Woody's mad cap idea actually works!

Back on Saturday I was talking about the issue with the Hornby DCC Sound chip and the Ringfield powered Hornby HST train. Basically, put the sound chip in and it is not capable of providing enough power to run the Ringfield motor so the HST (high Speed Train) becomes a SST - Slow Speed Train! I am no expert on electronics with two wires being about my limit of understanding! However I knew the train ran fine with a standard DCC chip. Substitute it with the sound DCC chip and it ran slow. So in my mind the obvious answer was not to re-motor it or sell it and buy a more expensive modern model. In true Woody style, which will probably make anyone who has expertise in electronics roll their eyes or shout at their screen if they read this, my mad cap idea and solution was to run the motor and light from the standard DCC chip and add a second DCC socket in parallel to plug the DCC sound DCC chip into. There was certainly room in the body of the power car even with the Ringfield motor and I had a socket in stock at the WMD HQ Stores.

Handily, on the reverse of the socket it was conveniently labeled up as to what each pin connected to making soldering the two wires from the pickups simple to the point that even I could not go too far wrong!

Having unsoldered my previous connection to the first DCC socket that I installed I then added two more wires and soon the additional socket was soldered in parallel. The standard and sound DCC chips were then plugged in.

Putting it all back into the chassis I just left it loose for the moment just in case I needed to carry out further work on this as yet untested solution.

With trepidation it was put back on the track along with the other power car and the controller was turned on. 'Guess what', as I usually say to Mrs. Woody when I have broken something! It worked just as it should do! The Ringfield motor controlled by the standard DCC chip ran the train at HST speeds whilst the DCC sound decoders in each of the power cars provided the noise. Brilliant! I will do a video of it running in a day or so just to prove it does actually work! However that will have to wait until I get the viaduct back in place which I am finishing off from when I first built it last November! More on that later in the week.

Having mentioned Mrs. W, I better add, just in case she reads this, that today I did finish cementing in the slabs that I cleaned up last week ready for the moment when, as I informed Mrs. W, the conditions were right for cement work. I never actually told her what those conditions were just so I could keep my options open! However that job is now done tidying up the slabs but highlighting I need to clear up the rubbish at the side of the house. Another job on the list!

Success?

On Wednesday I finished my post regarding the Hornby Swallow Livery HST with the question as to whether it would run with the DCC chips in it. Well it did! The success of this project was something I wondered about given my track record of unsuccessful projects! However it was reassuring to see the train run with the headlights on at the right end of the train. 

I was extra pleased with the success as I had a further plan for this train. DCC sound!

I managed to find a pair of the Hornby TTS DCC sound chips for the HST train - one for each power car. Theoretically this should, given my work already on installing the 8 pin sockets in each car, be a simple plug and play job. Hmmmmm! As Mrs. Woody can vouch, the jobs which I think are going to be quick and simple have a habit of turning into something a bit bigger! Without giving too much away Mrs. W can add another example to her evidence list for jobs that grow bigger after my assurances of a speedy finish! More of that in a day or two! Stay tuned!

Relaxing?

It has been a busy few weeks at WMD HQ and it is catching up with me. I need to relax a bit I said To Mrs. Woody as she inspected the latest work I have done on finishing off the conservatory rebuild. Marty the cat certainly knows how to relax - maybe I should take some lessons from him?

Anyway I think Mrs. W didn't hear me but is pleased with progress! Todays work was supposed to see the slabs at the side of the conservatory cleaned up and re-bedded in fresh cement. However they were that coated in mortar the builders let drop on them whilst bricklaying they took several hours of working with a hammer and chisel to clean them up. However they are much neater and lighter in weight and the bits of mortar that remain will weather off over winter.

With the surfaces cleaned off the slabs were lifted and all the muck under them cleaned out so that there is space for cement to re-bed them  Looks a bit neater already.

Those two bags on the left contain the stuff removed from on top and under the slabs!

Back with the Hornby Swallow Livery HST I dealt with the spaghetti wiring. Getting the body off the driven power car revealed this. There are wires to the motor and the headlight from the pickups on both bogies..

This is the motor end. For some reason there is black paint on most of the wiring around the motor. In amongst the wiring is a capacitor that needs to come off. 

Disassembly saw the keeper plates for the motors removed and cleaned up and the capacitor removed.

Cutting the various wires allowed me to solder in the 8 pin socket. Basically the socket fits between the pickups taking power from the track and the wires to the motor enabling the DCC chip to take its power from the track and then run the motor in accordance with the instructions it gets from the DCC controller which in this case is controlled by me!

The 8 pin socket is wired in to the motor and headlight. The 9 volt battery is a handy way of testing things. There is enough power in it to run the motor. In this case I plugged a blanking plate into the socket which allows the motor to run on DC power and used the battery to test that the motor still ran. It did!

The wiring was tidied up and with that done it was time to plug a DCC chip in.

Meanwhile the rear un-motored power car needed a DCC chip in it to control the headlight. It was a simpler job then the motored power car as there was no motor to wire in.

There is certainly enough room for the wiring.

With all that done will it run? I feel fairly relaxed(in my mind but not body!) that it will but stay tuned to find out!

Dealing with Spaghetti!

Much as I enjoy spaghetti, especially when the meal is spaghetti bolognaise (which Mrs. Woody does so well!), I do sometimes get that nervous twitch when looking at it as to me most wiring is like spaghetti especially in most model trains these days. I recall my old Traing locomotives which had a live chassis directly feeding one part of the motor and just one wire leading from the isolated wheels to the other side of the motor. Easy to work out and easy to work on - just like me! Well that is what I tell Mrs. Woody!

Modern day locos are slightly more complex in the wiring department and opening up the latest models will reveal wires, circuit boards and possibly DCC chips which looks more like the internals of a computer. However if you want DCC that is what you need, Luckily you buy the loco ready wired and in many cases chipped. In the case of my Hornby Swallow Livery HST whilst not being an old model it is however not a modern model so does not have a circuit board to plug a DCC chip in. Wanting to convert it to DCC meant that I had to get involved in some wiring work. Basically I needed to install a harness for the DCC chip and wire that to the models pickups on the wheels and then to the motor. I also needed to wire in the headlights on the model in such a way that they only came on whilst the model travelled forward. 

First stage was to assemble what I needed and luckily, as ever, WMD stores had the necessary parts in stock - almost like I planned it!

There are two power cars for the train and whilst only one has a motor the other one does have headlights and therefore I need to install a chip in both cars. How will it go? Will I get spaghetti bolognaise for dinner? Will it all blow up? I will let you know in a day or so!

In the meantime I have been enjoying the slightly cooler weather to finish my block work as started yesterday. 

I just need to let it dry then put some gravel between the blocks and the main wall and level up the grass with some soil and grass seed. It is not over however as round the corner I need to reset these slabs which were lifted by the builders! It never ends - just like a piece of spaghetti seems to be when I try to wind it round my eating utensil!

Small jobs and bigger jobs!

A nice small model railway job today, changing the coupling on one of the coaches for the HST set. The coach for some reason had couplings that look more like 009 couplings. The problem was that it did not couple up with the other coaches. The solution was to change the couplings for conventional Hornby type ones. Luckily the coach is a modern one fitted with NEM coupling pockets that mean standard compatible couplings can just be slid into the NEM slot. Equally luckily was that within WMD stores suitable spare couplings were in stock!

The old couplings on the left easily came out.

The replacement Hornby type couplings now attached.

With the replacement couplings in place the coach could be put into the train and coupled to the ther coaches. I just need to convert the power car to DCC but more about that another time.

Bigger jobs see me returning to the conservatory rebuild that happened at the end of last year. The garden was devastated by the building work and I am only just getting grass to grow back where mud was spread by the digger. Having at last got a surface where I can walk without sliding or sinking I now need to reinstate the edging blocks that got dug up when the foundations were dug. They disappeared with the spoil dug out so I have bought replacements and today started the job of replacing them. 

About half way through so hopefully tomorrow will see the blocks in place. 

 I also need to finish the step and reset some slabs on the far side of the conservatory so still much to do! As long as Mrs. Woody doesn't make this job any bigger I should be OK though!

HST and that is not short for Hot and Sunny Today!

Although it is hot and sunny today the HST I am talking about is the train type. Introduced way back in 1976 and only just being withdrawn the High Speed Trains or Class 43 to use their official designation were so advanced when they came into service back in the 70's and still, in my view, look modern today. Having ridden on so many other the years I am not quite sure why I did not have an 00 gauge model of one before now but last year I started to look about for a second hand example as I was not paying out the £300 to £400 just for the two power cars that the new Hornby models are selling for. Instead I managed to find a Hornby Train Pack from about 2007 with the revised body modelling which is much better then the ones from before the Millennium. It still has the old Ringfield and non DCC ready motor in it and only one of the power cars has the motor but I was happy!

The pack not only contained models of the two power cars but also two coaches. Whilst the contents of the box does not make up the 8 plus car trains that the HSTs ran in it certainly starts you off.

I do like the Intercity Swallow livery that these trains wore - I think it just looked so right even now.

Over the past few months I have kept an eye out for the right coaches second hand to extend the initial set. Learning about the various marks and production runs of coaches has certainly been an education and but I have ended up with one coach that is completely wrong as it is the old style 7 window coach from the 80s Hornby HST model. That is staying in its box for the moment. Two coaches are actually designed for a Class 91 and DVT and have two small windows side by side at one end of the coach body instead of one at each end - it just gets complicated - but I am going to run them in this set anyway on the basis that unless you know you will never spot this! Two further coaches are actually the right ones being the buffet car and the guards end coach. The end result is that I have an eight car unit which is big enough for my needs.

Looks impressive - to me anyway!

I need to change the couplings on one coach and put a DCC chip into the power cars so that I can run it but for an outlay of roughly half the price of two new Hornby HST power cars I have an eight car formation that looks the business. 

Mrs. Woody would be proud of my budgetary skills and savings but probably not pleased that I bought it in thye first place - I cannot win!