RAF96

That last picture of the innards of a DVD is just what I needed, saves me pulling it apart any further than necessary. I suppose you can get away with these motors on DCC as the voltage applied is not raw 12V DC but a form of pulse width modulated pseudo AC.

Reasonable prices but they don't appear to do one for a Class 56.. ~Still looking at DVD drives - pc drives only seem to have the useless motors not the proper can motors pictured. Need to find a proper DVD player somewhere to peek inside..

Simon I have taken around a dozen old PC CD/DVD drives apart in search of these elusive pancake motor replacements and all the ones I have seen are real cheap and nasty things without a proper can. They all seemed to comprise a tatty bit of pcb mounting the armature with an assortment of flimsy magnet arrangements. None looked as if they would go anywhere near replacing the innards of a ringfield motor, so they were all reassembled to their drives and disposed of. Ali-Baba is a wonderful source of motors but finding them in a suitable diam and thickness is a weary task, although they are typically very cheap. Rob

Re post #109. I did a similar conversion on a DCC ready Pacific. I managed to get hold of the sound equipped variant's bare tender chassis, so if you could find a sound MN tender or even just the chassis that would help although I think the sound MN takes a 21 pin decoder not an 8 pin. The pony truck needs to be modified to delete the power transfer contacts but if using a sound tender you can swap from the post and hole arrangement to a more reliable link drawbar arrangement. I removed the 8 pin decoder socket from the loco and relocated it into the tender, which was also modified to accept a 28mm round speaker and enclosure sounding down through holes in the tender chassis for the wheels (with hindsight a sugar cube may have been better) and I also fitted a 4 pin socket (should already be there on the sound tender). I then ran the existing loco pickup and motor wires back to the tender by way of splicing into a 4 pin plug harness (X6113 from memory). The tender wiring was run to the 4 pin socket (can't remember the X number of this bit, may be X6245 but Peter's Spares stock them both). Compare the Hornby Service Sheets for the required parts differences.

The 128 SS problem is well known. You must match SS of the decoder and your controller. It can also affect sound working only way as well.

I used the Express Models kit - no problems, except early TTS decoders had the directional lighting back to front so I had to switch the white and yellow wires to correct this. So check yours as you go. Obviously as the TTS 8-pin DCC socket only has the 2 x motor and 2 x track wires connected you have to connect up the 4 x lighting feeds to it (1 x common positive, 2 x directional lighting and 1 x aux function, which I used for cab lights). The wiring logic is diagrammed in the TTS 'manual' and the Express kit has full instructions. You can do it yourself for peanuts if you are handy working with small leds and bits of veroboard.

Ref post #111 - thanks Mixy for the dimensions info. Metcalfe - will do one and send it. Rob

You should be OK with the 4 ohm and the sound turned down as Hornby introduced an 8 ohm speaker to quiet the TTS sound which was a tad loud for the installation, even on setting 1 of 8.

TTS spec is for an 8 ohm speaker. See any TTS 'user manual' (leaflet).

@Mixy ref post #108 Thanks for the promise of looking at inclusion of Metcalfe models. If it helps over a period of time I can photograph the ones I have all 4 sides and top and dimension them up. Where would be the best place to send them. Rob Edit: @Mixy I was using SCARM to give me lengths of Hornby 00 track pieces and some of them seem to be a bit optimistic. e.g. R8076 Y Point is showing as 334.58mm long. I think this should be nearer 168mm. Ditto all other points R8072, 8073, 8077, 8078, 8074, 8075 and the diamond crossovers R614, 615 lengths seem to be wrong, both when I call up right click length of selected section on the part and if I hover over the part in the LH column selection list. Rob

Not sure if you want to fettle the plug or the socket wiring so I'll describe both. Assuming initially decoder socket is in tender. With the tender facing forwards this is the wiring configuration. Left hand outer wire is LH tender wheel pickup Left inner wire is Motor -ve. Right inner wire is Motor +ve Right hand outer wire is RH tender wheel pickups. Looking at the loco plug these wires will match the socket except wheel pickups will be from loco. If 8 pin decoder socket is in the tender then pin 1 (marked with a triangle) is Motor +ve, far opposite corner pin 5 is Motor -ve and the other 2 corners are the wheel pickups i.e. pin 8 - RH adjacent corner to pin 1 and pin 4 - LH adjacent corner to pin 5 according to NMRA standards. If decoder socket is in the loco then there will only be 2 wires from tender to loco - the pickups which should be easy to find which is left and which is right. The important bit is to ensure loco left and tender left pickups match else you will have a short. You will probably find all these wires are black not helping much to sort out the tangle.

Have a look inside an old mobile phone for the vibrate motor. I also stripped a pair out of an old micro R/C car found in a pound shop.

Has anyone tried these motors on DCC.

Hi Mixy Re post #104 please see here: www.metcalfemodels.com On the actual model detail pages most have a plan view with dimensions, but unfortunately there is no all round view of them. Maybe they would let you have some CAD files if you said you would promote their products in SCARM. Rob

Mixy As I am essentially a pick and place person rather than make it from polygons type of modeller and with Metcalfe kits becoming very popular - you see at least one or two of them on most layouts these days, would it be possible to have them as ready made structures in SCARM or would this be considered as some sort of intellectual property theft. I'm thinking station buildings, goods shed, loco shed, coal drop, etc.

Interesting to see the 'interim' headlight perched in various places. It looks like it was nicked off an old lorry.

I agree with post #23 above about TTS and entry level DCC systems but as TTS has 2 channels - a background engine noise and as many as 25 other function options on the diesels, less on the steamers. The Hornby Select in particular cannot actuate as many functions as this. The Hornby eLink (with Railmaster) can so do, as can the Hornby Elite. Other manufacturers systems I have no experience of so cannot comment. Rob

Sketchup and Sketchup Make 2015 is here, but users will already know that.

Hornby warn in their blurb that the new TTS diesels will not play sounds on DC, only DCC, although the motor will be controllable on DC. Edit - that also applies to their Steam TTS.

According to Hornby Service Sheet 328D R2875 R2785 should have a dummy motor in the tender but a real motor and dcc socket in the loco. What you bought does not appear to be R2875 R2785. Edit: I meant R2785

Rocrail is also open-source, fully featured, and is free to download, supports almost every bit of hardware ever or likely to be made and has a very knowledgeable and helpful proper forum. ... even I can understand and use it at basic level to set up a trackplan, establish loco and rolling stock databases and setup turnout switching using 2 separate controllers. JMRI I am sorry to say defeated me at the trackplan stage, although Decoder-Pro is a handy bit of kit.

There was recent discussion on the Hornby forums about levels of detail and SK and Ref denoted these also.

Thanks Mixy - the 1st tutorial is a big help. I also need to revise exact use of flexy track. Rob

I've tried the road facility but I'm having problems getting tidy road ends at say edge of the baseboard as well as struggling with the intersections. Also i'm can't get the road tunnel under rail tracks to work as well as the previous screen grab illustration - see my screen grab attached. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/59063-capture/ No doubt all these things will be well covered in the forthcoming tutorials. Rob