SRman

10 minutes ago, Growling said:

 

Thanks, that is useful. Have run into problems with my AS 37 after some more extensive running in (support ticket is with AS).

 

I am wondering if a DCC concepts upgraded power supply for my NCE powercab would alleviate root cause going forward.

I have been pondering upgrading mine on a Power Pro system. Currently it uses a 15V AC 5 Amp computer laptop supply, which means the actual track voltage is lower (I haven't measured it, though). NCE say that the Power Pro can take 19V AC, so I have bought a suitable laptop supply with 4.5 Amps output. I haven't plucked up the courage to connect it yet.

How does this relate to the Accurascale 37s? Well, all of mine have the stay-alives working when I put them on my programming track with a Power Cab powering it, but when they are on the main lines with the Power Pro, none of the stay-alives are working. While all of my points are live frog and have auto-polarity switches, none of the locomotives stall on them, so it hasn't been a high priority for me to "fix" the problem (such as it is), but it is something I'd like to have working eventually.

13 minutes ago, RapidoCorbs said:

Well it's the first Friday of the month, so it's time for a rejected livery on our social media posts.

This instalment pontificates on what the O1 might look like in the same livery as P Class 'Bluebell' complete with Bluebell Railway crest.

Looks rather nice, shame really.....

 

Regardless of the rejection, I love that. I do have the Hatton's P in that livery, and it is one of my favourites.

One of the points leading into the western end of my storage roads was playing up recently when we ran a friend's Fell diesel - the auto-polarity wasn't working properly, leaving the frog dead in both directions. I tested it with a short wheelbase locomotive, a Hatton's Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST and that confirmed that no power was getting to the frog and Vee area at all. It would have been useless using any longer wheelbase locomotives or units as they can bridge the short dead section anyway. I suggested that some of the pickups were not doing their job on the Fell if it was stalling there, in addition to the lack of power feeding the section.
 

I have been procrastinating about fixing it, but finally bit the bullet to move some stuff out of the way and pull the layout out from the wall to get at the underneath of the point from that side - the layout is on casters but it is also heavy!
 

I sent the Andrew Barclay around to get it to stall on the point so I would be able to tell when I had restored power, but it carried on through the point perfectly. Tried it through all the other points with blades set in both available directions in turn, and it sailed through all of them without the slightest hesitation. This was both annoying and relieving, as I don't have to try to trace the faulty connection. I figured it has to be in the wire leading from the frog/vee to the polarity switch but didn't know for sure which wire was the correct one from the point (it's partially obscured from the front of the layout). Thankfully I now don't have fix anything, especially as some temporary medications I am on are making me a bit unsteady.
 

The photo shows the loco after I had driven it back from testing each road in turn. It remained under its own power at all times, with no prodding or pushing at all. It is sitting beside the new CEP unit shown in my previous post.

Just arrived this morning is the Bachmann refurbished 4 CEP unit in Jaffa Cake livery. The first photo shows the unit 1522 on its own, the second shows it with the matching MLV 9008 (68008) on the rear. At this point I haven't consisted the two units because I want to run 1522 in first.

The CEP ran perfectly on DC on its initial test, and also when I fitted a Lenz Silver decoder. However, the interior lights in the motored car didn't come on when tested, and I traced that to the body not clipping down quite correctly. After fixing that, it stuttered and started then stopped repeatedly, so another trouble-shooting investigation revealed that the trailing bogie's springy contact on the PCB had got caught and was bent, so off came the body again (a right royal pain!), and out came the long-nosed pliers. The latter contact bending has also been reported by someone else on RMweb.

After testing the chassis successfully, the body was clipped back in and the small black light guide moulding was clipped back into place on the headcode light after that came loose. Fortunately that was accessible from the front corridor connection opening without removing the body again. This time it ran perfectly, as it should, so it was posed for the photos.

I have just installed a new, brighter LED strip for layout lighting along the eastern stretch of the layout. It still isn't quite as bright as the strip on the other end, but it's much better than before. The photo shows it with the room lights off, so just the layout lights on. For comparison, the second photo shows the other end's lighting from a somewhat earlier time. I think having the plain wall there also helps with the lighting as it reflects some back onto the layout.

1 hour ago, Growling said:

 

Hi Steve,

 

Do you mind me asking what f29 does?

Does it launch more braking sounds?

I only seem to get brake squealing when stopping quite sharply on light loco mode.

(I don't know a way to access F29 on an Nce powercab).

 

Thanks,

Richard.

From memory, F29 was the brake, but there is no way to access F29 on the NCE systems ... F28 is the limit. I reprogrammed the brake to work on F2, together with the brake sound. Easy t do using the LokProgrammer, but I'm not sure of the CVs involved (it's not that difficult to reallocate them manually, though, as long as you know which CVs are involved).

As I have said in other related topics, the Farish coaches are incorrect in just about every possible detail, but they do actually look the part! I have a rake of them representing Dreadnought coaches to go with Met Bo-Bo electrics Sarah Siddons and Sherlock Holmes. I have sometimes wondered about  the possibilities of converting some of these to T stock, so I'll be very interested if you go ahead with it, Chris. 😎

The photo was taken quite a few years ago, and shows how I was experimenting with different shades of brown. The darkest shade is supposed to be the correct one, but I think it looks too dark. The end windows are simply painted on here, but one day I will drill them out and glaze them properly.

A little bit of fiddling with settings using the LokProgrammer today, involving Accurascale 92 009 Marco Polo. The main problem I had was the total lack of braking when pressing F5. In the LokProgrammer software, I made two amendments:

1. Added 'Brake 1' to the function activated by F5, which previously only showed the brake sound.

2. Adjusted the Brake 1 setting under the brakes tab, testing each time until I was satisfied that the train could stop in a reasonable time - I settled on the effect being 215% (it was 50%).

I might have to check the other class 92s as well.

The other problem I had was caused by a loose above board point motor which caught the bogie of the locomotive (and also several of the wagons after that) and knocked off one of the shoe beams, which I eventually found along the track in the four-foot. That was retrieved from an almost unreachable location and glued back on.

All of my Accurascale locomotives continue to be excellent runners to date.

4 hours ago, Blobrick said:

Ahh right thanks, so there are no holes etc to work with then.  Sounds like a blob of glue and position as required then.  What type of glue did you use?

 

Many thanks

 

Bob C

I usually use a PVA style glue, such as Glue n Glaze. This dries clear, excess can be wiped off with water, and it is still easy enough to remove again even when dry if one changes one's mind as to the positioning of the discs.

4 hours ago, TungVT said:

 

I also recently owned Accurascale's D6704 loco. I got it working on the DCC layout and controlling it via the NCE Power Cab. It runs on OK layout, the sound is very good. However, the lighting functions as per the accompanying instructions do not work? Meanwhile for model 37402 Stephen Middlemore, I also use almost the same functions, cabin light, headlight... works well

The night light setting only works on the 37s with WiPAC light clusters. I'm not sure about the depot light setup - I haven't tried it but that also may only apply to the later lighting.

I forgot to mention mine is also an NCE system.

1 hour ago, Smudge617 said:

I believe it was factory fitted, he did send me a video and it was definitely the AS sound file, but whether he fitted it I'm unsure, I will double check with him and get back to you.

As Steve (55020) said, there should be working headcodes, tail lights, cab lights (directional), engine room lights, and instrument panel lights. All work fine on my D6704, although the photo is only showing headcode and cab lights.

I can't speak specifically for the Heljan wagons, but in more general terms with similar problems I have had with other manufacturers' wagons, I have found that once the wheel back to backs have been set, if they still derail or have problems, I look at the amount of movement available in the bogies. Often, if they are held in with a screw, a quarter turn looser seems to fix most of the remaining problems. If the bogies are clipped in rather than screwed, removing the bogies and filing a small amount off the face of the boss to allow more rocking fore and aft seems to be the main adjustment needed; occasionally they need a little side to side rocking allowed, but it is important to only do that on one bogie, otherwise you can introduce an undesirable wobble in the wagon's running.

While my advice ended up not being on the right track (no pun intended), I'm glad it set you off on a more methodical approach to the troubleshooting.  You may be able to get a small slitting disc in to enlarge the gap then fill it with something with insulating qualities to stop the rails closing up again.

1 hour ago, rob D2 said:

Do you mean the paint is applied in the wrong way , or do you mean something wrong with overall shape ? Cos that would affect both 

I can't put my finger on it for sure, but the overall shape looks wrong, just for the cab front. Whether the NSE one is the same or not is not clear, due to the paint scheme, but it looked alright to me. It could also have been the camera angles.

8 hours ago, Paul_sterling said:

I was unable to convince myself to buy a Heljan 25,  because of the cab shape. I admit I've never seen the Heljan one in the flesh, but the pics put me right off. Once SLW announced theirs, and the shape looked just right in the pics, I was happy to order from SLW. 

 

Thanks

Paul. 

I'm not buying the SLW one even though it is now the definitive version of a 25 (to me). I simply don't need any more 25s. I have a few Bachmann ones, plus a Hornby one on a Bachmann chassis. Like you and 97406, the cab roof curve on the Bachmann ones was a bit off-putting, but the great mechanisms were the selling point for me, a quantum leap forward from Hornby's mechanisms at the time. Likewise, the Heljan ones look good, but something is not quite right with the cab fronts, and with the SLW models on the way, that gets my vote (but not my money at present, unless someone is silly enough to offer me a decent sum for my existing Bachmann models). 
 

I can vouch for the excellence of the SLW 24s as I have two of those. The 25 looks at least the equal of those.

I watched the Key Publishing video on YouTube last night showing the new Heljan 47s in NSE and green fyp liveries. The revised NSE looked really nice, but I couldn't help feeling that there was something not right on the green one - the cab fronts just looked slightly out of proportion. Is it just me, or have they slipped up a little there?

With some decent roof vents replacing the strange conical devices, the Lima Horse Box comes up quite well ... just not in green. Mine is now maroon, with some minor detailing done, including the roof vents. The Lima one is the maroon one on the right of the first photo (mine started off in green, BTW), with a kit-built LNER horse box in the earlier BR crimson (carmine, if you prefer). This was before I applied numbers. Once it is mixed in with other vehicles on a layout, it blends in quite well.

7 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

That explains that. Thank you very much.

Phil.

Additionally, many of the marker lights were painted over, or even panelled over (accident repairs?), and were removed on the 33/1 conversions. 

In short, the Heljan models only show white lights in the leading headcode panel, depending on the direction it is going, and also on what paper headcodes are fitted - obviously if you have the two red blanks fitted it will show red. Something to bear in mind is that the real lighting was very dim, using standard incandescent bulbs, so Heljan actually have this right.

I have considered modifying the lighting on the 33/1 models I use for push-pull work with the Kernow 4 TC units to allow me to switch on red tail lights at the trailing end when propelling the units, using red LEDs and using the white blanks in the headcodes. I haven't done this yet, but that newer 21-pin circuit board looks as if it might make such a modification easier. Unfortunately, none of the nine class 33s I own have the newer setup.

My class 66 collection line up is next. All are Bachmann models of various vintages, except for Freightliner Powerhaul 66 504, which is a Hatton's model.

Adding my two class 59s into the mix as well. The silver Yeoman one, 59 005 is a Lima body on a Hornby chassis, with working head and marker lights added to one end only (no point in fitting tail lights!), the other in DB livery is a Dapol 59/2, 59 206.

2 hours ago, dasatcopthorne said:

GD.

 

Thanks so much.

Sorted and lights on.

 

Dave.

For the record, and also to help anyone else with the same problem, which socket was it in the end, Dave?

My guess would be the "W" (for white), but hopefully someone with a model from the same new batch can confirm or deny that definitively.

RTs on route 94 (at least, as far as Petts Wood Station) hold great memories for me. When visiting my grandparents in Petts Wood, we would catch the 94 to Bromley for a bit of shopping sometimes. Mind you, Petts Wood had shops of its own, including a Woolworths - on hot days the staff would leave some of the back doors open and I could watch the trains through there, as well as from my grandparents' house down Queensway.

Rugd1022's photo shows an RT on the last day of RTs on the 94 in August 1978, somewhat after the times of my memories.

Next line-up is of my class 33 collection. All are Heljan models. There are representatives of all three sub-classes, but only one has the earlier exhaust arrangement, and is from the later, slightly more detailed batch from Heljan. There is a ring-in in there too - see if you can spot it. 😁

Edit: I have nine class 33s in total.

In model form, here are some of the Heljan models: the three blue ones all have the later exhaust outlets, while the two green ones show the original and the new side by side.

It wouldn't be too hard for them to keep the same decoration as the roofs are a separate part. The sides could still be produced exactly as before, with the new roof moulding added to feed into the production line.