7mm Little Loco Company Class 15 Loco THEY HAVE ARRIVED !

[mickoo]

Ozzy, not so my fine young man, each lamp has it's own switch, or it should have if the design follows other classes; the driver selects the required headcode lamps at night, the discs are for daytime use.

Of course he could incorrectly set the wrong lamps and as you note, with the discs folded up give the wrong code, but I don't think he'd get far until a bobby pulled him up for displaying the wrong code.

MD

 

[Stoke5D]

One thing that I have noticed with the class 15s is that when working is that the disc tends to be set (to closed) to above the lights and in some photos it looks like they are showing a lot more light than they should. On this loco we know that the discs are closed but you can see a lot of white light.

Looks like the white paint of the top half of the disc showing through the hole rather than a white light in your photo. I completely agree it's misleading though. They should fold the discs down as shown in other shots. This both avoids the white paint showing problem and means that even if the Driver set the lights incorrectly, then you still wouldn't be able to see a light.

Is it too late to revise the Driver's Handbook for this class?

 

[Overseer]

Looking at the photos of the dismantled bogies in Richard's article in the current S7 Group Newsletter it struck me that this loco would be an ideal candidate for a ready made drop in gauge conversion kit. Maybe the S7 Group (or others) should consider commissioning someone like Peartree Engineering to manufacture a set of four axles with gears, bearings and S7 wheels mounted on them. Then the original wheels and axles could be kept for reconversion in the future if required. The new wheels would also have the advantage of being steel instead of brass. If a conversion kit were available anyone who can use a screw driver would be able to convert the Class 15 in a few minutes.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

this loco would be an ideal candidate for a ready made drop in gauge conversion kit

As could some other RTR locomotives if this facility/option had been designed in at the outset.

NWSL are ahead of us in this respect as they offer DIR wheelsets for US locos in various standards including P48.

 

[markjj]

The 4mm fraternity are steps ahead of us they have drop in gear and wheels etc available for Bachmann,Lima, Dapol & Hornby plus a few others for EM gauge and P4. These are made by Ultrascale who used to do 0-gauge wheels to in the past.

 

[Simon]

Look on the bright side chaps, in Gauge One there's nothing to drop any wheels in to

Fabulous looking model by the way.

Simon

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Producing drop in wheel sets for ready to run diesels could prove expensive in some way, for a start no two makes are the same, the Dapol o8, LLC cl15, various Heljan's and Ixions all have different axles, plain, shouldered and different dia's., insulation bushes have to be produced for the wheels, also Heljans need axle spacers to take up side play with increased gauge.
Gear wheels need to be sourced also.
S4 has thousand's of members, unfortunately S7 does not, I'm not sure the amount you'd sell would be profitable.

Col.

 

[Overseer]

Producing drop in wheel sets for ready to run diesels could prove expensive in some way, for a start no two makes are the same, the Dapol o8, LLC cl15, various Heljan's and Ixions all have different axles, plain, shouldered and different dia's., insulation bushes have to be produced for the wheels, also Heljans need axle spacers to take up side play with increased gauge.
Gear wheels need to be sourced also.
S4 has thousand's of members, unfortunately S7 does not, I'm not sure the amount you'd sell would be profitable.

Col.

I was thinking specifically about the Class 15, although similar could be done for other models/brands. It just struck me that Peartree Engineering/Model Railway Parts charge £5 per axle for O scale diesel wheels on axles with brass bearings and it shouldn't cost too much for a batch of suitable gears and special bearings. The 2mm Scale Association charge £4.50 per axle for drop in wheels in 2mm Finescale so somewhere between £5 and £10 an axle would probably be acceptable in S7. The Polish gear supplier used by the 2mmSA could be an option for the gears. I was thinking more of covering costs for the S7 Group rather than a significant profit.

 

[richard carr]

Sadly I suspect there will only be about 10 of our class 15s in S7 , and I have 2 of them, there just isn't enough volume to be able to offer it at a reasonable price.

It's a nice idea though.

Richard

 

[OzzyO]

The new wheels would also have the advantage of being steel instead of brass.

Sounds odd that the wheels of the class15 have been M/Ced out of brass as that and N/S rail are not the two best types of metal know for traction! As both of them are well known for their bearing use at both high and low speed. Just think back to the old days when Lema? produced locos in OO with the big flanges and the wheels were made out of brass and were known as low on traction on N/S rail.
N/S wheels on N/S track will work as strange as it seems but not as well as steel on steel, but if you get two dissembler slippery metals together you get more slip, ie brass on N/S , aluminium on just about any other metal.

OzzyO.

 

[richard carr]

Ozzy

All the heljan models have brass wheels and that was all we could find in China. There is no lack of traction the loco will happily haul a 10 coach train far more than most people will ever run and far more than they ever did on their own in real life.

Richard

 

[Steph Dale]

Ozzy,

I wouldn't worry too much about brass wheels; brass is very close to nickel silver in terms of its metallurgy. In some circles nickel silver is known as 'white bronze' or 'white brass'.

Steph

 

[Overseer]

Ozzy,

I wouldn't worry too much about brass wheels; brass is very close to nickel silver in terms of its metallurgy. In some circles nickel silver is known as 'white bronze' or 'white brass'.

Steph

I am surprised nobody has picked Steph up on this. While brass, nickel silver and white bronze are all copper alloys they are all fundamentally different in composition and physical properties. I am not an expert but in metallurgy fractions of a percent difference in constituents can make a huge difference in how the alloy performs. Brass conducts heat and electricity noticeably better than nickel silver and also oxidises more quickly. It tends to collect dirt better as well, which can make pick up unreliable in a short space of time.

The heavy weight of rtr O scale locos may overcome some of this problem but brass wheels on locos are far from ideal. Presumably it is cheaper or quicker for the Chinese manufacturers to turn brass wheels and chrome plate them than use steel (might be an issue with rust as well). The plating works well until it wears off.

 

[OzzyO]

Ozzy,

I wouldn't worry too much about brass wheels; brass is very close to nickel silver in terms of its metallurgy. In some circles nickel silver is known as 'white bronze' or 'white brass'.

Steph

I'm not to sure about what your saying about the names 'white bronze or brass' I never came across them names when I was working in engineering. Nickel silver was nickel silver in all of its grades from hard to soft, brass was the same hard to soft, with a lot in between and a lot that were not really brass but a mix that was getting to the nicalebronze type of metal (it still looked like brass but M/Ced a lot differently).
As Overseer has mentioned above brass is a dirty metal, in that it picks up dirt and can have a lot of "dirt" in its make up all you need is a small splinter of brass in your finger to find out. When we had a large 32' X12' layout that had a large number of locos with brass wheels and traction tyres all someone did all day was clean loco wheels, when we got rid of the brass wheels and the traction tyres the wheel cleaning dropped to about 15 mins. a day if that (I was out of a job).
Are the wheels chrome plated or hard nickel silver plated?

OzzyO.

 

[Steph Dale]

Paul,

Yep, you're right about the dirt on brass wheels, although that can be overcome by not doing mechanical cleaning. Using solvent cleaning seemed to help, although my preference for using lighter fluid may have bought other things into play; I'm not certain what other additives are in it. Modern surface treatments may help too, so in the case of this model I'd be prepared to wait and see, it may not be a problem.

In terms of material descriptions, it seems to depend on what fields of engineering your working in (and at what level) as you whether it's 'nickel silver' or not.

Fraser,
You are correct, of course. I was merely answering the point relating to friction/stiction that Paul raised. Nickel silver would be a pretty poor bearing material for a brass shaft...

Steph

 

[OzzyO]

Fraser,
You are correct, of course. I was merely answering the point relating to friction/stiction that Paul raised. Nickel silver would be a pretty poor bearing material for a brass shaft...

Steph

Steph,
at the same time using the same type of brass for the shaft and bearing would not work that well. But if you used a hard brass for the shaft and a "soft"brass for the bearing it would work, it would be better to use a porous (sintered) type of brass for the bearings as this would hold oil. Or a brass with a high lead content.

OzzyO.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Steel wheels please ( not stainless ) any day , I hate plated stuff and as for brass wheels they might as well use toffee.
On a serious note though if I were buying rtr models the first thing would be to junk the wheels and fit turned steel, I appreciate that not everyone has the capability to do that themselves but it will always be the best option.

Col.

 

[Scale7JB]

Thanks Colin for dropping off the Class 15.



I was playing with it today and with the Zimo chip, far and away the most fun I've had driving a model engine in a long time..

Magnificent!

JB.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Thanks Colin for dropping off the Class 15.............





JB.

Your welcome mate

Col.

 

[George Morris]

Does anyone have a copy of the DCC handbook for these locos. I have one but no paperwork and would like the function list thanks in advance