Here's an interesting one. Regular readers will be aware that I have, in the past, converted old Hornby Railroad stock to NEM couplers, but it appears that some people want to go the other way and use the old Lima D-ring couplers in NEM pockets.
Before I show you how, let's just go over the basics. Pre-NEM, manufacturers simply chose a coupling type (Lima-D ring, Bachmann style tension lock couplers, Hornby tension lock couplers, etc.) and variously moulded or screwed it into the design.
Changing the coupling for a specific piece of kit would then be a case of unscrewing (or cutting off, in the case of the Railroad stock) and then attaching the new couplers instead.
With NEM pockets, things have changed.
A NEM pocket, without going into too much detail, allows us to swap between NEM-compliant couplers, and be pretty sure that they'll work. They just clip into (and out of) the pocket.
This was great for new stock, and for converting stock to use (for example) Kadee magnetic auto-couplers, and gave everyone a great deal of easy choice, but the question remained - what to do with the old stock?
Symoba came to the rescue with a number of solutions - the first is a simple arrangement to fit a NEM pocket to a non-NEM model, be it loco or rolling stock. That's the solution I used to fit Kadee automatic couplers to an old Railroad shunter.
However, in doing so, I cut off the existing D-ring, which has left me with an issue : rolling stock with D-ring couplers that I'd like to shunt, but no 'compatible' shunter!
Which brings me on a round trip to Hornby part number R8268, "Pack of 10 large width couplers". (If you want to see one, try the Hornby Spares Page at NewModellersShop - just scroll down a bit!)
These have *gasp* NEM connectors, and will plug into my newly-installed NEM couplers.
This means two things. Firstly, I'm flexible, and despite the fact that the shunter in question is a bit of a dog (owing to the cheap motor, no doubt), I've finally found a use for it towing slowly away from the shunting yard.
Secondly, just because something looks like a good idea, doesn't always mean it is. I should have left those D-rings on in the first place, since the shunter (despite a DCC conversion) has turned out to be useless at ... shunting!
Addendum : Amazon also stock the NEM D-Ring couplers, and if you buy from that link, you'll make me some pennies towards my own layout...
Showing posts with label 0-4-0. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 0-4-0. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Friday, 16 September 2011
Adding Symoba NEM Pockets & Kadee Couplings to Hornby Railroad Class 06
Following on from my experiment to convert the Hornby Railroad Class 06 to DCC, I'd been happily running it around an oval layout at a highly non-prototypical (or is that protoatypical?) speed when I realised that to actually do shunting with my Bachmann and Piko wagons in any kind of meaningful way, it would need further modification.
Since reading Model Rail's NEM coupler test report, I've gone a bit Kadee mad, fitting them to almost everything in sight. Okay, due to limited funds, I do generally just fit them to one example of each wagon, but that's an easy process, and easy to reverse.
Which brings me to the Railroad Class 06, which, unlike my more expensive HO Piko loco, doesn't have NEM pockets. For the uninitiated, NEM pockets are little boxes that hold the coupling, and which make it easy to interchange couplings as you wish.
The Class 06, however, has a Lima style D ring. Luckily, it's in plastic.
Clearly, if I was going to Kadee-ify the Class 06, I'd first have to get rid of the Lima D rings (oh, yes, front and back) and replace them with something capable of taking the Kadees.
(For those wondering, I use Kadee rather than the clever Brian Kirby 'BK' magnetic uncoupling solution on my inglenook-inspired shunting layout because I take advantage of the delayed uncoupling feature. More on that another time.)
It turns out that Symoba made the exact pieces that I needed : a NEM pocket and adapter to hold it. The NEM socket was cheap. The adapter, because of the little springs inside it to handle cornering, and the engineering of the whole thing was not quite so cheap!
At this point, a photo would be useful, but again, I didn't take any, so you'll have to take a look at the official Symoba web site. When I do another hatchet-job on a Railroad, I'll post up the photos. Promise.
Back to the conversion. Take a knife, and remove the D-rings. Prise out the little bobbing arm thingy, and take a deep breath.
At this point, I thought it would be an easy enough job : just cut enough of the chassis away to accommodate the mounting plate for the adapter, and glue it in place, plastic to plastic.
Wrong!
In fact, you have to cut the chassis right back to the metal underside, otherwise you can't get the NEM pocket high enough up the sprung mounting pole to meet the height of the other couplings on the rolling stock.
I tried every which way, swore, sweated, and then un-glued the mounting plate to give it another go. Cutting back to the metal does the job, on the Class 06, but I can't vouch for other locos. Either way, the sprung pole is long enough that it doesn't really matter how far into the chassis area the adapter is mounted.
And that's it. I got a piece of rail, put a NEM/Kadee-ified wagon on it, and used that to measure the height of the pocket, which slides onto the mounting pole. That's a tight fit, so be sure to only push it up the pole gradually, as going the other way might just tear the mounting plate away from the chassis of the loco.
Now, the running tally of the cost of the Class 06 is as follows:
The closest thing to that would be Bachmann's admittedly excellent Class 03 (or Class 08's) which are around £50-54, and would need a DCC chip fitting, for a total of, at most £65. They are better runners, allegedly, but I'll find that out when I get myself one at the Folkestone MRC2011 Exhibition in October.
Since reading Model Rail's NEM coupler test report, I've gone a bit Kadee mad, fitting them to almost everything in sight. Okay, due to limited funds, I do generally just fit them to one example of each wagon, but that's an easy process, and easy to reverse.
Which brings me to the Railroad Class 06, which, unlike my more expensive HO Piko loco, doesn't have NEM pockets. For the uninitiated, NEM pockets are little boxes that hold the coupling, and which make it easy to interchange couplings as you wish.
The Class 06, however, has a Lima style D ring. Luckily, it's in plastic.
Clearly, if I was going to Kadee-ify the Class 06, I'd first have to get rid of the Lima D rings (oh, yes, front and back) and replace them with something capable of taking the Kadees.
(For those wondering, I use Kadee rather than the clever Brian Kirby 'BK' magnetic uncoupling solution on my inglenook-inspired shunting layout because I take advantage of the delayed uncoupling feature. More on that another time.)
It turns out that Symoba made the exact pieces that I needed : a NEM pocket and adapter to hold it. The NEM socket was cheap. The adapter, because of the little springs inside it to handle cornering, and the engineering of the whole thing was not quite so cheap!
At this point, a photo would be useful, but again, I didn't take any, so you'll have to take a look at the official Symoba web site. When I do another hatchet-job on a Railroad, I'll post up the photos. Promise.
Back to the conversion. Take a knife, and remove the D-rings. Prise out the little bobbing arm thingy, and take a deep breath.
At this point, I thought it would be an easy enough job : just cut enough of the chassis away to accommodate the mounting plate for the adapter, and glue it in place, plastic to plastic.
Wrong!
In fact, you have to cut the chassis right back to the metal underside, otherwise you can't get the NEM pocket high enough up the sprung mounting pole to meet the height of the other couplings on the rolling stock.
I tried every which way, swore, sweated, and then un-glued the mounting plate to give it another go. Cutting back to the metal does the job, on the Class 06, but I can't vouch for other locos. Either way, the sprung pole is long enough that it doesn't really matter how far into the chassis area the adapter is mounted.
And that's it. I got a piece of rail, put a NEM/Kadee-ified wagon on it, and used that to measure the height of the pocket, which slides onto the mounting pole. That's a tight fit, so be sure to only push it up the pole gradually, as going the other way might just tear the mounting plate away from the chassis of the loco.
Now, the running tally of the cost of the Class 06 is as follows:
- Loco : £20
- DCC chip : £11
- NEM pockets : £1
- NEM adapters : £6
- Total : £38
The closest thing to that would be Bachmann's admittedly excellent Class 03 (or Class 08's) which are around £50-54, and would need a DCC chip fitting, for a total of, at most £65. They are better runners, allegedly, but I'll find that out when I get myself one at the Folkestone MRC2011 Exhibition in October.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Aha! DCC Conversion for the Hornby Railroad 06 Class Diesel
Recently, those fine folks at Hornby released a Railroad edition of the Class 06 Diesel Shunter for an extremely affordable £20. Now, even a newbie like myself understands that there's a certain disdain reserved, by some people, for the Railroad editions, but when you're just starting out, with limited funds, Metcalfe models, and Railroad stock are just sensible, value for money, options.
Being a Railroad, of course, it's missing DCC, and the DCC plug, has no lights, and being Hornby isn't compatible with my existing Kadee couplers. So, I've got three projects on the go, one of which is now complete - my non-DCC Class 06 Diesel now has a Hornby 4 function DCC chip installed.
For those keeping score - that's £31 spent so far, plus about 45 minutes of work (bracketed by an hours worth of head-scratching.) Before I explain the project, I'd also like to point out that I wouldn't have even bothered, were it not for the free DCC guide that came with August's Model Rail magazine. I'd have just bought an expensive, DCC shunter, and not bothered with the Engine Shed, Goods Shed, track, points, etc. etc. that I was able to buy with the difference...
I should also mention that I have two regrets : I didn't take photos, and I don't have a soldering iron. So, this is a solder-free, no photo project. If you're going to attempt it, I recommend both taking photos, and using solder!
Step 1 : dismantle the loco following the instructions that came with it. If you're reading this in 2015, and bought it second hand at a local fair, then look underneath, there are little clips that can be persuaded to release the body from the frame in two parts.
Step 2 : cut the wires that lead from somewhere udner the motor (from the rail pickups), to the motor itself. Now, I know that there are people out there who will strip it right back, take off the motor, de-solder the TV supression (two capacitors) etc.etc., but I just cut the black wires, folded them back, stripped about 5mm of insulation off,and twisted the ends.
Step 3 : cut the plug off the DCC chip. You don't need it, since there's no DCC socket. But, leave as much wire as you can, as it makes the next bit easier.
Step 4 : put the loco down in front of you, with the front facing. This is important, because, unless you want to reverse the function of forwards and backwards, you have to get the right wire on the right side of the motor.
Step 5 : identify the right and left motor wires from the DCC pin allocations given in the DCC instructions. In my case, it was grey (left) and orange (right).
Step 6 : do the same for the power connections (rails). In my case, these were red (left rail) and black (right rail).
Step 7 : solder the correct colored wires to the correct black wire ends created by the cutting process in step 2. In my case, I twisted them together, and insulated with tape. Following Hornby's own directions, I also taped the wires around the DCC chip, but you might like to leave that until after testing and programming the DCC decoder. So...
Step 8 : test and program the decoder on your programming rail, or on the main.
Step 9 : if it didn't work as planned, check the wiring. If it did, put everything back how you found it, with the addition of the DCC decoder sitting on top of the motor - there's space!
And that's about all there is to it. No doubt I made mistakes, and no doubt others can do it better, but for a newbie, I thought I'd done okay! Next time, photos, I promise...
The next Railroad Class 06 Diesel project is to get rid of those irritating toy-like couplers and put on nice, shiny, but somehow out of place Kadees instead. After all, they did win the Model Rail magazine August edition's Coupling Test (for best auto couplers.)
Other railway modeling magazines are available.
Being a Railroad, of course, it's missing DCC, and the DCC plug, has no lights, and being Hornby isn't compatible with my existing Kadee couplers. So, I've got three projects on the go, one of which is now complete - my non-DCC Class 06 Diesel now has a Hornby 4 function DCC chip installed.
For those keeping score - that's £31 spent so far, plus about 45 minutes of work (bracketed by an hours worth of head-scratching.) Before I explain the project, I'd also like to point out that I wouldn't have even bothered, were it not for the free DCC guide that came with August's Model Rail magazine. I'd have just bought an expensive, DCC shunter, and not bothered with the Engine Shed, Goods Shed, track, points, etc. etc. that I was able to buy with the difference...
I should also mention that I have two regrets : I didn't take photos, and I don't have a soldering iron. So, this is a solder-free, no photo project. If you're going to attempt it, I recommend both taking photos, and using solder!
Step 1 : dismantle the loco following the instructions that came with it. If you're reading this in 2015, and bought it second hand at a local fair, then look underneath, there are little clips that can be persuaded to release the body from the frame in two parts.
Step 2 : cut the wires that lead from somewhere udner the motor (from the rail pickups), to the motor itself. Now, I know that there are people out there who will strip it right back, take off the motor, de-solder the TV supression (two capacitors) etc.etc., but I just cut the black wires, folded them back, stripped about 5mm of insulation off,and twisted the ends.
Step 3 : cut the plug off the DCC chip. You don't need it, since there's no DCC socket. But, leave as much wire as you can, as it makes the next bit easier.
Step 4 : put the loco down in front of you, with the front facing. This is important, because, unless you want to reverse the function of forwards and backwards, you have to get the right wire on the right side of the motor.
Step 5 : identify the right and left motor wires from the DCC pin allocations given in the DCC instructions. In my case, it was grey (left) and orange (right).
Step 6 : do the same for the power connections (rails). In my case, these were red (left rail) and black (right rail).
Step 7 : solder the correct colored wires to the correct black wire ends created by the cutting process in step 2. In my case, I twisted them together, and insulated with tape. Following Hornby's own directions, I also taped the wires around the DCC chip, but you might like to leave that until after testing and programming the DCC decoder. So...
Step 8 : test and program the decoder on your programming rail, or on the main.
Step 9 : if it didn't work as planned, check the wiring. If it did, put everything back how you found it, with the addition of the DCC decoder sitting on top of the motor - there's space!
And that's about all there is to it. No doubt I made mistakes, and no doubt others can do it better, but for a newbie, I thought I'd done okay! Next time, photos, I promise...
The next Railroad Class 06 Diesel project is to get rid of those irritating toy-like couplers and put on nice, shiny, but somehow out of place Kadees instead. After all, they did win the Model Rail magazine August edition's Coupling Test (for best auto couplers.)
Other railway modeling magazines are available.
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