Model Railway Forum

Good evening everybody.

I am returning to an old favourite topic now that my marshalling yard is laid and working it's back to the stuff I still haven't resolved!

Some time ago I explained that my Dave Jones 14xx (Hattons) had been away to YouChoos to fit the DCC sound chip - it needed soldering and it was so small I didn't feel confident to do it myself.

The job was well done but the running was poor and still is- despite careful and thorough cleaning of the track and the locomotive. YouChoos have declined to have it in to fit a SuperCap saying it#'s too difficult and there's not enough room.

A good friend from here kindly sent me some carriage pick ups - the loco will be permanently fixed to a GWR autocoach. Because of the limited space I haven't had the confidence to tackle it and having spoken to John at YouChoos again he won't tackle it either saying it will need four wires and pretty much involves dismantling the loco even to attach pick ups; he reckons this could destroy the loco.

So I'm between a rock and a hard place and would be extremely grateful for any further insights, words of wisdom and advice. Many thanks.

It would only require two wires from the coach to the loco not four. I managed to run two into the miniscule Peckett. From your description it sounds like John thinks you want the extra pickups in the loco.

I suppose the big question is whether you can get to the wires between the wheel pickups and the decoder - if you can, then adding two wires and routing them out the back of the loco shouldn’t be beyond anyone’s capabilities.
But if you can’t access the wires (either end) then all bets are off.

On the Peckett I attached them, in my case, to the blanking plug pins.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:28 am On the Peckett I attached them, in my case, to the blanking plug pins.

As it has been hard wired I presumed the DCC plug had been removed.

Here is the last message I received from YouChoos.

TBH I cannot remember how the wiring to the pickups was in the 14XX… I do recall that trailing ANY extra wires from one end to the other was going to be mighty hard, so that would be my greatest concern. Ideally you’d want 4 extra wires… 2 for the coach pickups and 2 for a stay-alive in the coach, so it is quite a big ask.

I can imagine that if we tried it, there is a high risk that it would end up a wreck, but if you are not able to run it usefully at the moment anyway, maybe worth the risk?

I think the idea may be to fit a Super Cap in the carriage.

I am not sure what to do tbh.

I had a 14XX that was OK. If it is attached permanently to a coach it won’t need a stay alive surely.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:47 pm I had a 14XX that was OK. If it is attached permanently to a coach it won’t need a stay alive surely.

I absolutely agree, you'd think not. I may go back to YouChoos and ask them to fit the pick ups and permanently couple. I've learned a great deal over the last couple of years but I feel this small detailed work might be a little too much.

With a full length coach attached that’s a lot of wheels a long way apart picking up power.

A pickup or two each end of the coach should be fine.

Not sure if this helps at all, but............. https://www.youchoos.co.uk/Index-Resour ... em=DJM14XX