New Railway Modellers Forums

Another option for DC is to use high frequency lighting units on each controller. These will put high frequency AC on to the track and you can use indicators that light when this supply is present. They will also light when DCC is present and possibly when the live steam supply is present too. High ...

You might find that a 5-pin XLR will be a bit more robust than a DIN.

Just a quick question here, with the light not flashing, can you control a loco on Number 10?

The E-Z Command comes with an assortment of cables which can be plugged in incorrectly. It is important that the cables go in to the correct sockets.

You are best avoiding the Hornby decoders as apart from the Sapphire they are less able to handle the foibles of the Select than better decoders like the Zimo. You really cannot go wrong with a Zimo. Any decoder costing less than £19 is not going to have the input circuitry that can handle the wavef...

For DC you don't need all of the feeds and breaks shown above, you only need these which will simplify wiring a bit. I have not shown the frog feeds but they will be as shown above.

Yes, what Bufferstop said. You can make a few little adjustments though that will improve the reliability of running by running a few extra feeds to the passing loop so as to not rely on point blade contact so much.

Hi Neilw

I guess that you will just be using a single locomotive which will make things easier.

It should be quite straightforward if that is the case, so post the diagram and we can mark the feeds and isolating joiners.

Suzie x

I think there was a proposal for a PluX-8 as well, and that would be small enough for Z but probably be OK for N too. PluX-16 is about the same size as Next-18 (give or take a millimeter here and there) so still very good for limited space applications. I will never understand why Bachmann went with...

Nowadays they rely on all the LEDs being the same and just use a single resistor for a parallel string - and they are very similar indeed. Not like the olden days when LEDs even of the same batch varied a lot and the brightness would not be consistent without individual resistors.

Sometimes these strings have a resistor in the battery holder and using a 3V converter will be fine.

Sometimes they don't have a resistor and rely on the internal resistance of the batteries which a converter does not have. In this case you will have to add a resistor but can still use the converter.

TCS (can't remember which model) and Lenz Gold were key jst-9 decoders in the olden days, but most decoders with wires now are just decoders built for one of the other interfaces such as PluX or MTC-21 with wires soldered in place of the connector. None of these other interfaces make for a good plug...

Decoders are made with a specific interface, and if you need to plug a decoder with one interface, in to a loco with a different interface, you will need a harness. Typically you will find these decoders are fitted with the jst-9 interface, and the harness has the jst-9 plug on one end to go in the ...

It rather sounds like you had some sort of short circuit somewhere in the loco that has damaged the decoder. It is very import that wires don't get trapped against a metal chassis and especially on NEM-652 sockets that the decoder pins don't go all the way through and touch the chassis.

No, you don't need anything on the PCB.

The NEM651 6-pin one might work, but when using this socket it is usually best to get a socket with wires attached since the PCB serves no real purpose (in practice you don't need the V+ connection).