What sort of couplers are these?

[Chops]

Very useful and detailed information, thank you one and all, I think I shall pop on this.

[SRman]

The small motor mentioned above will run on cheaper decoders. At a friend's insistence I hardwired one of the Hatton's decoders into an O2 2-8-0, and it is still going after more than a year. No amount of adjustment could eliminate some 'granularity' in dead slow movement, but that excepted it runs well enough. (The same type of decoder in his old Heljan 47 - he moved to DCC quite recently - lasted about fifteen minutes, no surprises there as the motor wanted around 500mA when running, and a lot more at stall. It then got a Lenz Standard, and is fine.)

Hi Bigmet. I rather suspected the Zimos did have overload protection, but haven't checked the manuals. I have a few Zimo decoders in use and like them a lot.

I deliberately did not mention Heljan steam as I have absolutely no experience with them.

I did cook one decoder's lighting circuits on a Heljan class 47, using a Digitrax decoder. The motor circuits remained fully operational, but the lights just remained on at one end, regardless of the direction or any lighting CV adjustments.

[Chops]

Well, stuck in my order with Hatton's today.