johnb

Be a bit careful here the Atlas MP15s that I've got have a purpose factory fitted DCC complete circuit board with chip incorporated , it is NOT a simple chip removal arrangement. However many Atlas DCC factory fitted locos come ready to run on DC or DCC , if DC is disabled is simply a tweak of CV29 to sort out. It will need checking as it could also be a home brew conversion. Have you got the original box and instructions? What is the box description 'Silver', Master, or what? Are you able to post photos of the box and the loco with the body removed? John

Salinas Valley loaded and ready for an 0630 start tomorrow morning! See you all there John

Marlow, Maidenhead and District Model Railway Club's summer exhibition will take place at Knowl Hill Village Hall on Saturday 8th June 2019, 10am - 4:30pm. Since 2011 our summer exhibition has been held at this venue and we hope you will be able to attend and enjoy the wide variety of exhibitors. 2019 Entry Prices: Adults £4.00, Children 5-14 £2.00, Under 5's free, Family (2 Adults + 2 or more children) £10. Knowl Hill Village Hall, The Terrace, Knowl Hill, Reading. RG10 9XB See :- www.mmdmrc.org.uk The exhibits are mostly club or club members layouts with the addition of a couple of our friends and in no particular order are :- Earls Court - Terry Tew's OO gauge slice of West London. Westhampton - Club 'N' gauge being shown as under construction. Shirebeck - Club EM gauge. One of its rare outings in recent times. Polcombe Depot - Mark Pollards O gauge loco depot as recently seen in Hornby magazine. Didcot - Dave Smith's 'N' gauge Kidmore - Dave OO gauge Janet's LGB style show-piece Nove Mesto na Nedostatku Czech Republic TT (1:120) – Alan’s latest one as a Work in Progress, might even be some trains running! Trader is - Berkshire Doll House and Model Shop Tea and coffee will be available

A couple of people I know have had success with dashcams. Apparently available for very reasonable prices. No personal experience with them though.

How true!!!!! John

My add-ons are back! I too downloaded 66.04, it took a laptop reboot afterwards to get it to work, but all seems fine. John

I've used EE for years and so far they have been pretty reasonable. I had an issue in the USA last year and had to contact them, they were helpful and tried hard, unfortunately it was with one of their newish wifi mini hubs which they eventually found to be incompatible with US networks. Apparently they work most everywhere else!

AS fitted to various Southern EMUs, 2BIL, 2HAL, the EPBs and so on

Not necessarily as the Single has a rather different wheel arrangement to the tank and may react in a different way to imperfections. Although I would expect the rigid wheelbase of the tank would also be sensitive to track issues. Do the problems occur on straight track or on curves or on points or are they completely random? My first checks would be the state of the wheels, then the pickups, are they clean and always in contact with the wheels? Are the wheels always in contact with the track. My suspicion based on what you say is that there may be a connection/pickup issue with the loco. What Jason said while I was typing this is a good idea, contact the repair man, before you start any tinkering other than checking the basics. John

Are the wheels and pickups really clean? Is the track clean and level? All matters vital for successful DCC operation. Intermittent issues can often be tracked back to dirt in the system somewhere. Does the Single always give problems at the same location? If so check the track for level and dirt. John

I model UK and US, my UK is 1970(ish) BR(S) EMUs and such things and recently I have an LT depot with pannier tanks and suitable stock. US is HO and varied but recently it's concentrated on small layouts with little switchers. I used to have a US roundy-roundy but it got to be too big to handle so was dismantled some years ago. I like good modelling regardless of prototype. John

just check the amperage draw of a Kadee electro magnet uncoupler, I believe they are high current devices.

I've done the same thing with pulling Lima wheels off the axles and replacing with Hornby wheels. I use a device that is called a gear puller, I cannot recall where I got it from, essentially it is two arms that fit over the wheel with a centre threaded rod which is simply screwed down onto the axle pinpoint and as it screws down it pulls the wheel off. Yes one Lima wheel is a a very tight fit, but it does pull off and as far as I can tell the pinpoint is undamaged and the Lima wheel looks OK, but I have not reused them. I use an ancient Hamblings wheel press to get the Hornby wheels back on and use a B-to-B gauge to get them properly set, they fit tightly enough to not need gluing The revised wheel sets run ok, I've only done a number of Lima GUVs. John

You speak from experience Mike? Of was there a serious case of, 'Ooops we shouldn't have done that!'. regards John

Clubs do vary considerably in their 'personalities', some can be quite narrowly focused and like to stay that way, others are much more of the aspect 'Do you like trains? If yes come and join in!'. I prefer the latter approach but that is my decision. As for starting a new layout well that costs money and if there's only one or two interested then it can either attract new people or drop by the wayside, some won't take that risk. Don't get me started on members personally partially funding club layouts to allieviate the money issue that can cause problems too. I have belonged to clubs for a long time and still do, the other members won't always follow your particular interests, but as Johnster so accurately put it above there is an awful lot more involved than just building a layout. Despite my memberships I have always built my own layouts to cover MY particular interests. I do exhibit my layouts and have always found other members with very different interests willing to come along and operate, they do enjoy themelves. too! Are there any other clubs that you could reach? It might be worth a look around. John

It is more important than many think. I have personal experience of holding club open days and people saying, "Oh I won't join I could never model like that. You'd never accept me." All abilities need to be considered. John

I heard a while back that the NCE wireless system was NOT approved for UK use and that at that time NCE did not intend to go through that process as it involved redesign using different frequencies and a long approval process, both expensive!! The situation may have changed since, but if you are UK or indeed EU based then a check would be advisable.

Login is tediously slow, it is slowlish actually getting to the site and my internet link is not that bad. The problem is that after entering my login and password it is a long while before the site responds. Once in then it is generally OK, but with the occasionaly very slow response particularly when using the back button. John

What a lovely descriptive description of what must be an interesting sensation on one's rear end!!!

I've a small terminus to fiddle yard DCC operated layout with EMUs and diesels and I've set things that forwards is from f/y to buffer stops. However I like to operate my 2car EMUs without all having the guard/luggage area at the same end, so I vary them so that the end that I designate forward has an orange dot underneath at the 'forward' end. Then I simply modify CV29, easy on NCE Powercab as it does the CV29 twiddling for you. I've done the same with the diesels that I operate, but then I'm not using Class 66s and such modern stuff! Not my initial idea I hastily admit, I helped with friends layout that did this, as it's an exhibition layout is does make things easier, particularly with new operators. John

This nsound like a common NCE controller confusion in that you need to be sure whether the address set is short or long. for example 1 as short or 0001 as a long one. Iif the loco won't respond to say 1 then try 0001 , if it's a 2 digit address try say 33 (short address) or 0033 ((long address). It's all in the setting up when the controller asks which you want as active, you can set both short and long but can only have one active! John

If running DC enabled on a DCC fitted loco, the supply to the motor is through the chip anyway, so presumably any chip characteristics will also be sent to the motor. Or, does the chip effectively allow the DC to bypass its internal gubbins? John

I have had this happen more than once, luckily I caught one and the other fetched up in the fiddle yard against the foam end stop. In neither case was the shorted loco affected by the run away, it was another that was nearby. I always disable DC during the initial setup. Given the price of modern stock I am not willing to take the risk. I don't use analogue DC on any of my layouts although I do retain an analogue controller for occasional use in testing friends stock. John

Wheel cleaning, ah, some more heresy here! I use the Trix device that sits on the track and has wire brush top side, I just set the DCC id, set the controller to fast(ish), place the loco on wire brush and away we go! Works for me is all I'll say. John

Well I don't usually run things in on DC or indeed at all most times. I choose to buy DCC ready stock, recently it's been Bachmann or Hornby EMUs and DMUs, I fit a decoder of my choice and then just operate them on the layout. I could run in on a rolling road, but only normally use that to check direction and steadiness. As an example I recently ran four Bachmann 2EPB EMUs that I had DCC fitted. at a show without any prior running in, I'd had most of them for a while and chipped them. They just came more or less straight from the box onto the layout, and ran happily all day. My layout is a terminus to fiddle yard one and is all of 13ft long. Nothing can run fast on a layout of that length so I didn't even notice any easing up that is reckoned to happen. If I do get a DCC fitted item then any running in is on DCC. I automatically disable DC running when setting up stock. Just to complete this saga, for the same show I recently chipped a Hornby DCC ready Class 25 I'd had for a while, it's running was all over the place when I tried it on a rolling road, so I simply cut off the capacitor and it ran perfectly with no CV twiddling. I use a variety of 2 or 4 function chips usually in the around £20 range, TCS, Digitrax, some NCE, a couple of Lenz and recently some Zimo. Maybe my overall approach is heresy to some, but it works for me!! John