hello all im looking for some advice please.
i have the dapol western prince and on DC works great i have installed dcc sound from legoman and all great but all of a sudden now and again it would stop lights flickering and sound goes off and sounds like it plays about half a second then stutters.
i tonight put the western chip in my class 68 to try it and works like a dream i try the western with a normal 21 pin decoder for it to stop and lights start to flicker and well im banging my head against a wall not had this for a few months but never get anywhere trying to solve the issue.
if there is anything i can help with here please ask away cos im not quiet sure what else i need to try.
1041 western prince headache
Re: 1041 western prince headache
The problem description, and trialing the sound decoder on another mechanism where it works perfectly and a different 21 pin in the Western where you see light flicker, and the DC test all point to a recognised problem on the Dapol Western.
Somewhere between the wheels and the decoder socket, conduction of track power is regularly momentarily interrupted.
That this doesn't seem to affect DC operation is normal for momentary interruptions of track power, the flywheels maintain motion and the interruption is so brief you don't even see the LED's flicker. The difference on DCC is that the decoder shuts down outputs on loss of track supply, in order to maintain core processing.
Normally I would suggest investigating everything from the pick up assemblies to the decoder socket; but this model picks up through the axle bearings and is well known to loose connection over time just as you describe. Run a search on 'pick up problems dapol western' and you will find various owners descriptions of how to clean up and maintain reliable function. Once cleaned, lubricating with a conductive oil is a good plan.
EDIT: Just seen you have the same query on RMweb. Run the suggested search term on that site, you'll go to the description of how folks fixed this. (I read everything I could find about Dapol mech problems once I bought the class 21 recently, which has the same pick up system.
Somewhere between the wheels and the decoder socket, conduction of track power is regularly momentarily interrupted.
That this doesn't seem to affect DC operation is normal for momentary interruptions of track power, the flywheels maintain motion and the interruption is so brief you don't even see the LED's flicker. The difference on DCC is that the decoder shuts down outputs on loss of track supply, in order to maintain core processing.
Normally I would suggest investigating everything from the pick up assemblies to the decoder socket; but this model picks up through the axle bearings and is well known to loose connection over time just as you describe. Run a search on 'pick up problems dapol western' and you will find various owners descriptions of how to clean up and maintain reliable function. Once cleaned, lubricating with a conductive oil is a good plan.
EDIT: Just seen you have the same query on RMweb. Run the suggested search term on that site, you'll go to the description of how folks fixed this. (I read everything I could find about Dapol mech problems once I bought the class 21 recently, which has the same pick up system.
Last edited by Bigmet on Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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koyli55002
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2020 5:35 pm
Re: 1041 western prince headache
thank you for the reply, i will have a search about and get my screwdrivers out haha, gutted really such a loverly model hopfully ill be able to get it sorted.