neal

Manor

How about a simple to assemble kit of parts, bogies, chassis and body shell separate. The massive chassis blocks are what do the damage. Trouble would be that this would double packaging volume and shipping costs from the Far East. If I recall correctly, Bachmann recommended against parcel post for their large resin OO gauge engine shed. As a good proportion of the damage appears to occur between retailer and customer, perhaps Heljan could offer a free return rail ticket for the buyer to collect from their local store. Might benefit the retailer as well through impulse buys…. I’ll fetch my coat….

I think my IKB has landed ok from Sheffield (<80 miles), and is now with Santa. Seems I was lucky. I assume that Rails would have received a pallet from Heljan that might have been delivered respectfully! Looking at observations from the original release, the soft packaging at the cab ends has been omitted leaving the weight of the model wholly restrained by the two screws fixing to the mdf mounting board. No amount of bubble wrap would protect the model from a moderate drop (as might be expected for a courier delivery over any distance). The bent screws shown earlier demonstrate a significant force. Faulty returns must cost Heljan a small fortune - are there not lessons to be learned from other suppliers ….? This cost can only be reflected in RRP’s of subsequent models. Heljan might reflect wistfully on the price of the Dapol DMU’s and Class 66 and think long and hard about their O-Gauge packaging. Rant over, Neal

Can anyone confirm whether the pcb and lighting board are the same for the re-release? Neal

Thanks Phil, Those are the last pieces of the jigsaw, so why-oh-why couldn’t Heljan have provided this information. Ben…..?

ok, here goes…working systematically remove the wires from the main pcb and set this aside. To avoid confusion I wired the relevant decoder terminals as I removed them from the board shown above. 1 is the common light and auxiliary +ve feed. This would go to the blue connection on traditional decoders. 2-4 and 12-14 are the +ve feeds for lights, and these all go via the switches set to the underside of the chassis. (The common supply connects to this, and the switches effectively distribute this power to the desired lights). These wires do not need to connect to the decoder, simply connect the wires from 2 to those from 12, 3 to 13 and 4 to 14. Don’t forget the heat shrink! 5, 6, 15 and 16 are the directional light control returns. If you are content for these to work on F0 and isolate them as required with the switches on the underside of the chassis, wires from 5 and 15 go to the front light decoder terminal (normally white) and from 6 and 16 to to the rear light decoder terminal (yellow). If you want independent control of cab, head and tail lights via the decoder, these wires will need to be split and wired according to your desired decoder auxiliary outputs. Again the 9v battery will be useful in checking what wire controls what. For the Zen Buddha, connection would be as below, with relevant CV settings adjusted. For this approach there should be no need to isolate the feeds via the switches, these would all just be left ‘on’ with 2-4 and 12-14 linked as noted above. My brain was hurting too much at this point so I left all lights operational on F0, and will use the switches on the chassis if I need to. Track wires are correctly coloured, so wires to terminals 7, 8, 17 and 18 go ‘red and black to the track’ and connect to the relevant power terminals on the decoder. Motor wires in 9, 10, 19, 20 feed the two cans. As normal, both motors are identical but need to run in opposite directions to avoid the bogies fighting each other. Admit it, if you’ve done Heljan diesels before you will have got this wrong at least once!!! I think 19 goes with 10 and 9 goes with 20 (but double check with a 9v battery). Again wire to the motor feeds on the decoder (orange and grey, ‘going the other way’). I guessed which way and got it wrong (so the lights were set to the opposite ends) but with screw terminals this is an easy swap. I should have checked the polarity of these with the battery, forward is the fan (radiator) end so check the polarity of the paired wires then wire motor +ve and -ve to relevant decoder terminals. That leaves the fan output. Retaining the fan pcb , this needs to be wired to a common +ve feed (blue), then to an auxiliary return. I used a purple connection on my decoder that mapped to F2, but these can normally be remapped to the desired Function key. As I normally do, I desoldered the fan female connector from the main pcb, and added leads to connect to the decoder terminals such that the body (with fan and fan pcb attached) can be disconnected from the chassis and decoder easily. There is another socket between fan motor and fan pcb, so you could remove the fan pcb from within the roof, and hard wire this to the decoder outputs, using the motor-pcb connector to split body from chassis (and leaving the original pcb unmolested). But the leads are a little short for this, and the double sided holding the fan pcb to the roof is rather strong! The above does leave something of a bird’s nest, but by sorting the cables as you disconnect and reconnect this can be managed (I used small cable ties). The cable mess can be stowed below the plastic board (that supports the original pcb). Your decoder can then be mounted above this. I guess the mounting holes are for the recommended Loksound board, but there is plenty of room to fix another large decoder with double sided tape. I found it easier to remove the plastic board, then slide between excess cable and decoder when connected. Unlike some Heljan models (including latest 31 - grrr) there is plenty of slack in all of the wires such that these will not need extending, even if your decoder has all the terminals on the same ‘end’. I hope this helps some people. I used a Zen Buddha which is fine for the model. I may wire a sound-only decoder in parallel (as I have done with TTS chips for 31, 40 and 50). Good luck, Neal

Mine arrived with one cab step loose - not a big issue. One point to note is the fuel tank drain cock (on the early version) is vulnerable when handling this heavy beast. Broke one of these off when DCC fitting. By the way, the wiring diagram provided in the manual has no relationship to this model (this might actually be for the class 60?). Removing the pcb requires the ‘key’ (switch) terminals to be bridged, then the ‘common’ goes to blue, and front/rear light feeds go white/yellow. Keeping the separate fan pcb means these run beautifully on an aux 12v output. Definitely not DCC friendly, but the horizontal motor/gear tower is far better than the classic Heljan vertical motor arrangement - very smooth. Despite the nuances to the ledge below, and cab front windows, I like this model. Neal

More construction site toilet humour, although unintended…..? Neal

Sage advice

Nice

And the guy has the nerve to criticise model’s for poor running when they are most likely full of fluff…woeful N

The Dapol instructions are not much help. I have the DCC fitted version, and it currently operates with the cab and car lights on, unless F2 and F5 functions are actuated (contrary to the instructions). Directional, tail lights work (normally) with F0 and F1. Assuming that this is an Imperium 3 decoder and that this is set up as the instructions, you might be able to work back from this Dapol CV guide and the notes regarding CV setting: https://www.Dapol.co.uk/pdfs/imperium cvlist_1-0D.pdf …however this itself is not the most comprehensive document. Great model Dapol, but poor DCC guidance. Might be worth dropping them an email if this doesn’t work for you. Good luck, N

Just a few points: For the DCC fitted model, car lights are F5 not F4 as the instruction suggest. The decoder appears to be an Imperium 3, acceleration/deceleration need to be set. CV 5 and 6 adjust max and mid voltages. 64/32 worked well for me on these. I am not sure if you can change the lamp brightness which is a shame as the head code/destination boxes are a touch vivid. I don’t see how you can get the speedo cable to negotiate the cab footsteps. Might just cut this and fit sections to bogie and frame connection. This part is not mentioned in the instructions. The decals are waterslide , not self adhesive. It is a beauty, and a nice weight. It was a bit sticky at first (like it had been baked in a sealed container for 2 months!) and the wheels needed a good clean. After a little run in, it’s fine. Worth the (very long) wait. N

They got Churk right though…. N

I would expect that to be a long Indian summer......

I once had a Cavalier 1.6. (1989). The distributor rotor was driven via a connection from the cam shaft with a plastic peg. The car died once (thankfully not too far from home), and I found that the distributor rotated freely. Disassembly found that the peg connection had sheared off. This was an easy and cheap fix, however apparently was designed to fail if cam belt tensions were too slack. This was duly corrected and the car lived a long and happy life, until being stolen (from outside the in-laws house) and burned out One of the best cars I have had, and the wife inherited it for the last couple years of its life as the children’s taxi. It was the last car I had that I could actually work on and service! An interesting aside - and relevant in considering how repairable current models are by the owner. There’s a lot to be said for open frame motors. N

And finally.... Neal

Needs to dry, and a final fettle before painting tomorrow: Neal

And this is how it fits....

This is the cassette for the under frame, clearance holes in place. I will need to joggle the main beams over the DCC socket cover. The bottom ‘chords’ will need support where they angle upwards, and one of these points is over the large ‘cut-out’. It will be a ‘representation’ but I am having fun getting it to look something like the diagrams and pictures I have. It’s nice bashing plastic with the SVR Gala railcams on in the background! N

Managed to bag a pristine copy of the Wild Swan tome on the Railcars (some 36 years old!) Notably, the images I had been referring to were of No. 18 which was an interim streamlined version uprated to be able to tow a vehicle or two. The chassis for the later version modelled by Heljan (for numbers 19-34) differs in so far as the diesel engines were offset with drive shafts passing behind the centrally mounted radiators, powering fans either side. I think I still have the parts to create a representation of this, and having some better imagery of the correct chassis I think I can fill the void between the valances. Only a couple of days till I can replenish my stock of plastic section and plasticard, then I will see what I can do - thanks richards-books..... Neal

At NLR several years ago...

But don’t forget that you have had 18 months’ enjoyment that the bargain hunters won’t have done. I have three, £595, £425, £450. I’m not bitter... N

and

I had a problem at both ends of my Maroon BSK. The parts shown above are the corridor ‘tube’ with a floating collar which has magnets top and bottom. This is fixed to the carriage end via slots which fit over pegs to the top and bottom to the coach opening. These allow the corridor connection to articulate and slide in and out - quite clever! Unless the pegs of the carriage end are broken, the above issue should be resolved by gently easing the connection back onto the pegs. The issue I had was that the ‘tube’ section of the corridor connection is made of two mouldings connected by two somewhat flimsy pegs. These either snapped or came unstuck to both ends, allowing the connections to split and fall off... The solution I found is to fully glue the two halves of the connection together. This was done with Tamiya extra thin glue, which if applied with care sticks but does not damage the paint finish. This is a very useful adhesive as it runs freely with capillary action - but be careful not to touch it when drying. Once the two halves are glued and fully dry, the collar can be added, and the connection reinstalled to the carriage end. I have so far married these coaches with MTH LMS corridor coaches, and the connector works fine. The three link connection is fiddly but works. Will probably build a short rake over time once more maroon and b&c’s are available. Neal