irishthump

Finished weathering my small rake of tanker wagons. This was another project that took a couple of years!

All 6 were weathered in one batch but I tried for a distinctive look for each one.

Fantastic!

How big is this layout? SO many different scenes.......

Belated Happy Birthday, Patrick!

Back to railways!

Finally finished my scratch built brake van. After applying Des’s excellent decals and a bit of weathering she’s ready for the layout.

Seen here with a lone tanker wagon and loco 182.

Something a bit different on the workbench. Figures I painted recently for tabletop fantasy gaming.

As was already said, if I was starting from scratch then absolutely.

But if 21mm track became available tomorrow I would probably not do it as I have a lot of BR stock that regularly run on my 16.5mm track.

1 hour ago, Zeb1 said:

I'm fitting one in 124 during the week...Ill put it up then.. knowing my luck if I go to take the body off one of the ones I've done so far ill end up breaking some of the small details....lol...Air horns,handrails and vacuum pipes seem to need the gentle gentle approach..  

been there, done that!

21 hours ago, Zeb1 said:

If you remove the body..and remove the 2 screws on the fan end of the pcb it will just slide underneath.its the 40mm long i phone speaker by roads and rails i use...the sugar cube speaker just pops out and solder speaker wires to the 2 contacts...you can see the speaker thru the side grills but that's OK in my opinion...

Nice job. I’ll be honest if the speaker failed in one of my 121’s I’d have no problem replacing it and I wouldn’t care if it was visible behind the grill!

Would you be able to show us a picture of that installation with the body off the loco?

Very informative, thanks for sharing.

I bought a 141 from Ebay a few years back. I got it really cheap as it was sold as a non-runner. 

Turns out it had a similar-but-different issue with the PCB, the track feeds at one end of the board had failed. I had to rewire to the opposite end of the board and all was fine after that. 

Isn't it true you can reprogramme keys to activate different functions?

That momentum button is better of left alone!

1 hour ago, DiveController said:

Which ESU V5 Loksound chip is appropriate fro the 121 and 141?

 I was looking at this ....

ESU 58419 LokSound 5 DCC/MM/SX/M4 21MTC NEM660 LSP 11x15mm

Just be careful when ordering, there's another decoder - 58449. This appears to have exactly the same specs but may not operate the lights correctly on the 121.

This is to do with how the circuit board in the 121 is designed.

14 minutes ago, murphaph said:

 

Cheers for that

No problem. Let me know what you think of the horn sound.

From what I remember the Momentum button allows you to enter a value of 0-9.

Entering a value of 0 turns off acceleration and deceleration. When a value of 1-9 is entered the Powercab takes that number, multiplies it by a factor of 8 and writes that value to CV3, then writes half that value to CV4. So any values you already have programmed to a loco will be overwritten,

Problems can arise because some sound decoders such as Zimo have specific values in CV3 and CV4 that are neceasary for realistic operation of the sound file. 

Loksound decoders have a different problem; acceleration and deceleration values differ from NMRA recommended practices so that their values need to be higher to match other brands of decoders. 

Here it is, V36

Top of the page...

http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/search?cat=7&q=V36

1 hour ago, murphaph said:

@irishthump I'm just using the old files. You only hear the horn for a moment every now and then anyway. As you know by far the more important issue is the quality of the prime mover recording and sampled file as that is running the whole time.

Might be worth looking through the ESU files for a suitable improvement though. That's a job for a rainy day if ever there was one!

 

I found one that I thought is pretty close. I’ll have a look later and find which V5 I took it from!

The V5 horn sounds seem to sound much better, to my ears anyway....

6 hours ago, murphaph said:

Sure. Fire me a PM @DiveController to remind me to send a file tomorrow.

@murphaphare you using the horn sounds from the old MM V4 files or have you found something suitable in the newer V5 ones?

3 hours ago, DiveController said:

Phil @murphaphis there any possibility you might post the relevant eSU file and the horns? After shelling gout for three Wt projects I'm looking for a alternative way to contain costs for future 121 and 141 sound decoders.

I know you're in Germany. Where are you sourcing your chips?

The LokSound V5 in the US and Australasian markets are V5 DCC chips which have some differences (most notably that they cannot be run temporarily on DC)  

The MM decoders are V5 DCC which I thought was a little odd for a decoder aimed at the European market.

Curiously though, I recently picked up an MM decoder for an 071 loco from Mark’s and it turned out it to also be a V5 DCC. Doesn’t really make too much of a difference to most modellers here but handy to know as they have different momentum values.

4 hours ago, NIRCLASS80 said:

My little Christmas treat from the better half. I have a weakness for all things CP Rail and Soo Line. 

Nice!

Athearn Genesis? Atlas?

Well Santa has been.....

25 minutes ago, Mayner said:

I have been scanning my collection of slides and photos from the late 70s to early 2000s and concur with JHBs observations with very few photos of dirty or run-down locos or stock before 2000. 

Although both classes of Metrovicks tended to get dirtier quicker than the pure bred GM Classes, I struggle to find a photo of a dirty 001 in my collection.

The effect of weathering is tied up with viewing distance a loco or train may look quite clean from a distance and quite dirty close up.

 

Have to say that contrasts sharply with my recollection. I vividly remember as a child  standing on the platform at Pearse Station, reaching out to touch the sides of the stopped locos and my hand coming away thick with grime. Faded paint was also a common thing. The C classes on the push-pull services from Killiney to Pearse were also never clean and neither were the coaches!

5 hours ago, Noel said:

Great photos. Post CIE days the locos were allowed to get into quite a grubby state. Looks like I may have to weather the heck out of my bright orange IR 121 to match the photos above. There's nothing subtle about the weathering on those prototypes above.  

Locos and stock in the CIE Supertrain days got just as grubby!

Happy Christmas to one and all...

1 hour ago, Wexford70 said:

I have not bought a sound chip before and was wondering if people could advise which is best for the new 121? The Murphy Models or the Wheeltappers chip?

If you have no experience with sound chips then the Murphy Models one will do you fine. The Wheeltappers version is more customizable but if you've never used a sound loco then it will be hard you to decide on any features. Just pick up the MM one and see how you get on.

There's no difference as regards sound quality as they both use the same sound recordings.

7 minutes ago, gm171 kk said:

Could you go smaller? I put the magnetic coupling I usually have on the baby GMs and they're slightly too long. Kadee 18s are what fits the babies. 

Of course it will also depend on how tight the curves are on your layout, buffer lock could be a problem if you use too short a coupler.

Just now, gm171 kk said:

Could you go smaller? I put the magnetic coupling I usually have on the baby GMs and they're slightly too long. Kadee 18s are what fits the babies. 

Yeah you probably could use a smaller one. The 20s are just what I had to hand.