jpendle

Well as my wife works in Cheyenne I suppose I'd better catch the return working Sunday week. BTW I loved the video of the test run in Nunn, I live about 15 miles from there and it looked like the whole town was out that night watching the train! I'm not saying its a small town or anything John P

Any news on timescales for the 2mm versions? Thanks, John P

It is April 1st today, isn't it??????

Bachmann spares are pretty good, I would give them a call. BTW have you no recourse with the seller? Regards, John P

The Z21 is (imho) a very good system and you have the ability to use the Multimaus and/or a phone/tablet as the 'throttle'. One possible additional benefit is that loco's can be identified visually using a photo rather than needing to know the loco address. Regards, John P

I always thought it a pity that neither Wetwang nor Blubberhouses were ever served by rail. Regards, John P

Caboose Hobbies in Lakewood(Denver). I would check with them first, as the former 'Largest Model Railroad Store in the World', is under new ownership and has moved. BTW there is no Duty on model railway stuff, it's the VAT that gets you, plus the handling fee. Here in the US we have the very opposite situation, where it is cheaper, and sometimes faster, to buy stuff from the likes of Hattons, rather than from mail order businesses based in the US. Regards, John P

To answer the OP's original question, track polarity is NOT constant on DCC. Regards

Thanks Mick, I was really asking how many there were, not what they were! Regards, John P

Resurrecting this thread. I'm thinking of adding the Hanson depot to my N Gauge layout and I have a few questions. First, are there facilities to run round the train at the Hanson depot? Second I read that the train originates as 24 wagons from Shap, I am assuming that means 12 sets of MJA's, is that right? Thanks, John P

My local (60 miles down the road) shop is Caboose Hobbies,which used to advertise as the largest Model Railroad shop in the world, it's a lot smaller now. It may well have been the largest in the world, but it only ever had US outline stuff plus a bit of Peco track and some Lenz stuff if you were lucky. I sometimes use it for scenic stuff but most of that can be had at local hobby shops. The mad thing is that virtually everything I need or want can be purchased cheaper in the UK online than in the US online, this even extends to boxes of track, Zimo decoders, and, of course, track pins, rail joiners, etc. John P

Just to stick my N Gauge nose in. If this is N Gauge no mods are needed. Regards, John P

Hi, One more point in favour of the Z21 is it's method of 'consisting', or double heading, or banking. Rather than have to program CV's to match loco speeds and create a consist the Z21 will handle all that for you. To speed match locos you run them over a fixed length of track at 3 different speed steps (or more) and record their performance in the loco settings (traction control). You then create a new 'train' and add the loco's you want to the train. That's it. As an experiment I set two locos in a 'train' a foot apart and let them run round my layout, after a couple of circuits they were still a foot apart. Regards, John P

I always use Zimo, bullet proof motor control straight out of the box. Regards, John P

If I were running a for-profit manufacturer that aimed to be as big as Bachmann or Hornby then certain loco's would have to be made, regardless of whether they are already available. For diesels the 37,47, and 66 are definately on that list. I don't have any stats, but these 3 must account for a large minority of diesel sales to UK outline modellers, and more sales means more profit. The duplication that frustrates me is when 2 manufacturers produce exactly the same model. For example, I have a Dapol N Gauge EWS 66, 66111. The latest Farish EWS liveried option is also 66111. I won't be buying the Farish version unless I desperately need a spare chassis to rebody, or until it gets re-released with a new running number. Regards, John P

Thanks, I already set the Z21 to work with my NCE Switch 8's so the default address for the PSX-1 should work. John P

I don't use Cobalts, but you may want to get a DCC circuit breaker and wire your track bus to that, and provide a separate bus for accessory decoders. That way a short on the track shouldn't affect the Cobalts. Regards, John P

I have a PSX-1 hooked up to my layout so that the track bus is physically seperate from the bus that controls my accessory decoders. Reading the PSX-1 instructions it says that by writing to address 2042 it is possible to turn track power on or off. BUT it doesn't say what command or bit sequence that should be sent to this address. I tried setting up a switch at address 2042 using my Z21 app but when I activated the switch icon all that happened was that other random accessory decoders went haywire. Has anyone here successfully used this feature? Thanks, John P

I have a Farish CL66 wired with an MX622 wired decoder. It worked fine at the start but gave up the ghost about 12 months ago. After a house move and other things getting in the way I have finally got around to trying to figure out what the problem is. It still wouldn't work so I removed the decoder and soldered it into another CL66. This worked first time, lights on and motor running. I then tried to pt the body back on and got the following symptoms. 1) Turn on lights and they work 2) Change loco direction and the lights change as appropriate,. 3) Turn motor on, loco doesn't move. turn motor off. 4) Change loco direction, lights do not change direction. Then I take the loco of the track and put it back on, and the same sequence can be repeated. If I take the body off it works properly. Next I take a second MX622 from a second non runner (Farish CL60), and wire this to the loco instead. Now I get the same symptoms as the first decoder even with the body off. I've checked a few voltages with a DMM (I know that it won't accurately measure a PWM or DCC signal). The front LED output on the decoder is around 3.7V DC, the rear LED is around 14.5V DC, across the motor terminals at the motor connection (not at the decoder), I get 0V DC when the throttle is off and around 14.5V DC when it is on. I will be checking the motors directly on DC with the decoder disconected to seed if the motor is toast. So, does anyone have any ideas as to what might be wrong or has anyone seen these or similar symptoms? I'm beginning to wonder if the 2 MX622's that I have tried are the culprits as so far, I now have 3 locos which won't run, all of which have had one of these two MX622's wired up to them. Thanks, John P

FYI, the Gaugemaster Prodigy is a rebadged US make (MRC, Model Rectifier Corp). Regards, John P

Yep, pull the springs. BUT bear in mind that you will probably no longer be able to rely on blade contact and you will need to wire the frog to one of the Tortoise accessory switches. Regards, John P

I'm sorry but this is factually inaccurate and misleading. A resistor in series with an LED will reduce the voltage drop across the LED, the current stays constant. A resistor in parallel with an LED will reduce the current flowing through the LED, the voltage drop will be constant. To calculate the resistance of resistors in parallel the formula is 1/(1/R1+1/R2+1/R3 ...). E.g 2 15k resistors in series gives 30k, 2 in parallel gives 7.5k, 3 in series is 45k, 3 in parallel is 5k. Regards, John P

OK is this a DCC ready loco or are you hard wiring a DCC decoder? John P

And please bear in mind that some systems (Zimo, ESU) have neither switches nor knobs. Regards, John P

I suspect that the DCC Wiki page needs some editing, for a start, no-one writes hexadecimal numbers as nnnn16. In the post above the hex numbers are 1 to 27FF, or 0x1 to 0x27FF, then the '4 digit address' makes sense, i.e. that it uses 4 hex digits. The whole 1-99 or 1-9999 thing, as was stated earlier, is simply a desire to use decimal numbers and limit the screen display size to keep costs down. I.e. use a 2 digit display rather than a 3 digit display, etc. Regards, John P