gradient and curve predictor I mentioned in a previous post on this topic to cover trying to predict the speed a train will go up a gradient and round a curve. I tested a Heljan OO class 16 diesel chassis whose speed varied noticeably depending how many coaches were behind it when going round 3rd radius curves on my test track. I tested it with the most Mk1 coaches I had (9) and also with 5* Mk1s. * I'm considering using a class 16 chassis in a 6 car Hastings unit. The gradient and curve I want the Hastings unit to go up is a 1 in 40 with a 36" radius curve. Its on a scenic part of the layout so I don't want it to slow down too much. The gradient/curve predictor had said the chassis plus 5 Mk1s should just make it up the gradient/curve. The drag predicted for the chassis plus 5 Mk1s on the 1 in 40 with a 36" radius curve was very similar to the chassis plus 9 Mk1s on the flat test track with 3rd radius curves. So I thought the speeds measured on the test track might equate to those on the gradient/curve of a club layout. The min speed was 43 scale mph (chassis cold, pickups & track not cleaned) and the max 62 scale mph (chassis warmed up, pickups cleaned up by running, track cleaned). The measured speed for the chassis plus 5 Mk1s on the layout's gradient/curve was 53 scale mph - in the middle (the track had been cleaned for an open day, but the chassis was cold and the pickups had not been cleaned). No slipping was observed. I'm going to build a test helix to do more gradient/curve drag tests but if I can make it long enough I could do some speed tests. Regards Nick

Hi, It could be NFC. A number of people in MERG including myself are looking at NFC as a cheaper alternative to 125khz RFID but range is a problem when the trains are moving fast. I think Hornby mentioned the sensors would fit above the sleepers. So they can't be more than ~12mm wide. A 12mm wide NFC reader antenna might not have a lot of range so reading at speed could be a problem. The mention of a maximum 106 loco codes doesn't seem to be a limitation of NFC - there are trillions of Unique IDs in the NTAG213 protocol for example. Based on the limited number of loco codes my guess would be some sort of magnetic or infrared bar code but the 106 code limit may come from any scheme that Hornby use to connect the sensors together. Magnetic (non radio frequency (RF) type) or Infrared might reduce the testing requirements compared to an RF solution. Another guess is the chap at Hornby who came up with TTS decoders is busy fixing the bugs in it and hasn't been able to finish the Loco Detection. I would have thought Hornby would have wanted to encourage people to buy more locos by coming up with a loco detection system that goes to over 106. Unless Hornby are getting a cut down version of another companies detection system - but whose?. PS The Midas Tiny 12 x 19mm NTAG213 NFC Sticker Tags seem to be able to read pretty quickly but some software used to interface to it can slow things down. If the tag is at the extreme of range it might take longer to read the tag. A half to 1 second to read a tag seems very long. On the cheap MFRC522 writer readers I've tried the tag has gone out of range in 100 milliseconds at a scale 120mph (OO). The best results I've got so far with the cheap MFRC522 writer readers(modified)/modified software and Midas Tiny 12 x 19mm NTAG213 NFC Sticker Tags is a scale 112 mph (OO) with a Diesel loco with the sticker on the plastic fuel tank (250 laps of my DCC test track without a read failure). Regards Nick

Hi, The layout behaved quite well at our open day yesterday despite the repairs to the damage found just before the show. The damaged track with lengths of rails without chairs and superglued to the sleepers stayed in place even with heavy locos. One of the pieces of third rail that had been damaged had been left until open day as there appeared to be a metal pin in the baseboard to solder to. The pin turned out to be a plated screw with a 4mm head. It was a real challenge to solder rail to screw with a soldering iron with a 1mm tip. We had a sheet of paper to write faults on but only a couple of items got put on it. I managed to sneak in a test of a Heljan class 16 chassis hauling 5 Mk1 coaches up the 1 in 40 gradient and 36" curve. It went up without slipping at an average speed of ~50mph. A problem with a route macro was fixed but I may have caused a problem elsewhere. Three of my EMUs failed. Hopefully two of them are just DCC addresses changed but on the third the close coupling mechanism had popped out of the chassis and I couldn't get it back in. The room Beggarwood was in had a lot of visitors in the morning so hopefully it was a successful open day. Apologies for the two OO Steam Era layouts that had running problems as the operator of one was borrowed to try and repair the damaged wiring on the other. Regards Nick (on behalf of the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society - still looking for new members).

Hi, The Hornby magazine review says it has a 5 pole skew wound motor. Is this the first five pole motor in a released Bachmann OO British loco/multiple unit?. Looking at the photos of the motor in Hornby magazine and the Modeller I can't see a lot of skew but it is a small motor (semi open frame). Apart from being tempted by this loco I thought I would never see in RTR I'm interested in the motor in spares form as a donor for kit built multiple units. Regards Nick

Hi, Before my clubs open day started I managed to test my Class 16 chassis hauling 5 Mk1 coaches up a 1 in 40 gradient with 36" curve. I need to double check the distance over which I measured the speed but no slipping was observed and the calculated average speed was 51 scale mph (speed step 126 on DCC). The experimental gradient and curve predictor indicated it would make it up there without slipping and the speed was in the middle between the min and max predicted (the chassis was cold but the track was clean so a middling speed is not unexpected). Regards Nick

Hi, I think that's only on the NCE Power Cab. My NCE Power Pro 5 doesn't have this facility as far as I can tell. I'm going to have a go at making a cheap DCC current meter to interface to a multimeter or a computer. Regards Nick

Hi, The Radio Times layout I mentioned before will now not be at our open day tomorrow due to an embargo. We might be able to get a layout to replace it but getting a layout small enough to fit in might be a problem. Some of the Basingstoke Bodgers from the Great Model Railway Challenge should still be there though not necessarily in Santa hats (see previous picture). Regards Nick