7mm Heljan Class 128

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Thanks Mike

All is now clear.

Personally I'm going for a monster speaker in the body, I'm not to worried about being able to see it through the windows.

It looks to me that it is the same pcb as the rail car and therefore needs the same plug, I might have a spare at home as I have plenty of old Heljan boards but I'm not sure about those the plugs different to the usual Heljan ones.

Richard
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard,

The plug size is different to that used on locos - the 31 anyway, I have just removed the fan connection and plug is 4mm across the width and the socket on the 128 is barely 3mm!

So it looks like the ESU adaptor board or a plea to Howes of Oxford for some plugs - (Tower have asked them to send me rust free circlips already) and Mike the Howes contact is only there on Thursdays and his colleagues seemingly do not take messages!

regards

Mike
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Mike,

I too use Zimo decoders, but the pin-out is the same, so the instructions show the pin numbers (and positions).

(Zimo don’t supply adaptor plates, afaik)

Best
Simon

Hi Simon,

I will be ordering one of these adaptor boards later this morning as I cannot see an alternative unless the 00 gauge lights that Howes advertise - (they are fitted with a micro plug) which may fit into CN6 (I made a typo earlier and called this CN5) and then connect the loudspeaker in lieu of the light. We shall see.

A correspondent on RMWeb has fitted his identical speaker to mine in the space provided in the 'engine moulding' and hard wired it to his ESU V4. He discovered that the 'engine moulding' does not in fact have to be removed to achieve body/chassis separation - so much for following instructions!

regards

Mike
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
The lights ordered from Howes as mentioned in the post #23 above have arrived and they are the same size as those used on the O Gauge Class 31 that I tried - so it is now down to using the ESU adaptor board ordered from SWD yesterday which should be in the post today.

In the meantime I have cut out the speaker housing as supplied

P1000990.JPG

and in doing so, the 'wall' at the top of the picture also came out as it formed part of the side walls. The provided pegs for the circular speaker screws were also removed to a level lower than that of the 'shelf' on the left hand side and the right hand side shelf was scraped down to the same level as the left hand. With the speaker in place, you are left with a convenient gap for the wires to pass under on their way through the rectangular hole and onto the adaptor board. The speaker will be held onto the shelves with strips of double sided tape or blue tack.

Next post should hopefully show the adaptor plate in position.

regards

Mike
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
I received the adaptor plate yesterday - unfortunately after I had gone down to the Club for the usual running session, so I cleared the decks this morning and set to. Mounted the plate on a suitable mound of bluetac and worked from top to bottom (as necessary) with the plate angled across the bench, matching the angle that I offered the soldering iron and I was very please with the outcome. I soldered 150 lengths of the appropriate coloured wire so that I could then pair up with the red/black wires already fitted, away from the small pads on the plate. I have wired up the cab lights and interior lights as separate circuits and have by-passed the switch that is provided for the cab lights and used Swiss Mapping for this function.

All was well until I placed the model on the track and switched the power on - a short straight away. So off came the body and I set to with the meter, to discover very quickly that the pick-ups on the bogies were different at each end - motor bogie red nearest me, trailing bogie black nearest me - I had connected reds with reds and blacks with blacks elsewhere and all had been fine! so it was a simple job to cut the trailing bogie wires and swap them over.

Body replaced and power switched on - all fine and some awesome sounds coming out from underneath!!!!!!!!!! Running number reprogrammed and Swiss Mapping done - so it's down the Club tonight to give it a good run.

Photos to follow.

regards

Mike
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
The running session last night was very successful and the model was well received by the other members, the main comment being - bring on the DMUs

IMG_20180118_200646.jpg

W55991 leaving the Intentio service shed on the Wirral O Gauge Group's 'under construction' layout Moss End MPD

Here as promised, a couple of shots of the adaptor board with the wires attached

P1000992.JPG

P1000993.JPG

and one with the Zimo MX644D in place

P1000991.JPG

The leaflet that came with the adaptor board was in German and there seems to be a slight conflict between the annotated diagram and the chart that follows the diagram. I will contact SWD to discuss and report back



regards



Mike
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Hi Mike

I'm back in ythe UK and mine was waiting ofr me when I got home

20180119_065316.jpg

20180119_065327.jpg

20180119_065357.jpg

I have to say that it is anoter very good model from Heljan.

I wanted to add a decoder and and sound too and I had oder one of the Zimo MX644D 21 pin decoderd from digitrains as well.

The problem of course as Mike found is how to fit the speaker abd connect it to the Heljan PCB. The PCB is tiny and the connectors are even smaller much smaller than I was expecting.

20180119_123812_HDR.jpg

This is the Heljan pcb with the blanking plate removed. CN6 is the connection for the speaker but fr some unknown reason Heljan don't bother toinclude a connector so that you can connect your speaker, just how do they think you are going to do it !!!!!!

I poked and prodded the connector with some tweezers and it fell apart, and you can just above the two prongs that you would plug on to. I therefore decided to solder the speaker wires to that.

20180119_174143.jpg

You can see the wires soldered on above. I also added a TCS stay alive to the decoder.

I fitted the speaker in the body, it's a monster one I bought for £40 from DC Kits stand at Telford. Unfortunately the photos didn't come out very well at all this is the best one and doest really convey how big the speaker is. It is stuck to the chassis with Blue tack which nicely absorbs the vibration it causes.
It's loud. I will try and do a video of it later today.

20180119_174211.jpg
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard,

I'll certainly remember that little trick with the connector for when the 121s come out. Certainly better than rewiring etc.

I'm already thinking 121 Sandite as the motor is now underfloor so the guard's space is uncluttered and can therefore be adapted.

Great to see the 'official announcement' from LLC regarding the Class 22 but not much time to build up the funding pot!

regards

Mike
 

TheSnapper

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard

Those speakers are really good & originate from a company called Tang Band - see info from @Yorkshire Dave halfway down the page here.

DC Kits is a good convenient source though - I haven't found them cheaper elsewhere.


I've now got one in my JLTRT Class 37 and the whole bodyshell vibrates! And I managed to squeeze on into a Black5.....

Tim
 

DougT

Western Thunderer
Resurrecting an old thread... Has anyone done/had a scale 7 conversion on one of these units? It appears that Hattons are currently selling these from £220 which almost seems to be too good an opportunity to miss, especially when the platform on my mini layout is big enough only for a single car DMU!
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Hi Doug

Mine is S7, all you need to do is to re profile the wheels, a relatively easy job if you have a lathe and form tool (The S7 group sell a nice one now) or East Side Pilot on here can do it for you.

Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Doug

The other thing I would say is that do not match a giant speaker with a small decoder, it doesn't work the decoder just doesn't have enough power to drive it and this effects the overall performance of the decoder and just does not work.

Richard
 

DougT

Western Thunderer
Hi Doug

Mine is S7, all you need to do is to re profile the wheels, a relatively easy job if you have a lathe and form tool (The S7 group sell a nice one now) or East Side Pilot on here can do it for you.

Richard

Thanks Richard, that’s good to know, doesn’t sound like there’s any issues with bogie frame widths or anything then. Tempting!
 
Top