APT Fan

Hi all,

I'm quite new to layout building and I'm just about to start with one after spending over a year on and off preparing the loft space. I've quite enjoyed the building work but I'm nearly at the end of the job list now so I can't keep putting off the layout build forever, I'm just a little bit nervous about it.

A large Fakro loft hatch has been fitted with fold-away timber ladders making access so easy. Then a timber sub frame has been built on to which the floor boards have been fitted. A ring main with 10 sockets, perhaps a bit over the top, but I wanted to be able to use a 2.5Kw Oil filled radiator in the room plus I was not happy with the condition of the existing radial supply in there so that had to come out. Foil insulation has been fitted and has made a huge difference, -5C outside today but it hasn't dropped below 12C up there all week and takes no time to warm up to a pleasant temperature. A game changer has been fitting the Velux windows which has made it such a pleasant environment, I hardly ever need the lights on during the day due to it being so light and it can be quite bearable in the summer with the windows open. I think we had 33C one day and it was still (only) 25C in the loft.

The baseboard consists of 12mm plywood on CLS bearers spanning the trusses forming a complete loop around the loft. The two main runs are 0.9Mx7M with the returns about 1.2MX0.6M between the trusses, I didn't want to make any cuts to the trusses. The layout is to be a DCC four track main line layout set in the 80s inspired by the WCML, but not many ideas beyond that. I'm mainly thinking of a bit of a station / town scene, a depot, perhaps an oil refinery / industrial area and probably quite a bit of countryside. I need quite a long fiddle section to park a 9 car APT and an HST. For me it is mainly about the trains, signals and automation rather than lots of scenery, but my interest might develop more in that area. I don't have lots of rolling stock or locos but nearly all my locos have sound and I'd just like to leave them running whilst I'm working, I can't see me doing a lot of shunting.

I'll post some pictures of the setup and one of the layout that I'm thinking of created on the Z21 interface, obviously not to scale. Any comments, advice, suggestions and criticisms would be very much appreciated. Thanks. 

North Section - facing West

South Section - facing West

West end return

East end return

South Section - facing East

Proposed layout - South section is at the top so arguably the view is upside down!

Cheers,

Found this article about the sub classes, 305 served in South Wales apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_37

Found this thread regarding the fans - 'Fan operation differs between model subclasses, most do not operate immediately when the engine starts up. (Like the real thing).'

What's the situation with double heading these? Is it just a question of setting up the consist addresses and press play or is the more to it than that?

Hi,

New to the thread as I'm not really a Class 37 buff but I recently acquired two due to not being able to resist a deal. I paid £267 for 35-301SFX which I thought was a very good deal and I've been delighted with the purchase. I assumed that was me done for Class 37s but then when 35-303SFX appeared for £218 I bought one of those as well. I'm very pleased, great detail, great speed control, smooth running especially at slow speeds and great sound too, Bachmann's are definitely improving in this area. I'm not sure what the point of the tinted windows are but I love the fans, my 47711 doesn't have them as I wasn't willing to fork out the extra at the time.

Not being that familiar with the Class, I have a couple of questions. The two examples I have seem to be of a different colour. Well not really a different colour of blue but the 37/0 seems to be more of a matt finish and the 37/3 more of a gloss - is that deliberate, were the two sub classes of a different finish? The cab lighting is significantly different with the 37/0 very yellow and quite dim in comparison to the 37/3 which is still yellow but quite a but brighter - I assume this is an accurate reflection of the real thing(s)?

Finally, fans operate differently with the 37/0 fans operating permanently after start up which is as described in the Bachmann instructions. The 37/3 only begins to operate some time after start up, it does seem to coincide with the first movement but then they seem to stay on permanently. Oddly both models were supplied with 37/0 instructions which of course describe the same operation for both models so I'm a little confused as to whether the 37/3 fan is operating correctly. I don't know why but I assumed the fans would mimic the thermostat controlled operation, maybe I'm thinking of the 47s, dunno?

Thanks in advance      

On 04/08/2023 at 21:35, Bloodnok said:

 

They are to minimise RF interference generated by the motor and transmitted via the track as an antenna. That's a DC specific issue.

If you are using DCC, there's no benefit to them, and only the potential downside if they fail. So I removed the one from my stock NDM while I was in there, and never fitted one to the NDM I motorised from Hornby spares.

I was actually thinking to myself there is no point to them on DCC, in fact the first thing I do when converting older loco's is to remove the RF suppression caps.

However, is there a way to remove the NDM lid without breaking the retaining clips?

4 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

Do you mean the capacitor blew like a T-80 tank? (that's what happened to mine).  BTW, is yours from the original or new batch?

 

Strongly recommend replacing them (details earlier in the thread).

R3874 - No the cab lights had stopped working but not the coach lights and when I checked the PCB some of the components were running extremely hot, I mean dangerously hot! Probably something I should report to Hornby? Anyway I bought a replacement board on line and managed to solder it to the existing wiring without dismantling the unit as to my surprise there was just enough slack in the wiring for once. Never expected to have it open for repair after only a handful of runs.

Finally managed to build a big enough layout to give my 7 car +2 coaches a good run. The main pcb in one of the driving units failed after about three hours of use. That's a bit rubbish isn't it?

23 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

 

phone Bachmann spares and buy a class 90 pantograph from them ?

 

£20 last time I bought one.  [ Bachmann havent updated their spares site in a while, they have more than the website shows ]
 

One thing Bachmann, Heljan and Hornby have all got the same is the position for the insulators.. ive swapped a few several times.

 

With the 90 just snip the end that goes into the body for the lifting arm, unless you want to fit a servo too.. (Bachmann can also sell you that).

So it would just be 'glued' on top of the four insulators?

HaHa!! Nice one, fit a servo motor into a Hornby Class 87? It was bad enough trying to fit sound.

Hi,

Does anybody know what the best 'replacement' pantograph would be for 87001, are they difficult to fit? The factory one is awful, worse than the APT which at least doesn't fall off the actual model. What on earth were Hornby thinking of? I only realised how bad it was after purchasing a Bachmann Class 90 and had something to compare it with.

Fixed

Evening,

I fitted Hornby R3957 power and trailer cars with TTS decoders a few months ago and everything was working fine. It's been in a box since then whilst I've been preparing a new layout. I tested it on the new layout over the weekend and the power car has no sound now. On inspection after opening it up I noticed that the wires to the speakers have been nipped slightly by the daft retaining screws. Wire continuity is fine between the speaker and the pcb, so I'm thinking maybe the output stage is blown? Are there any further checks I could possibly carry out?

Thanks in advance. 

Hi,

Is it possible to get coal loads for the Accurascale HDA Wagons? I know you can get them for the Hornby HAAs but are they the correct size for the Accurascale versions?

Thanks.

Apologies for hijacking the thread.

Back on subject, I've DCC fitted my APT now and I've used LaisDCC decoders mainly because I've used them before and know that they are nice and small. They are also cheap which is another consideration when having to buy three of them. I think they will be fine for the driving cars, we'll just have to see how we get on with the NDM. If the NDM decoder goes okay I think I'll leave it now rather than going for sound as I'm already into this model for quite a bit of cash. I expect the sound file is probably very similar to my 87 anyway and I'm finding that the APT is not a model I've been using daily purely from a practical point of view.

So on fitting the decoders, I found that I had to trim the heat shrink sleeving on all of them very slightly to ensure they fitted between the edge of the enclosure and the 8 pin socket at the centre - I wonder why they put it in centrally? I wanted to make sure that they were completely inside the enclosure so as not to make the cover bulge at all which seems very easy to do given the allowed space.

The NDM decoder is shown below and whilst it all looks okay, when I test the tilt by moving the bogies there is movement of both the wiring and the decoder inside the enclosure. I haven't tested it properly yet, it has only been on the test track but hopefully everything will be okay.

I think the Hunt couplings are a must for these models aren't they? I fitted them at the same time and they look and feel good so far. Are there any known issues of them becoming uncoupled accidently during operation?

18 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

The 87 is very tight but a Zimo micro sound decoder will fit (just) and a better speaker can be fitted under the board, oh yes also managed to fit an arcing chip for the Panto.

But your correct about Hornby, they really don’t think much about DCC fitment.

Just a comment on that speaker - Does it not foul the PCB as it doesn't look like it is sitting flush within the designated cutout area in the chassis and seems to be sitting proud? Even if the picture is deceiving me, there are surface mounted components on the underside of the PCB which are also likely to foul it also.

My Loksound v5 micro came pre-wired with a Base enhanced speaker 23x13x6mm as recommended for the Hornby. I was advised to install the speaker on the underside of the PCB at the other end, however I found that it would also be fouled at that end by the underside of the 8 pin connector joints. Here's an explanation of my approach with illustrations:-

Firstly, these are the surface mounted components which 'intrude' into the 'space'.

So I fitted the speaker sideways and fixed it to the bottom of the chassis with double sided pads and then pinned it at the top with another couple of pads. Side fixing it would make it sit prouder and might risk it fouling the drive shaft. The fixings are strong and it isn't going anywhere!

You can see at the other end how the 8 pin socket joints would 'just' foul an under PCB speaker installation and won't quite fit between the pins and the drive shaft ball joint. Note the extention to the orange wire to ease access due to Hornby not making any allowances and fitting very short wires. 

So then we come to the actual decoder fitting and whilst the Loksound V5 micro is a nice neat and small decoder it is actually quite deep due to the use of quite a bulky connector for the ribbon cable. I couldn't find anywhere to place it on the top side of the PCB without it interfering with the roof and it felt like a very tight squeeze, so I didn't want to force it. So again using the trusty old double sided pads, this was fitted to the underside of the PCB at the 8 pin socket end.

Now, although I have great faith in double sided sicky pads and they usually provide very strong and durable fixings I am aware that occasionally gravity can get the better of them. I noted that this might mean if the decoder became unattached it may fall into the drive shaft. So I made a cowling out of plasticard to protect the shaft. This was measured to size and formed into a U shape, an interference fit, so just clips into place. The more observant of you will have spotted that it has actually been made out of an old Blueyonder TV smart card rather than actual Plasticard.  

Hi,

I have a Class 121 Blue Grey part number 7D-009-003 and it seems to be a smooth runner. As per the manual, I've installed the recommended Dapol Imperium 3 decoder and despite the baffling instructions I think I have all of the lighting functions working now. However I find the cab lighting and interior lighting very dim, particularly the interior lighting - I can't even tell it is on! I'm surprised as they've only used 4.7K load resistors by the looks of it, so is there CV setting that might help improve the brightness?

Also there is no headcode lighting as the LEDs haven't been fitted at locations D1 and D2 - I assume this is by design rather than an oversight?

9 hours ago, Bloodnok said:

 

I have Train-O-Matic Lokommander II (W8P) decoders in my DTS cars. They are retired normal decoders, not dedicated function decoders. I don't recall any problems fitting them, install went smoothly.

The problem vehicle was the NDM (motor car), which I used a Zimo MX600R in. If fitted as intended this caused problems with the tilt not working properly. I had to shove the decoder up the side of the model so it would sit on top of the chassis with the wires flat up the side of the chassis to avoid any catching/rubbing as the body tilted around the chassis block.

... And it still doesn't actually work as it can't climb a hill to save it's life. I either need to ballast it, re-work the rest of the train to reduce rolling resistance, or motorise the other NDM.

Thanks,

I'll be fitting sound to the NDM and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I'll need to remove the 8 pin socket from the floor and move it inside the body. As I'm opening it up anyway, it servers no purpose being mounted in the floor, they've done that to provide easy access via the opening panel. As you've said fitting a decoder as intended interferes with the tilt anyway, so they've definitely dropped a clanger with this.

I'm currently fitting out a Hornby Class 87 with sound and it's a complete nightmare, even without sound people are struggling to fit standard controllers due to the lake of clearance. It looks like anything larger than a micro controller, which I have is likely to be a problem. I also have the smallest speaker available but that's going to be touch and go due to the lack of space provisioning.

The Hornby Class 56 was the same and I don't quite understand the thinking at Hornby when it comes to DCC provisioning in the year of 2022, they are light years behind Bachmann in this regard. However now that I have the APT, hopefully I won't need to buy anymore Hornby models as other manufacturers offer most of the items I'm interested in. I haven't been particularly impressed with the build quality of this item. One of the driving cars had noticeable black marks around the lights, I thought it was a mis-spray but on closer inspection is was the residue from masking tape! Also some of the ridges on the coaches haven't been moulded properly but its obviously passed quality inspection before being sent to the paint shop. Anyway its an APT and is only available from this manufacturer so it is a choice we make and will have to live with the niggles.  

Hi,

Has anyone successfully fitted a Train-O-Matic decoder to the driving coaches as believe space is quite tight?

Its described as - Train-O-Matic Mini 9 wires + 8 pin NEM 652 (W8P)

Thanks

7 hours ago, BigDee said:

This arrived yesterday from Rails, forgot I’d ordered it…

Remarkable paint job and decals. Outstanding work from Bachmann again! I've left my 47 on my work desk and keep noticing extra bits of detail whilst I catch a glimpse of it whilst I'm working.

One the subject of nameplates such as the one's supplied with 47 711, is there a technique to removing them from the stamp? I've tried craft knives and wire cutters but always seem to introduce an element of distortion due to them being so thin.

10 hours ago, curlypaws said:

 

Do you have any recommendations on a particular type/brand which you've found to work well in 00 at all please @APT Fan?

The tape i have is branded 'Concordia'. I'm pretty sure I bought it from one of the local discount stores like Home&Bargain etc.

7 hours ago, The Ghost of IKB said:

If you're worried about things not looking quite right, you're going to have an interesting time with most rtr o gauge diesels.

I'm not worried, just replying to a post. I'm more concerned with the lack of provision for sound decoders when it comes to Hornby models. I just get on with it though and enjoy it for what it is, finding solutions is part of the fun.

5 hours ago, atherton said:

No but I have bought the earlier 56047. I hate to say it but ordered direct from Hornby and it arrived here in NZ 10 days later, which beats the average by 4 days! Nice model, heavy runs smoothly, a little bit fast for my liking and for a freight loco even at low speed settings on the controller. It still has the flaws of the earlier detailed models in that the scavenger fans are sunken when they should be flush, but it looks like a 56 and sits well  my other 15 grids. Love the all blue version. Didn't get 086 as I already have one renumbered to that - murphys law.

 

Thanks,

I had R30082 on pre order but cancelled it and bought a Bachmann Class 47 instead - which I'm absolutely delighted with. I've subsequently been looking at the pictures of R30082 and it doesn't look like it has moved on at all from the Super detail Railfreight 56 108 I have, I know what you mean now about the sunken fans, they don't look quite right? I think I'll wait now until the Cavalex versions come out. I think I have enough stuff now, especially since I've started getting involved with O gauge too!

1 hour ago, Roy Langridge said:

I am with @APT Fan in using double sided tape. Can be made very neat and makes the plates removeable if ever needed.

Roy

With glueing if you get it wrong using too much glue or in the wrong place it would be very easy to make a mess of a very nice and expensive model. Also it is not a foolproof method, I bought a very nice class 56 with glued on nameplates, one of which had fallen off! It had left quite a nasty mess behind which I had to make good to ensure that the replacement plate would sit square and flat. The double sided tape is very thin and flat providing a good and even finish which I doubt you'd get using something like blu tack.   

20 hours ago, Tiddles47 said:

Added the detail on my new 47711…. Fantastic model. But a bit fiddly to put on and the instructions dont cater for all types inc this 1. 

Hi,

Have you fitted the supplied name plates? I'm not sure I'll bother as the factory painted on one's look good enough for me. I have a Hornby Class 87 which was supplied with seperate plates but also had painted plates. I'm pretty sure the manual suggested blu tack but I've always fitted them with a small strip of double sided tape cut to size.

Hi,

Has anybody bought 'R30082 Hornby Class 56 Diesel Locomotive number 56 086'?

Any good?

On 08/10/2022 at 22:42, richard w said:

Very impressed with the factory weathering on 526, really captures the loco in its 1991 condition.  I've added some buffer grease, a driver and the various accessories.

 

 

 

Reminds me of the limited edition model they did for Kernow a couple of years ago. I remember watching a review of it on You Tube and oddly the areas which give the appearance of the paint flaking off have actually been applied as a top coat. A bit counter intuitive but Bachmann have definitely managed to pull it off with fantastic results.

The Large Logo livery is my favourite and I've waited a long time for my model to turn up - two years possibly? However now that it has turned up I've been so impressed by it to such an extent that I'm considering ordering a BR blue version. I think the factory fitted sound is a must as Bachmann have done a great job integrating it as a system, but is it worth pushing the boat out and going for a SFX version? In the Cavalex 56 thread, they have mentioned that they are doing quite a bit of work to develop realistic operation of the fans.