NIK

Some pictures and info on a 00 third rail Southern Region layout being built by the Basingstoke and North Hants Model Railway Society. Future posts will show the progress made/ things added to the layout.

Beggarwood Lane prior to the last of the track being laid. A two track mainline with sidings, three branches and goods yard.

The fictional location is vaguely South London. The original plan was to allow stock from the 1960's to the nineties to run.

Layout track plan. Size roughly 28 feet by 12. Three EMU carriage sidings at left end of scenic layout. All the track is now laid as is most of the wiring. Its a DCC layout with MERG DCC accessory decoders and MERG Servo drivers. The baseboard tops are 9mm Birch Ply. The ends are 2 layers of 9mm birch ply. The rest of the woodwork is mainly 6mm standard ply. There are full vertical supports at least once a foot both sideways and across. Track is code 75 throughout.

A 3D model of one of the scenic boards based on the baseboards as constructed.

Start of making the scenery (after the last of the track was laid and most of the wiring was done). The track was spray painted before the scenery was started. Expanded polystyrene blocks were cut to shape, glued in and small pieces of net curtain pasted on with a flexible plaster/brown poster paint/water mix.

All of the diamonds and slips use DCC Autoreverser units to set the polarity of the crossings. The layout is controlled by an NCE Power Pro 5 Amp system with Power Pro and Power Cab throttles. All points are operated by servos with MERG mounts.

Nick Murphy on behalf of all the builders of Beggarwood Lane.

It is more likely they're waiting until the N gauge one is actually out and seeing how it sells. It would be rather risky of DJM to go with a 319 in OO with Bachmann having the potential to have it ready (without us knowing) and guzumping him on it.

Yes, and didn't Bachmann announce a change of policy to announce new models just before they are produced - around Jan - Feb time each year.

I'd forgotten Bachmann haven't produced the N gauge 319 - I assumed it was out when I saw the mention of upscaling their N gauge one.

Regards

Nick (just running in a rather noisy new Bachmann 2-EPB before measuring its current draw).

Does anyone know if DC Kits are back in action after the fire selling their plastic EMU and DMU kits?.

Regards

Nick

A class 319 in OO gauge (as it doesn't seem that Bachmann have any plans to upscale their N gauge one)

Perhaps they are waiting to see how their (presumably) low height drive works/is regarded in the updated OO Class 158.

Regards. Nick

I recall seeing a photo a good while ago in a book depicting a Class 71 hauling a 4-SUB unit through Thames Ditton station after a derailment at Hampton Court; the loco was utilised to tow the damaged stock clear. So I'm certain that these loco's had hauled dead EMUs/DEMUs.

 

Alex

Dear Alex,

Many thanks for the info.  That gives me a better excuse for running my 71 with 4 wheel drive hauling an EMU (driven or motor-less).

I have got a 4-SUB kit to build, although I'll practise on some less rare kits first.

Regards

Nick

Yes,

Hornby haven't published a service sheet for the Class 71 yet.

I might just be able to make a new housing for the worm gear but I can't make the twin gear that mates with the worm and the gear tower.

A member of my club 3D printed a gear for a Dapol N gauge Terrier but I suspect a new Hornby gear tower will be a similar price. Plus the Class 71 motor seems pretty torquey.

My 71 now on 4 wheel drive has a drawbar pull of 37g at DCC speed step 126 and wheels slipping. I will put it on my DCC test track and see how many Mk 1 coaches it will pull.

Does any one know if the Class 71 ever hauled dead EMUs or DEMUs?.

Regards

Nick

The DC kits website says its a 2 car unit and two liveries are mentioned.

So unless they are going down the Kernow Hampshire unit route of producing a 2 car that could be expanded then that annoucement of two cars focusses the speculation down a bit.

Regards

Nick

I think I've found the problem with my class 71.

I ran the loco in reverse for a few seconds then looked at the gears in the tower. The gear that is driven by the worm had worn and bent teeth.

Maybe as suggested one of the clips at the top of the gear tower had not held and the worm came out of proper mesh and damaged the next gear.

I tried remodelling the top of the gear tower with a fine tipped soldering iron and a file to get the worm shaft to sit a bit lower and mesh with the remains of the gear teeth but it just made things worse.

Regards

Nick

It sounds like at least one gear has lost some teeth. You must really have forced it home to stripe them off, in a direction causing the wheels to turn or dislocate.

 

BTW, does it have as much free play as a Dapol class 52 (they are 1/4 turn before resistance sets in)?

I don't have a Dapol 52 - it seems like I might have been clutching at straws if the Dapol 52 has similar free play.

I haven't found any gears with stripped teeth or even worn teeth. I tried to make sure I pressed the body straight down so the wheels didn't turn.

Regards

Nick

I wonder whether they've put the wrong diameter gear in or put them in the wrong way round.

I definitely don't blame Hornby - the problems only started after I forcefully clipped the body over the Zimo MX600R decoder. Luckily there aren't any gradients on the electrified sections of the club layout I'm hoping to run the loco on. So I can probably get away with running it as 4 wheel drive for now until spares become available. I tried adding gorilla tape rectangles to the centre  prongs of the keeper plate and it seemed to help but not enough to stop the gears grinding when running in reverse on the rolling road. I've also drilled out a deeper recess for the middle intermediate gear in case it wasn't close enough to the vertical tower but that only made things worse - I will add material to the keeper plate to make up for making the tower gear recess deeper.

Regards

Nick

Yes, it holds all the gears in place.

Many thanks for the info.

Unfortunately the top of the tower was firmly clipped in place. I visually checked the gears anyway.

I had a few goes trying to get the bottom of the tower to work properly but although I got close it always ended with the gears going out of mesh in one direction.

The amount the wheels can be turned by hand before resistance is met on the working bogie of my class 71 is lot more than a Bachmann Class 25 or a Heljan 33.

I might try adding a sliver of material (gorilla tape?) to the middle prong of the keeper plate to see if the middle gear that connects the vertical tower to the horizontal was sitting too low to mesh in both directions.

Regards

Nick

More than likely the issue is with top part of the gear tower, not being clipped in place properly - the loco not being level is a dead giveaway for that. You'll need to remove the PCB to gain access to it. 10 minutes to fix tops

Does the top part of the gear tower clip into the bottom part?.

That would explain why I couldn't work out how to get the whole gear tower out of the chassis.

Regards

Nick

I thought I'd managed to get a Zimo MX600R DCC decoder to fit in the Hornby 71 but I used a lot of force to get the body to clip onto the chassis.

The 71 then made clicking noises when going in reverse. I isolated it to the gear tower at the end of the loco where I'd squashed the decoder and 8 pin plug between the body and chassis.

By taking out the gears at the bottom of the gear tower I can stop the clicking (which was unacceptable before, but worse when I reassemble the chassis).

I'm guessing the gear tower or the wheel /final gears keeper plate have been bent by me but I cant see the problem. It maybe the gear that connects  the vertical tower to the bottom idler gears is not being held in place properly by the keeper plate.

Has anybody had similar experiences with other diesel/electric locos (maybe Hornby new 31/50/HSTs?) and knows a fix?.

Regards

Nick (suitably sorry for having broken my 71)

PS As a temporary measure I'll probably remove the bottom final gears and make the 71 a four wheel drive (a magazine review said a fully working 71 model took 13 coaches up a 1 in 30 gradient).

Nick,

 

The 36-567 Next18 decoder is definitely made by ZIMO. It's a straight re-brand of the ZIMO MX618N18. Top draw decoder for a bargain price.

 

I hope to goodness that if Bachmann do use ZIMO 21 pin decoders that they move away from the obsolete 21MTC connector and adopt the much more function-friendly PluX22 format.

 

Anyway, to your request. I've not seen any Next18 adapters in the UK yet, but here's a link to what you should be looking at:

 

(the large, gross, size has all function outputs available - Anschlussadapter Next18 (groß))

 

http://doehler-haass.de/cms/pages/produkte/soundsystem/anschlussadapter.php

 

Kind regards,

 

Paul

I'm afraid there's very little known about these connectors. The Next18 interface is a development of "RailCommunity", a group of (independent) DCC manufacturers. Their standard for Next 18 is here. (note: in German!) The source for the actual connectors is, according to said standard, a company "Coratec" (also in Germany). Sadly, the website for this outlet is "incomplete" to say the least

 

As a matter of fact, I've been looking in to these connectors too, earlier this year. I came to the conclusion that the pins are inadequate for any real use (for instance the track power is connected to 2 pins each!) so if I come across this interface I'd hard-wire a decoder to the loco instead. Use a very fine tip on the soldering iron, properly light the work space and employ magnifiers if you need them (and also when you don't )

Thanks to your help I've found a stockist albeit in Germany - Conrad.de. The Conrad description is Coratec Next18-Schnittstellenbuchse SMD NEXT18-Buchse Degson 1 St. The Morop description is Coratech CT0519S.​

Conradelectronics.co.uk only have the plug (as fitted to the decoder). I have thought subsequently about hard wiring the decoder but for exhibition use it would be handy to be able to swap a decoder over for a Bachmann straight out of the box (maybe even just bought in an emergency from a show trader (although I haven't had to do this so far). The 0.5 Amp limit quoted for the connector seems to contradict the continuous motor current rating of some Next18 decoders.

Regards

Nick

Dear All,

Does anyone know what the connectors are that allow a PCB to connect to a Next 18 DCC mobile (loco) decoder and also can they be bought in the UK?.


The background is that I bought a couple of Zimo MX600R decoders for evaluation and I found an extra function for smoke generation might be used to control the intensity of third rail sparks during standstill/deceleration, coasting and acceleration.

Bachmann are now selling a decoder (with a Next 18 connector) that is believed to be made by Zimo. This 36-567 (RRP £21.95
,discount >=£18.65) has 4 function outputs and four logic level outputs. The logic level output would allow more specialised functions and hopefully allow easier interfacing to custom circuitry. I hope that Bachmann having tried Soundtraxx after ESU might later produce a 21 pin Zimo version for their larger locos/multiple units but for the meantime I'm looking for the matching connector for the 36-567.

Regards

Nick

Hi Nik,

 

There is a list of the most common CVs included in the instructions along with a note that many more CVs are accessible - see the DCC Concepts website for details. I have searched their website for some time and unfortunately have been unable to find any other information.

 

I am sure if you email Richard he would provide more information.

 

Steve

Hi Steve,

Gaugemaster have a overall list of Zen CVs: http://www.gaugemaster.com/instructions/dcc_concepts/Zen%20CV.pdf. I will get in touch with DCC Concepts regarding advanced instructions.

I've just got two Zimo MX600Rs for general evaluation and although they may have some features useful for 3rd rail sparks (see MX600 RMweb topic) they may be too long for a comfy fit in the Hornby Class 71.

Regards

Nick

DCC Concepts ZEN Nano 8 pin Direct decoder may be an alternative as it is only as big as the blanking plug and it also comes with an optional 'Stay Alive'.

 

Steve

Many thanks, I've been a bit dubious about the Zen range as I couldn't find the advanced instructions for using many of the extra CVs (long CV list says 'see advanced' for many CVs). Do you happen to know if the advanced instructions are now available?.

Regards

We are using NCE Power Pro 5 Amp on our Basingstoke Club's Beggarwood Lane OO layout (28' x 12').

 

The throttles are NCE Procabs and NCE Power Cabs (minimum of three throttles, plus a Power Cab for decoder programming and occasional wheel cleaning).

 

Route setting is done via the NCE throttles.

 

Computer assistance (currently track mimic panels) via Raspberry PIs & JMRI.

 

We may add a Booster and more Power District Cutouts in future (may depend on what Heljan make in the future).

 

Regards

 

PS NMRA who standardised DCC are working on a layout control bus that can have adapters for various makes of throttles.

As regards the future I'm working on a system to detect the position of trains in fiddle yards to a resolution of an inch (in OO), the hardware I'm using at present costs about £15 per foot length (2'6 wide fiddle yard). I'm 5 months in and the system is currently detecting positions within a square foot test area at a reasonable speed.

In the far future I'm thinking about an augmented reality display on a smartphone with a throttle control below it (hopefully using JMRI smartphone throttle for the throttle control). In the meantime I think NCE Procab throttles can display messages sent from a computer via the command station so the fiddle yard system can display the DCC address of the loco at the head of the exit route selected.

The augmented reality bit would be to display the trains the phone was pointed at with the DCC addresses overlaid on top of trains. You would then touch select  the train on the touch screen and it would set the throttle to the DCC address and suggest the start number of the route macro.

Do you use macros for that?

Yes, we set up the macros and transfered the macros to a spare Power Pro using the JMRI NCE macro editor (using an old version of JMRI as later ones may have a bug in the editor). The NCE Power Pro has macros 0 to 255. Luckily there are only 10 (but long) fiddle yard sidings so simple routes like siding 1 to siding 5 is macro 15. There's a loop on the anticlockwise mainline circuit so that option is covered by adding  a 1 on the front (ie macro 115). Unfortunately there are 3 branches, carriage sidings and a route into the goods yard so logical numbering is at a premium. Macros 0 to 9 are reserved for the most popular routes in the goods yard.

We are using NCE Power Pro 5 Amp on our Basingstoke Club's Beggarwood Lane OO layout (28' x 12').

The throttles are NCE Procabs and NCE Power Cabs (minimum of three throttles, plus a Power Cab for decoder programming and occasional wheel cleaning).

Route setting is done via the NCE throttles.

Computer assistance (currently track mimic panels) via Raspberry PIs & JMRI.

We may add a Booster and more Power District Cutouts in future (may depend on what Heljan make in the future).

Regards

PS NMRA who standardised DCC are working on a layout control bus that can have adapters for various makes of throttles.

I've had a partial success fitting a Lenz Standard V2 DCC decoder into my Hornby 71.

After trying various locations I stuck the decoder to the inside of the roof above the 8 pin DCC socket using the sticky pad supplied with the Lenz. I seem to have killed the first decoder I fitted as I forgot to put insulating tape over the 8 pin plug leaving the solder pips exposed.

Its only a partial success as the body only just clips over and the solebar at the decoder end curves downwards.

Also I can't get the lights to work now - maybe the long cable fitted to the decoder is stopping the sprung lighting contacts from touching the main loco PCB.  I also deranged the pantograph getting the body off and on.

I'll probably look for a smaller and thinner decoder - I've got two Zimo MX600Rs on order for general evaluation and the MX600s seem to be the narrowest and thinnest of the big three feature rich sub £20 decoders - the MX600x, the Lenz Standard V2 and the Bachmann 36-566.

In the meantime the Class 71 is running sweetly on the Lenz without adjusting any CVs and seems to shunt well which the prototype presumably was intended to be used for on those goods yards that had overhead catenary.

The current consumption of my Class 71 @ 12 volts DC was: Continuous current consumption at max voltage: 0.32 Amps.
                                                                                                  Peak current consumption at max volts: 0.36 Amps.
                                                                                                  Current consumption with wheels stalled: 0.74 amps.

Current measured on rolling road. Regards, Nick