Pete the Elaner

Go for it. Like most things, airbrushing nicely takes practice. I need a lot more! You do not need a hugely expensive airbrush either. Avoid using aerosol propellants because they do not last very long. A compressor is definitly a good investment. As for the model, Hornby did it with the MU cables removed & the TDM cables in the later position (The stowage sockets at the bottom were initially the other way up). It would look nice with a set of MU cables stuck on but I can certainly understand some modeller's licence in leaving the TDM cables alone. Thinking about it, I may do this to one of my Swallow models.

That looks rather nice. Rail blue looked very different depending on the ambient light. Who is to say what is wrong or right? Looks good to me.

I agree with every single word of that. As for your old track; use it. Build a simple layout with what you have then decide what you want to do. Peco streamline may look nicer, but it sounds like you would not be too bothered about this at the moment anyway. Seeing something on your own layout for the first time is hugely satisfying. The more simple you keep things, the quicker you will get there.

That reminds me of an old scenario at work. We were looking to upgrade from Windows 95 / 3.1 to NT4 which makes it about 20 years ago. One site chose to hire in contractors to do the work at a cost of about £250,000. My manager approached our director & suggested that if she spent £20,000 on training the 4 of us, we could do the upgrade ourselves & would have the knowledge to troubleshoot anything ourself. I think with OT, the final bill was more like £300,000 v £40,000, so we spent at fraction of the other site & our network was the most reliable by a huge margin. So it may be worth spending some time learning before diving in & getting someone else to do all the work for you. MK have a DCC-only club (Silver Fox DCC) as well as a large general club. I remember you saying you were in Leighton Buzzard, so only 2 stops away. I got a huge amount of my knowledge from getting 'stuck in' at a club. It really is a great way to learn.

Hornby have been a common entry point into the hobby. I feel that SK's disappointment with the tooling scrappage inferred that this could have been used for Railroad models which are exactly the models which can draw more into the hobby. Gerard came across with a sadness that the only Hornby model on his layout was the 08. I think this was deliberate & well put across.

I agree. As far as commuter trains are concerned, these have lengthened recently. Some stations on the WCML were lengthened c2005 to accept 12 coach trains. The extra-long Calendonian Sleepers only fit in 3 platforms at Euston. Birmingham New St cannot be extended. The Coronation Scot was 9 coaches. I know there may have been some which were longer but were they really typical? Slightly short trains usually look acceptable on a model railway. Most layouts are compressed & running scale length trains can emphasize this. I sometimes run a full length HST on my layout, which is a scale model of what is probably the smallest urban WCML station. Although it is as accurate as you are likely to see on a OO model, it looks way too long.

Control system is a very personal choice. Compatibility with friends may be a factor, but if it is not, then you do not really want to be locked in to something you are not really comfortable with. Many operators at shows will be more than happy to give you some hands on time on their layouts, so don't be afraid to ask. What I would advise is to design the layout in small sections. They are much easier to troubleshoot. You cannot easily add a section break but you can join sections together.

This all sounds very complicated. Surely DC is used to avoid some of the complexities of DCC? Please avoid mixing DC & DCC on the same layout. You can't be there every week & you are likely to come back to a couple of very broken controllers/locos with everyone denying any knowledge of doing anything wrong.

Anyone can post on a forum & claim to be qualified in this or that. The number of times you have mentioned the scientifically incorrect phrase 'bipolar DC' proves that the second part of this statement is clearly wrong, so presumably the first part is too. I have better things to do that continue with this futile bickering. Please continue to live in your world of DC DCC if that makes you happy.

More complex than what? AC simply describes a circuit where the supply causes current to flow in both directions. It is bad to assume that AC must always be a sine wave. Beyond this it could be anything. Square wave, sine wave, saw tooth wave are all forms of AC. The term 'Bipolar DC' which you insist on adding to almost all of your posts is complete nonsense. 'Bipolar' & 'DC' are opposites regardless of where you are reciting it from.

Quite likely. It has unfortunately promoted poor terminology like 'modifying a point for DCC' which I find infuriating.

No perhaps about it... that is infinitely better! DC by definition describes current flowing in 1 direction, which DCC does not do. Alternating DC is therefore scientifically incorrect.

I agree with everything except "an alternating DC waveform". This term is completely contradictory.

That's complete rubbish because the two terms contradict each other. DC by definition is "a unidirectional flow of electric charge". If it alternates, it is not unidirectional. I can understand not referring to a pulsed signal as AC, because it is usually (& wrongly) assumed to be sinusoidal AC.

I have one of Biff's chips in my HST. It is boxed up right now but I am sure I could read CVs with my PowerPro. I'll dig it out later & give it a try. There is a warning on DC Kits' website that there is an issue with the PCB of Hornby's HST, which is why they recommend either keeping the 125 address or placing it in a different loco or on a decoder tester in order to change it. I wonder if this is causing your issue?

I don't see that it matters too much. I have seen it mentioned that a decoder supplies PWM. Many DC controllers do too. I know that models often have a suppression capacitor but this is only to reduce interference with other devices. Decoders can be tweaked to cope with different motors anyway, which is similar to using a specific controller for a particular loco. If a decoder is damaging to a fresh commutator, then surely it is also damaging to a not so fresh one? If a brand new model ran poorly, would you take it back or try to fix it? I would take it back. I would not want to open it for a second time to remove the decoder I had just fitted, so I test it before taking it apart. Some models are a right pain to fit a decoder to, requiring some cutting which I am sure would void any warranty. This means I need the DC test box. Once the DC test box is out, I may as well leave the loco running for a while longer to let the gears bed in.

I agree. NMRA do not help matters though. You would think you can trust those who set the standards but I found this on their website: "The DCC signal is an alternating DC waveform, which contains the digital information". I wish they would take that rubbish down because the terms 'alternating' & 'DC' completely contradict each other. Current is either alternating or it is direct. I read somewhere that some electrical engineers do not like a square wave described as AC, presumably because it confuses people into thinking it is a sine wave. I think they prefer to call it a bipolar signal. A digital signal can be encoded within DC, but the DCC we all use does not work like this.

If they have moved it to the tender in later models (which would not surprise me), then I welcome this.

Look up ohms law & relax! The current in a circuit is determined by the supplied voltage & the total resistance in the circuit. It is not dependant on the supply's capacity. If something goes wrong & you get a short circuit, then the resistance will reduce & you need some form of protection against the current being too high. The protector (circuit breaker or fuse) should always be the weakest part of the circuit.

I thought that is what is really meant by 'running in on DC'. Ensure it works ok before fitting a decoder?

Sorry, I meant you HAVE confirmed this as a solution. Thank you for that. DCC fitting does seem to be somewhat of an afterthought for some models. Others are really good, like Bachmann's class 85 which even has space & an obvious mounting point for a decent speaker.

I have no idea how that duplicated. Duplicate removed.

You will not get much smoother DC than from a battery. I am not familiar with that controller but I would expect it should be able to power a light engine 08. I would suspect it has a fault. When measuring its output, you only have the load of the voltmeter. This is intentionally very low in order to affect the characteristics of the circuit as little as possible. A motor provides much more load so the internal characteristics of the controller become far more significant. This is why a controller which produces 14v with an open circuit may only provide 10-11v for a train puling a heavy load. As for the original question I have made a small test track which fits in the top tray of a toolbox. I was given Beatties controller in a bundle of hand-me-downs a few years ago. Its dial & switch look similar to what Gaugemaster use so I suspect this is where its origins lie. I keep this controller, a couple of rolling roads & a few useful spares in the toolbox itself. Any new locos get run in for about an hour in each direction on here before getting chipped. Any Issues? Occasionally. One which springs to mind was my Heljan Beyer-Garrett. One of its chassis was bent. My layout was still under construction at the time but my test track allowed me to identify this & return it immediately. Replacements were still available & I did not have the hassle of removing the chip again. Some locos are a pain to chip, requiring work such as cutting the chassis block, which I assume will void any warranty. Surely it is better to determine that these are working before doing any work such as this?

Sorry, I forgot they also did a 2MT. I was thinking about removing the "wasteful of space decoder socket and mounting points", but you've not confirmed this as a solution. It is a bit dodgy of Bachmann to market this as DCC ready. I know I can do the cutting & fiddling necessary but I am not sure I would have bought it if I had known in the first place.

I usually like Bachmann's chassis designs but this has to be the worst I have seen. It was sold as 'Not for DCC Sound' so I thought things may be a little tight but it is ridiculous. It is labelled as DCC ready but from what I have seen, it should read 'DCC socket fitted but don't even think about using it'. The instructions for body removal were 'Remove these 2 screws'. It was not that simple at all. Firstly, the steam pipes below the cab are attached to both the body & chassis, so you have to break it off from one of these in order to separate the two. There is also a wire holding these in place which goes through the floor of the cab. Surely these 2 were never meant to be separated? Once apart, the instructions for fitting the decoder was simply to fit it into the smokebox. This would be stating the obvious except there was no room. I first tried a Zimo MX600. Not the smallest decoder, but certainly not a big one. There was no way it would fit into the cavity. I then sought out a direct plug decoder. The only one I could find was a Zen nano. This is quite small, but the block on which the decoder socket sits is way too tall to allow anything other than a blanking plate in the socket. As a result, the body sits about 2-3mm too high. Has anyone managed to fit a decoder to one of these? If so, what did you use?