Class 31 and Class 74

The Lima Class 31 is finished and ready for revenue earning service. The Ultra scale wheels arrived and were duly painted and fitted.

Ultrascale

What a difference.

The Class 74 has made progress. The decoder arrived from DC Kits.

Took a while to get the information as to how we wire this up, they really should supply this with the decoder.

The idea is to wire in 4 Blue miniature LEDs for the 3rd rail arc. I have learnt these work on function 3 and 4 that's the green and pink wire usually at the wrong end of the decoder.

They are directional so 2 work in one direction and 2 in the other. I have wired them diagonally.

 video here

As I am using Alan Gibson spoked wheels for this, we need to add pick-ups to a Ringfield motor bogie.

I have made Two pickup plates, One for each side.

These are screwed to the chassis (It's soft metal so easily drilled)

This side of course we have to be careful not to interfere with the gear wheels.

The other side.

Now waiting for the 3D printed replacement gear that fits to the axle from James Trains.

Hornby and their Terrier part Two.

Ok, this is all fascinating stuff. Hornby, it's Terrier and it's running qualities.

This is an update from my last post, so if you have not seen that yet, It may be a good idea for you to have a look there first and all will make sense.

Previous post here

After discussing the running qualities of Hornby's new Terrier with a friend of mine, he suggested, what would it run like on an old feedback controller?

Plugging in my old Gaugemaster feedback controller, (thats the black one) the terrier is a whole new beast.

I am now befuddled, confused and basically annoyed.

I think there is a good article here for one of the top magazines to take on. Are we now at the point of swapping controllers for different locos? Is this progress? Coreless motors etc.

It's bloody brilliant

Over the years we have all read stories about the old H&M controllers on half wave, modern motors don't like them. Then told not to use feedback controllers with coreless motors or can motors.

Its all getting very confusing.

It's another good argument for DCC, like it or hate it, the system seems to cope with anything and, the old myth of "if it won't run on DC it won't run on DCC" has been blown out the water with most decoders these days having BEMF (Back Electro-motive Force) which can also be adjusted through changing some CVs and adding stay-alives.

I had a thought

Instead of your straight forward sort of blanking plate for general DC running, could this be made to contain some sort of BEMF circuitry?