SRman

My latest project involved soldering some wires to a small 6-pin decoder to add a stay-alive circuit. By the time I got to that bit, after soldering all the other wires to the tantalum capcitors and the charging circuit (a LifeLink from YouChoos), my hands were getting quite shaky. It can be done! This was an EFE London Transport silver train, some 1959/62 tube stock. I had originally installed the Black Beetle in a red 1938 car, but since Bachmann/EFE are producing a ready to run 1938 train, I swapped the chassis into a silver body. I repainted the seats to suit, but the EFE interiors use the same mouldings. The motor conversion was successful in itself, but the drag from those horrible EFE bogies needed something to be done: Metro Models to the rescue with some new bogie shells with pinpoint axles were added, using the EFE sideframes as overlays. These bogies come with some brass bar etchings that act as couplings, but they are still fiddly to connect, so I looked for an alternative and came up with using Kadee #5 coupling boxes in conjunction with Bachmann E-Z Mate whisker couplings with the dropper arms cut off. The boxes fit upside down over the coupling spigots on the bogies, and are secured with a spot of superglue. Next was to modify the wiring of the Black Beetle to solder a harness with a 6-pin socket to the brushes and pickups, allowing me to experiment with different decoders. Initially I used a DCC Concepts decoder but wasn't happy with the running, so swapped that for a Zimo decoder. With advice from John at YouChoos, I added three tantalum 470uF capacitors to one of his LifeLink charging circuits, then soldered the wires from that to the pads on the Zimo MX617 decoder. I really didn't want to add any extra drag on the trailing bogies, which is why I have not fitted extra pickups on the one in the motorised car, and chose instead to use the keep-alive idea (the first time I have used this system). I put together a very short video showing what I have done and the running unit in action.

I can't actually answer your question regarding what to give your cats (sorry), but your story did remind me of our Lucy, who was a greedy little thing, and fat/overweight (the vet agreed!). She weighed 8.5 kg, for much of her 17 years, and absolutely loved her cat biscuits. If we put the biscuits in her food bowl, she would scoff the lot in one go and promptly throw up again. We hit upon the game of putting a few biscuits in one hand, and getting Lucy to tap the hand with her paw to ask for a biscuit, which one would be fed to her. She would then have to ask for another. She came to love this game, which made her work for her food, and also rationed it and spaced it outso she had time to chew it properly before swallowing, and wasn't swallowing it all in one combined lump. One day, my wife was feeding Lucy this way, but eating some nuts as well, which were in her other hand. She was also talking to a friend, and of course the inevitable happened ... she ate some of the cat biscuits, much to the indignance of Lucy. On another occasion, I was feeding Lucy this way, while talking to a friend sitting on the other side of the room. I leaned forwards, still with the biscuits in my hand, chatting away. Lucy tapped my elbow gently to get my attention, but I ignored her. A short time later, she tapped my elbow again. I still ignored her. 20 seconds later, she lifted her paw, and swung a real haymaker at my elbow! My friend laughed so hard she almost fell out of her seat. Back to your problem, Metr0Land, if you can find some softer biscuit substitutes, implementing some sort of feeding game may help slow down the greedier Miss so she doesn't throw it all up again later.

Additionally, the windows on the 108s are lower than on 114s (and 107s). This can be seen from the larger area of metal above the main windows on the class 108.

Isn't it funny how two from the same litter can be so different in personalities. Hattie and Sykes (now over 3 years old) we believe are brother and sister, but Hattie is very much a lap cat and attention-seeker, and while she prefers to settle on me, she also gives my wife cuddles too (unusual compared to any of our previous cats!). Hattie purrs very easily at the slightest bit of attention, and even willingly jumps into my arms if I go to pick her up. IMG_20200728_212006 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Sykes, on the other hand, will not settle on our laps, although he does like a bit of attention, and even tummy rubs. He comes up on our bed in the early hours of the mornings and demands to settle in the crook of my arm while I rub (and scrunch) his tummy, and he purrs very loudly during this. He will only do this with me, and actively jumps backwards if my wife tries to do anything while he is cuddled up to me. He will approach us when we're outside, and roll over for tummy rubs though. I posted a photo of the pair of them together earlier.

I recently won two Lima European locomotives from an auction. The one item I really wanted (also a Lima item, a DSB MR DMU) went for more than I was prepared to pay, but these two cost me the princely sum of $AUS129, including their fees. The Swedish T43 had the old style pancake motor but I was the only bidder and got it for $40 plus fees, so can't complain. The BR 127 Eurosprinter has a central can motor with large flywheels and all eight wheels are driven, but it wasn't DCC ready. Both had lights, with the T43 having a primitive set up of two white incandescant bulbs and a pair of diodes, plus a mess of wiring. The 127 had head and tail lights, although one red bulb was broken. Both locos ran perfectly straight from their boxes on DC analogue. The T43 was first to be converted to DCC through a straight hard-wiring job using a Zimo MX600 with the 8-pin plug cut off. This model has a slightly more modern implementation of the Lima's motor bogie setup, with extra pickups on the non-driven bogie. I determined that there was plenty of room for a decoder at the non-motored end under the long bonnet. The track pickups to brush wiring were easily disposed of and the relevant decoder wires soldered to the necessary points. The blue positive accessory wire had to be extended to reach the light return contacts at both ends, with the white wire to the back of the front-end bulb (long bonnet), and yellow to the trailing end. I cut the clip retaining the front bogie so the bulb holder was entirely separate to keep the circuits apart, and for the present mounted that on a blob of Blu-tack, with another blob holding the decoder to the side of the bonnet. A quick test showed that it all worked perfectly. The paint finish on this loco is very good. I will eventually improve the lighting a bit, but for now it is adequate. P_20200929_112500_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr The Eurosprinter represents a Siemens/Krauss-Maffei prototype that lead to several variations, including the Austrian Taurus locomotives. The PCB is a fairly simple one-layered affair, allowing me to cut and use the tracks to connect a decoder straight in. The pantographs had the facility to make them live instead of the rail pickup on one side, but for DCC use this is undesirable. I soldered the pivoted link to make it semi-permanently connected to track only. I found that I could just squeeze in a full-size ESU LokPilot v5 decoder, sitting diagonally under the PCB at one end, on top of the bogie tower and directly behind the cab bulkhead. The usual brush and track connections were made, keeping an eye on which end was intended to be the No. 1 end (easily swapped if necessary either by swapping the brush wires or by changing the value in CV29 - neither of which was necessary for me). For the lighting, I wanted to separate the tail lights out to their own functions, so being able to use a 4-function decoder was useful. The white headlights were wired to the white and yellow wires, while the red tail lights were wired to the green and purple wires. The broken red bulb was replaced with a red LED and resistor. On test, the decoder read properly on the programming track, and the lights worked correctly first go, with the locomotive travelling in the intended directions for forwards and reverse. The body has not quite clipped back properly, hence the light bleed apparent in one of the photos, so I will be tidying the wiring up a little to get any stray bits out of the way. F0 works the directional white headlights, F1 works the tail lights at #1 end, F2 works the tail lights at #2 end. All in all, a successful bit of work. P_20201001_191729_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20201001_192148_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20201001_192328_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

'Ere, wotch it moosh. We is the right way up, it's you wot's the wrong way.

I think it is a good initiative on Hatton's part. I would say it is aimed at beginners to the hobby rather than seasoned modellers, and the timing a little before Christmas is also masterful. All those Christmas train set gifts will have a quick and easy way to get up and running, without highly trained carpentry skills (something I also lack apart from the basics!), at least if they are based in the UK.

I did something similar with non-DCC-ready Roco locos - in my case, a Swiss Re 4/4 iv and Ae 6/6, plus a DB BR 151 (an another I can't remember off-hand). Finding space for the decoders taxed me a bit because of the solid chassis blocks and the light guides in the roof spaces. My method for isolating the overhead pickups was to add a blob of solder to fix the contacts in the 'rail-connected' position. This leaves the 'fix' as being reversible in the unlikely event that someone wants to restore the locos to original condition. Less reversible was my method of separating out the circuits for DCC use. I used a slitting disc in the Dremel to cut the tracks on the PCB at variious places. I did goof with one cut on one particular model, so had to solder a bridging wire to reconnect that track, but overall it worked very well. I also bypassed any chokes in-line with the brush feeds. I also took the opportunity to replace the light bulbs with some 3mm white LEDs and resistors. The photo below shows the Ae 6/6. Sorry it isn't as clear as I would like it to be. P_20200303_234049_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Victor Borge has already been mentioned, but also almost anything from The Barron Knights set me off. I'm not sure if this one counts as music, per se, but it was going through my mind quite recently.

One other indicator is the blue-green bands, rather than white or off-white of the earlier models.

There was also an Australian version for a short time, plus a couple of early blue variations (not BR blue: first issue in 1962 with eggshell cab window surrounds, and later ones with white roof and stripes). These were numbered as D5578. A few crossver models came out with green ones numbered D5578 and blue ones as D5572. The Australian one was done as a New South Wales Government Railways class 422 (running number 42202) - something it only resembled if one closed ones eyes and looked at it from behind a hill in a completely different Australian state. Catalogue number was R307, which duplicates other Triang items - a catenary set and a class 47, 47 170 'County of Norfolk'. While mould crispness did seem to suffer a little over the years, earlier examples tend to suffer from knocks and scrapes, particularly the door handrail mouldings, and wear of the number and crest transfers from handling. I think it was always a good looking model, certainly one of the best of its time of origin, and still not too bad even today. Andyman's examples look very nice indeed. I had a BR blue D5572 back in the late 1960s, and for partly nostalgic reasons, I now own two slightly careworn early blue examples. Because they weren't in the best of condition, I got them for very reasonable prices. Am I detracting from Andy's topic if I post pics of mine here, seeing as these are at the opposite end of the scale from 'Last Production' examples? I have posted them before in other topics, and I'll delete them if they aren't wanted. Triang Blue Brush Type 2 - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Triang Blue Brush Type 2 - 4 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I wish Dapol would do the same with replacements for faulty liveries and pcb designs. They offered replacement class 68 bodies, but at a cost to the customer. Nothing at all for their class 73 customers, though. Hornby in the past have been excellent in supplying replacement or updated parts free of charge. I have had parts for the first lot of Pullmans with dodgy coupling mechanisms, replacement pcb for a first release class 50, and several other parts, all done with aplomb by Hornby. I currently have a failed TTS sound decoder but can't send that back at present because they want to wait until the covid mail problems abate a bit. Yes, I am definitely in the camp that commends Hornby overall.

Even the trees are dangerous! https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-stinging-tree-has-poison-similar-to-scorpions-and-spiders-study-university-of-queensland-finds/59942272-0ffb-43ca-8353-d2316e6a5c81

As a slight aside, those class 104 units were known for having two DMBS vehicles, with a few eventually wearing NSE livery, but have a look at the blue/grey unit from just after the 8:30 mark: the lower line of the grey on each of the vehicles is markedly different. Another "prototype for everything" example.

I wouldn't mind one of these for my small industrial fleet, when the OO model comes out. I must say I was slightly amused by the advertising hype for the O gauge version: "all-wheel drive and pick up"! For an 0-4-0, I think we would expect that.

That might explain the Christmas ornaments, but it doesn't explain the stolen toys. She did this colour perception thing throughout her 17 year life. After she died, we found a little hoard of items she had squirreled away, all blue and/or yellow. We have never seen this in any other cats, though.

I've seen that classification used too. Presumably an EPB version of NOL, just as HAP was to HAL, and probably due to the origins of the underframes.

Cats and dogs are supposed to only see in monochrome, but our past cat Lucy could certainly see some colours. She would steal balls from our Christmas tree, but only blue or yellow ones, never red or green. As an aside, we had to remove all glass balls because she would drop them on the carpet then 'splat' them with a paw. All remaining balls were silk-wrapped plastic ones. When we had friends with young chldren stay with us, Lucy stole several of their toys, things like alphabet blocks, interlocking pegs, and even a woollen doll ... every single one of them blue or yellow, or both. There is some significance to this, seeing as the blue/yellow combination is a complementary pair, as are red and green.

Who did you buy the model from, Kaustubh? If it was from a majr retailer, they will usually wear the costs of postage to and from their premises, and they take care of the warranty requirements from Hornby. If you bought directly from Hornby, you may have to negotiate this though. They *should* wear those costs, but experience tells me they may try to avoid that. At present they are also restricted at present in what they cn handle as far as remote locations are concerned. I have a claim with them for a defective TTS decoder, but they can't do anything until covid restrictions are eased.

I have a quite old Howes one on an ESU v3.5. With a decent speaker set up, even that still satisfies me. Newer versions should be even better, with more speaker choices available for LokSound versions 4 and 5.

Between the quokkas and the gulls, the chips don't stand a chance!

Yes, sealing the speaker to create a sound chamber is always a good move. I have even made temporary sound chambers out of Blu-tack! I have sound decoders from ESU, Zimo, Hornby TTS and Soundtraxx Econami. It is swings and roundabouts comparing the ESU and Zimo, and depends on the quality of the sound project (generally being improved all the time), quality and combinations of speakers (sealed, of course), and even the version of the decoder (ESU 3.5 were good for their time, but hissy and with limited speaker choices compared to ESU 4 and 5). Cheaper ones like TTS and Econami are compromised, but still good value.

Not before I got three of them!

Brian Haresnape suggested Peacock Blue, but what was applied was darker. As far as Triang's attempts at the blue livery, both were fictional, with the second being very attractive with its white roof and white stripes, as in the OP. The earliest release was this one, below. Triang Blue Brush Type 2 - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Queensland has the same rule as NSW for U-turns at traffic lights. I forgot this once when visiting Rockhampton after many years in Melbourne, and performed a U-turn with a Queensland friend on board. The accompanying gasps alerted me to my gaff. Fortunately there were no police around at the time. Mind you, when I last lived in Rockhampton, they only had one set of traffic lights in the whole place.