ColinB

He also said at the end that perhaps he got a bad one. We now know he wasn't the only one. I wonder if they used a different production facility that was not so careful connecting loco to tender. Looking at the other reviewer that had issues, it sounds like one the edge connector pins is bent inside its housing.

Even with the gold plating they are only good for between 10 to 20 connects/disconnects. We used to have racks of test instrumentation with the circuit boards with these edge connectors.

Have it your way, I don't like them, end of story, so I don't buy models with them. You can stagger them as Hornby do on their Railroad models, it sort of half works if the other pickup is working properly.

As a consolation I doubt you would be able to fix it even if you took it apart, it sounds like an issue with the fingers on the edge connector, replacement is necessary. I was surprised when I saw Hornby had adopted this, edge connectors of this type were a constant issue on electronic equipment I used to have to fix. Interestingly my HD A4s have this arrangement and they seem to work ok, but I haven't really run them that much. The fingers probably got broken when they rammed the two together in plant. So it seems Sam wasn't all that wrong after all, eat humble pie Hornby Forum.

Car tyres when they age go hard so you will find your braking distance increases substantially. Generally that is the main reason for changing them. On a motorcycle it is even more critical.

Here are some photos. I have replace the drawbar with a more conventional type, changed the weight and added a 8 pin DCC socket. Picture one is the top showing the wiring to the top, I used an old Hornby joiner pcb. Picture 2 is the bottom, showing pickups without wheels. Picture 3 is bottom with wheels..

Yes I know that, but most traction aren't. I would imagine adding those additives would probably compromise the traction ability, but sure you can do anything if you try. We are talking model railways made to a cost.

That still doesn't remove the issue that you cannot pickup current from those wheels. As for the rubber well you have your opinion, I have mine. You cannot get rid of the fact, rubber is an incredibly good insulator, design isn't going to get rid of that. Those wheel will only pick up current on the flanges.

I think you will find that rubber will rot much quicker than anything else. It either rots or goes hard. Mazak rot is not age related it is more to do with the wrong chemical balance of the materials when it was make. I have ringfield motors ranging back to the 1980s, motors gears are perfect but on every one I have had to replace the traction tyres. Go look at your car tyres when they are over 10 years old, generally they wear out before they degrade but if you have a classic vehicle, it is one of the big issues.

I have been watching his reviews for many years, he has never had a loco given to him by Hornby, now if it was Jenny Kirk, then that is a different story. He has been given models by Rails, Hattons and several other small companies, he always states this and although he does a sort of review he never rates them , as he says it would be unfair. He just recently did a review of a Hornby Q1, a really old model of Hornby, which he gave a glowing review, so how is that biased. He has done it with many of Hornby's old models, probably because he doesn't have to pay £200 to do a video and I suspect his YouTube budget is limited. Sam is like me, he wants value for money. If a loco costs over £200 he expects it to be special, especially compared to those manufacturers that charge considerably less. Sometimes Hornby and Bachmann meet that criteria, sometimes they don't, so he points it out. As to traction tyres I hate the things, they compromise conductivity with the rails and have built in obsolescence because rubber rots with age.

What a really interesting post. Thank you for putting all that effort in. It was really enlightening.

Yes it was the Next18 that I was interested in, yes 21 pin should be a lot easier.

I will see what I can do.

Very true, but as I have found on many PCBs I have looked at, it may be on the pin but they don't very often bring it out to a pad you can solder to. Of course if you are brave you can solder directly to the connector. The reason I know, because that is what I thought I would do until I started examining PCBs.

It is not brand new, but either way I wouldn't pay that. When I first started at Ford I drove one of those for the first time, I couldn't believe how basic it was.