hobbyhorse

Over the years I've had many people ask the best method to solder my castings (ex Hobbyhorse) it's really straightforward, firstly tin the brass or N/silver with 145 solder, next clean the white metal casting and using a product called Woods Metal solder the two parts together. Woods Metal is available from various suppliers (Tirante is my supplier) and is cheaper than model shop type solders. The soldering iron I use is an ERSA type with a 1mm tip and temperature around 250, yes it's a high temperature but the key is the solder will flow very easily, and you won't melt the casting. The photo shows two white metal castings soldered, notice how clean the joint is without blobs. Some care is required with Woods Metal as the fumes are dangerous, so and extractor is required. Hope this helps. Simon

I tried the Digitrax ones but caused lots of problems with shorts, replaced them with the Tam Valley frog juicers that can be configured for auto reverse, and work without any problems. Simon

Similar on the South Eastern, just the diagrams in the case, then get the WTT's out and find all the stopping places. one of the benefits of my depot Grove Park was it was quite small so we used to rewrite the diagrams to suit ourselves, this in management speak was called fiddling. This all stopped when the depot expanded opening up the old Hither Green down yard and continental siding to EMUT stabling, as we had management on site now, something we never had. Simon

Steve, you can run JMRI on either windows or Mac, once you have the computer interface JMRI is free. Its a very powerful tool that's also useful for programming locos as well. It will work alongside your own system, I run Digitrax on it. Have a look on YouTube for JMRI, plenty of tutorials on all aspects of it. Simon

You can use SE8C as a stand alone unit, and use JMRI for setting up and running. Obviously it's designed to connect to digitrax loconet but work well without it. I use them and my only gripe is you can't manually operate signals. Simon

Lots of options, ESU, soundtrax and Zimo. I've done lots of installs over the years for clients and all have a good reputation. If your sticking to one type it's worth getting the programmer for it, or use JMRI if your mixing types. Simon

Good to meet you Tim, glad you enjoyed your visit. The weather made it challenging for us but good fun. Simon

These are my mods, it insures 100% reliable operation. Yes it's a belt and braces approach but for the sake of 5 minutes work before laying the track it's definitely worth it, especially the feeds to the switch blades, don't rely on the contact spring or the fixing at the pivot point. Polarity change is by the switch machine. Simon

Sorry, this is what I should have posted, can't get used to these electrical things I'm much better on steam power. Simon

Bredgar Gala.pdf

My setup is digitrax with JMRI, and I can say I've never had any problems reading, tweaking and remapping chips. Before I retired from the model rail business I did a lot of chip fitting and diagnostics and problems with chips was down to faults on them. Simon

Sounds like a great weekend you've got planned, come a say Hi. I'm normally on Helga. Simon

Our final open day this year is Sunday 28th October, and as usual it's our Steam Gala which will see an intensive service using up to 9 locos with the various coaches and wagons. Plans are well advanced for the day and something new this year is a cavalcade of up to 9 steam locos. The plan is to run one cavalcade late morning and also another late afternoon, this is a fantastic opportunity to see our entire steam loco fleet in action and something we're never done before. There will also be a selection of diesels in use as well. More details will be available on the day.

We was always taught on the South Eastern to hang the coupling on the hook on the locos. One of my regular drivers would always comment when taking over trains from other regions if the coupling was hanging, and on one occasion we had a bit of a standoff between the two driver. In the end I hung it up, but I had the last laugh as I shook the other drivers hand and said "no hard feelings mate" unfortunately I had a really greasy hand.

Having just wired the last baseboard for the new layout, unlike my previous post it's the closest to 2 wires for DCC.

Thanks Giles, I got a bit carried away with it, all that was needed was a slightly fatter chimney.

This is the latest rebuild for the NKLR and The Yard. It's turned out nice, well I think so. .

It's definitely 2 wires, just lots of them.

Matthew, I used to do custom installation of chips for customers and have used all the popular types available. I've found over the years each type has its pro and cons, I'd go for the type that suits your needs, size, amps functions, sounds, plugs etc. Be careful with some of the cheaper sound chips as it pays to go for the better quality but higher price types. You'll find that the use of function key allocations differ across different manufacturers, so what I've done is to use a bit of software called JMRI to standardise the keys, it's called remapping, it's also used to do the setting up of all the elements on the chips. Most manufacturers can supply a interface for programming but will only work with their own products, JMRI is free other than the interface to your system. Simon

If your into modern diesels this could be just thing. http://protothrottle.com/

I agree the purchased app is worth every penny especially the duel throttle, brilliant bit of kit. Simon

I've rechiped all my Bachmann locos (2-6-6-2/2-4-4-2/ 2-8-0 etc) as the Bachmann sound chips are very basic on the sound and motor control side, the easiest way is just to add an 8 pin plug to the Tsunami 2. Simon

From the manual that I've set up and not had any issues. Enabling WPA2 security will allow you to prevent unauthorized users from con- necting to your LocoNet by requiring a simple Passcode that is entered when you connect to an LNWI SSID. To Enable Basic WPA2 Security: 1. Power up your LNWI and connect it to an active LocoNet 2. Connect a Digitrax throttle to one of the LNWI’s LocoNet connectors 3. Press the OPS button on the LNWI. The Green ID and Red OPS indicators should start alternating blinking ON. 4. Go to SWITCH mode on your Digitrax throttle. 5. Set Sw 17=c and Sw 18=c 6. Once all switches are con gured press the OPS button again, the ID light should go back to its normal “heartbeat” operation. 7. Power the unit o and back on by disconnecting and reconnected the barrel plug power connection. 8. The LNWI should now show with a secured SSID. The passcode is “digitrax1234” 9. Repeat this procedure for any additional LNWI units.

I've done a lot of fitting resistors to wheel sets and use a similar paint to the link above. One thing I've found is don't just rely on the paint for the conductivity because it can crack, solder some wires onto the resistors and drill holes between the axle and the plastic centre, and the tyre and plastic centre. The wires are then pushed into holes with the paint and then let it dry. I've not had any problems so far with some of the stock running for many years. Simon .

I'm In the process of building a large layout and have gone with Digitrax, with capacity of up to 8amps it will cover my requirements.So far it's got 8 power districts and will probably end up with 3 boosters. The main reason me choosing this system was because I'm involved with a large 7mm layout that's used Digitrax for over 20 years without any problems. Simon