irishthump

Nice work...

Aside from how well it runs, it's a lovely paint job!

I glued a small piece of plastic in between the 2 frame sides and tapped a hole M2 then fitted a Kadee 141 coupling in a Kadee coupling box. It sounds worse than it was to do. The difficult part was making sure that the coupling height worked out ok. The photos at the link attached helps to see the set up and the result on the track.

 

 

 

It does run well with this set up for me with large curves.

Nice work! I did a similar job on my converted Hornby flats as the bogie mounted couplers caused nothing but problems, especially when reversing.

A Merry Christmas to everyone! May your stockings overflow with 071's, 141's, 201's or whatever you fancy.....

The Digitrak DCS51

The reason I ask is that with my old Hornby Select some decoder's lights would stay on whether the function button was on or not! Something to do with the Select's output signal being very rough.

The Digitrak DCS51 , I've a BR Class 37 thats DCC ready with a chip and I can program away on that with both front & rear lights.

 

I'll strip it down again tomorrow night or Stephen's day and have a look.

You could have a stray wire or piece of solder which is allowing current to get to the LED. It might be worth stripping the heat shrink off the decoder.

Very weird, I've double checked everything. Wiring is:

 

Blue common from the chip to both LEDs on the positive.

 

Yellow to the rear light negative.

 

White to the front light negative.

 

For good or bad I've the 2k resistor on the positive common on both LEDs. I'll change that and put the resistor on the negative.

 

I'm pretty sure I've both lights on Function one but still learning and working my way through manual.

 

Bill

The wiring certainly sounds right. and it should'nt make any difference if the resistor is on the positive or the negative. 2K sounds a little high, I would use a 1K for most LEDs but it should'nt cause a problem. The most important thing is that they are wired in parallel with a resistor on each.

I have read that the older Digitrax decoders don't work well with LEDs for lighting but I though that was fixed with the later ones like the DH126D. Might be an idea to try some incandescent bulbs if you have any just to see if they work.

By the way, what DCC system are you using?

Hi Lads,

 

I've wired up my loco for front & rear lights (LEDS) , the front led lights up just fine and I can program it for the various modes . The rear light stays on constantly unless I drop the power to the BUS and then off it goes. I've check the polarity on the LED, the common blue wire and the yellow reverse wire is as it should be

 

 

I'm using a Digitrax DH126D. I've factory reset the chip and still the same.

 

Any ideas?

 

Bill

That's a weird one...

How did you connect the blue wire to the front and back leds? Did you wire them with a resistor on each one? (BTW if you get the polarity wrong on the led it won't light at all.)

Flats look the business Kieran,hope you get the running problems ironed out.Really like the way you have blended the scenery with the backscene,great work

Yeah, lovely job Kieran.

I think the running problems could in part be because of the tension lock couplers.

Awww nice! Suitably grimey as well!

I stumbled across this great series of videos on Youtube. Lots of protypical footage...

I'll believe it when i see it!!

Believe what when you see it? Him not buying any more locos or a RTR 121?

I think the guys would probably like a guide. Covering how to open parts of the loco, where to lube with greace and where to lube with oil, gears, shafts, service intervals for motor bushes, how to clean pickups and wheel rims and wheel backs, recommended materials, use of cradle, power clips to run bogies inverted in cradle for lube, cleaning, test, etc, bla, bla

If you run your locos on a regular basis, then modern models like MM's need very little maintenance. Wheel cleaning being the only thing that regularly needs doing.

Most models now have can motors, so the brushes are not accesible and lubriction should be done sparingly (usually be applied with the head of a pin.)

As Warbonnet said; if a loco is running and not making any funny noises, then leave it alone!

Looks a bit long to me; too much space between the bogies....

 

Actually that one in the picture is too short - it's a bleedin' N gauge model!

They're all going to be compromises, but it would be better than a Railroad Deltic.

No argument there....

I have one and I'm not too impressed with it. I replaced the traction tyres with metal wheels so it now picks up power on all wheels, added a load of weight and it still would'nt pull the skin of a rice pudding!

Nope, it should fit just fine.

Looks a bit long to me; too much space between the bogies....

A 141/181 has four axels.

 

An A Class has 6 axels. Are people planning to put a cosmetic axel on either end of the MM chassis or is for a C class?

I was actually talking about the A class! I'd give a cosmetic axle a go with the Athearn chassis. You can pick them up handy (and cheaply) enough on Ebay and they can be made to run very well with a bit of work.

I certainly would'nt spend close to €100 on a 141 just to stick the chassis under a silverfox kit.

No, you'd have to sacrifice a 141...

To hell with that!

Theres always a slighly shortened athearn sd 9 chassis or take the bogies, drive shafts and motor out of a bachmann cl 55 and build a new chassis.

The F7 chassis is a good fit if you're not concerned about using a Bo-Bo. I've been dabbling with trying to fit Co-Co bogies to the chassis...

It's going to be difficult to fit the driveshafts but it certainly looks the part. You'd even get away with the fuel tank.

First of a couple of questions....

1) Does the loco run ok on DC or with a different decoder on DCC?

2) Have you tried resetting the decoder?

Interesting. All the MM 141/181s I bought new had black horns irrespective of the livery.

Same here.

The BEMF adjustments are limited on the Sapphire, but CV 150 has 2 settings to suit different motor types. CV 150 can be set to either 0 or 1 and if I remember correctly a value of 1 is for older motors. Might be worth a try....

But you have to bear in mind that this motor will never run as well as the MM locos. MM's are equipped with a good quality can motor and flywheels which improve slow running considerably, you will probably get the 58 motor running smoothly but it's slowest (reliable) speed will be higher than an MM. I would concentrate on getting the loco to run steadily at speed step 1.

The A's might have sounded different to other GM engined locos....... but it was a bloody marvellous sound

No arguement there!

Me too. A class never sounded as stirring nor impressive as the GM locos even though they ended up with with retro fitted GM diesels. Don't know if it was the different silencing arrangement or the different gen set that made the A class sound so different to 141/181 locos. If I had an A class model I don't think I would bother putting a sound chip on it for that reason, as well as the poor running old style chassis available for A's.

When I eventually get round to getting an A class kit I'll probably try and find an engine sound that resembles it on the ESU website. There would have to be something that would be close!

I agree they do have a number of Select versions for some of the V4 sound files, but not all of them, and not including the 071 and 201 sound files.

You're right there. The Select seems mainly aimed at US modellers.