martin_l_jones

The 165/66's have been working the Hereford to London services for a number of years so they're o'k on long distance workings if you take a spongy cushion !!

The current one's are easy to upgrade to DCC. An 8 pin Hattons wired decoder for both cars will only cost you £30. I've added some piccies in the DCC fitting guide sections. Also added additional pick ups to the non powered car.

Picture 1) De-solder the small board from the pick up wires, sometimes these are long enough to pass through the corridor wall. The seating was removed to allow the modification to the rear bogie. Picture 2) Prepare the decoder, in thiscase its a Bachmann 8 pin with the connector removed, preapre the black, red, blue, white and yellow wires. Tin the ends... Picture 3) Refit the seat moulding, I drilled a five mm hole in the corridor wall to allow the wires to pass through, I passed the new wires through the seating and trimmed them to suit. I prepared a piece of pcb board and bonded it to the inner wall of the corridor wall. I then soldered the new wires to the left and right hand side of the board and the red and black wires from the leading bogies to the same side as they pick up from the wheels. I then soldered the red and black wires from the decoder to match the same colours of wires already soldered to the board. Picture 4) I refitted the small circuit board, ensure the wires to the connector block are on the front of the board. I put a link between the two rear points and soldered the blue, yellow and white wires as shown below. If the unit operates incorrectly with the direction, switch the yellow and white wires or alter CV29 on the decoder.

I have updated most of my fleet to DCC now, I have previously posted detail. I have paid them all a revisit to add additional pickups to the inner bogie to avoid and drop outs of the lights I have seen on dead sections of track. Hope this helps somebody. Picture 1) Bogie stripped down Picture 2) Pips removed to gain a flat surface Picture 3) New pick ups cut out from sheet of 0.2mm phosphur bronze and wires soldered in place, ideally these will be black and red wires corresponding to leading bogie. Picture 4) I chose to bond with a loctite adhesive I acquired from work, I found this to be the quickest option. Picture 5) Using a pair of small long nose pliers I put a fold approximately in line with the center of the axle hole in the bogie, this helps with the contact to the rear of the wheel. Picture 6) Obviously trimmed the excess off using snips to allow the pick-up to spring Picture 7) Assembled and ready to refit to the chassis.

See my post above, I use the same controller. It's reasonably straight forward.

Firstly really pleased to say had a replacement 66789 today and it runs perfectly. Thank you Hattons for a quick turnaround. The decoder functions are the same as the decoder in the Class 68 so this is what I did. I set mine to F8, Button 8 is part of the higher functions, which would make use of CV38. Therefore, by selecting the value that corresponds to Button 8 (a value of 8), and programming that value into CV 38, Function 2 will now respond to Button 8. To finish the transfer, you need to clear the button from responding to Button 2. To do this, program CV 36 with 0. Now you are finished!

I purchased the GWR version and have to agree Bachmann have made a really good job of it. I had a few issues when I unboxed mine, wheel sets loose on the leading and trailing bogies, a lose detail item and bent connectors. Managed to sort all those and it runs superbly using a Lenz Decoder. Only one issue which looks as though one of the roof top detail bits as either been positioned incorrectly or moved during the adhesive curing period. Left the adhesive marks. To be honest it's really disappointing that it's not been picked up during QC. I'm just wondering whether I'm being too pedantic... I know one of my panels wouldn't have got to Hitachi in that condition...

I've had to finally send mine back. I packed up the bogies with shim but it made no difference with the number one end but it does now run number 2 end forward without de-railing. Hummed and arghed about swooping the coupling but I know I wouldn't have been happy with it. And as there is a lot of detail attatched to the lower body sides I thought better of it. Hopefully there will be a replacement available. Listening to all the issues with the axle boxes I'm wondering whether they may have pushed this a little too far.

Thanks for this, I think I’m going to tape some shim in first to see if it makes any difference. I see you filed a taper on yours from front to back was this to enable the wheels to sit flat.

Well I've run mine in for nearly four hours, although I was told 30mons each way. On a positive the wobble has definately improved but it still derails on the points. I read earlier about checking the wheelbase. So I checked it on a glass plate and diagonally opposite the leading and central wheel on both bogies are nearly 1mm off the glass. Sadly it looks as though it will need to go back. But I await further instructions. In the meantime I shall just keep running it in.

Ha, ha, not sure how I managed to post it here...

I have the same issue mentioned earlier and mine derails as well.

My 66789 arrived in one piece and looks the part. Detail is excellent. The DCC light functions are very useful. Just a few teething issues with derailing on facing curved points and demonstrates a bit of wobble. Hopefully these will iron out after a good running in session.

I'm sure someone sat in the sales office will be rubbing their hands and I'd be quite surprised if we don't see a different derivative in the TPE livery sometime next year.

I would hate to disappoint so I have proved you right so you can sit there feeling a little bit more righteous. Do enjoy it, no need to thank me. (It's not about loving anyone in particular, it's just something that comes from exposure to more facts and information than those who wish to cling to their beliefs that they are hard done by.) I’m not dissapointointed by anything apart from your comments. We all understand this is a hobby but No business will survive without sales. Whether it is all down to China I doubt that, I have purchased lots of products manufactured by Bachmann but it is very frustrating the way the business deliveres it’s products, or not in this case. The biggest dissapointment I find about the forum is to get critiqued for having a say. I will close my membership so you don’t have to kick me off.

Be careful you’ll have the “I love Bachmann brigade”after you !

It’ll have gone up another £30 by the time it arrives.....

But if I wrote something like that you would pick me up on it.

Unfortunely you pay for the container by the area, not part of it, it’s in your interest to fill it. If we have half a load it’s a small container and a full load fills a large container...

Jim, I fully understand and that’s why we have asked for proof of loading to ship to know we are as scheduled, As a missed boat can lead to serious delays. We’ve never had an issue yet and the only delays have been in HK waiting customrekease which can take up to a week for clearance... This was a light hearted conversation until it got heavy !!

I don’t think there is any need t I don’t think there is any need to be sarcastic, I’m not asking for that amount of detail just a realistic delivery date and I don’t believe it’s an excuse to say that these are only model trains... I don’t want to be critical but it’s all down to good project management. I wish we could say to our customers you might get them sometime this year......

I don’t think that’s the case at all, the shipping companies track their containers all over the world so Bachmann would know exactly where they are the same as we do with our panels for the Hong Kong Metro. At each change point you can get an update, we’ve been sent video evidence of the containers being loaded and unloaded. It’s more about the promises they make with delivery dates (again) that is causing the frustration. Just keen to get our hands on this one

Unless the container fell of the boat