7mm 'New' Heljan Class 33

Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
My Dutch liveried 33 arrived this morning - all well out of the box, nothing missing or fallen off. Will give it a good blow at the Club this afternoon and then look inside the body later to check space availability for speakers - the so called instruction sheet says "To convert your class 33 model into DCC, simply remove the PCB and replace it with your chosen O Gauge decoder. No need to cut or do anything else to convert your model into DCC" we shall see!



regards



Mike
 
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard,

Fingers crossed!!!

Herewith a couple of stills and a short video of the loco pulling 29 heavy wagons - pulled away on less than 5 volts and with the power turned up to 7.5 volts, the ammeter showed 0.5amps and with the power up to 12 volts, there was little change on the ammeter.

20200129_143349.jpg

20200129_143357.jpg


Will get the body off to explore the innards tomorrow sometime and will report back, with photos.

regards

Mike
 
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard,

put each livery on a separate piece of paper, put them in a hat and..............................................

as requested, herewith pictures with the lid off - the usual 4 screws outboard of the bogie swivel bracket and thankfully, no prizzing out of the bodywork, it just lifts off

P1010463.JPG
first glance reveals neat and tidy work, but then you notice that NMRA wiring standards are out of the window - so much for the signs of progress on this with the Class 50
P1010464.JPG
and what appears to be a reversion of the right hand bogie being wired into the left hand side of the PCB as in the Class 50 which resulted no need to extend any wires to suit the Zimo decoder.
P1010465.JPG
close up of the PCB with no visible concerns as to which wire goes where
P1010466.JPG
one for Yorkshire Dave - as close as I can get I'm afraid Dave - looks like a standard Heljan mtor and gearbox.
P1010467.JPG

the PCB lifted to reveal a space for a speaker or two - 50mm x 40mm and a hole on the left hand side for wires to go to the fual tank speaker void which is 55mm x 45mm. The big downside is that Heljan have reverted to the old fixing spacing arrangement and not provided the reversible strips with alternative spacings for the decoder board to fix onto again as in the Class 50. I will fit a carrier plate for the decoder and hope that not too much 'milling' will be required to allow clearance for the new fixing bolts etc.

Now that I know what space I have for speakers, an order to YouChoos seems on the cards.

More postings next week.

regards

Mike
 
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Richard,

on the MX699ks, there are 8 ‘FA’ function terminals, FO Forward/Reverse + FA1-6, the first six are used for lighting and FA5 (Aux7) is used for the fan and is operated through CV 45, with a suggested value of 64, by F11 on the control panel. I do not bother with the fan as it can only be viewed when the loco is stationary under your nose.

The above is taken from the information that John Gymer sent out with the decoder for the Class 50.

Hope it helps

regatds

Mike
 
richard carr

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Thanks Mike

I will try that with my 37s, as normally the fan runs far too fast when connected to one of the AUX outputs.

On my class 25s, the fan has a separate pcb in the roof that you don't need to remove and works just fine with any of the AUX outputs and I know you may think it isn't noticeable, but when they were running on Love Lane at Bristol, people did notice that the fans were working, so I try to do it if I can.

Richard
 
4

47474

New Member
I’d love one but can’t decide which livery. I’m very fond of the Dutch but feel I should hold out for a Dutch 47. If only we could have them all. May have to revert to the hat method.
 
Muddysblues

Muddysblues

Western Thunderer
Thanks for the pictures Mike, the Crompton looks lovely in Dutch livery.

So much for Heljan saying its retooled ? they must mean the body, surprised they have stayed with the old style drive mechanism as per the first lot of releases way back when, I was hoping it would be a similar drive set up as per the 25's

Best regards
Craig.
 
C

class27

Active Member
I have found that the old type mech gives smoother slow running than the later shaft drive type. My 2 26's crawl better than my 2 25's despite both types having both Loksound and Zimo decoders, so that is not the issue.
I really want a 27, but don't fancy the work required to convert a 33. Maybe I could buy a couple of MM1 models cabs............
 
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
I have the nameplate 'Seafire' on order and rather than wait for that, I have now attached the 'Arrows of In distinction' and the depot plate

P1010472-001.JPG

and before anybody shouts out, Rule 1 applies - Hither Green was my nearest mpd in my youth and all 33s were initially allocated there and whilst I like the Eastleigh 'Spitfire' and all that that means, I had to have the Oast Houses.

DCC installation will follow after fitting the supplied dampers to the No1 bogie and then the weathering.

regards

Mike
 
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
The Zimo MX699KV duly arrived from YouChoos, with two of their 40x18x7 IceCube double speakers and t was then a case of disentangling the Heljan wiring - a backward step compared with the Class 50 but fairly straightforward

P1010474.JPG

the KV version of the MX699 is a bit of an overkill in as much as you can programme 14 functions and I only needed two! thankfully the windscreen wipers and drivers door windows don't come with any motors fitted. On the plus side, it comes with three hefty capacitors fitted as a 'stay alive'.

P1010475.JPG

there is sufficient space beneath the decoder to fit both speakers side by side, having first lined both sides of the cavity with a strip of insulating tape as protection against the soldered terminals on the speakers.

Heljan have persisted with their sized PCB as opposed to the industry standards decoders, hence the plasticard carrier plate screwed to the pylons and the decoder then screwed to the carrier plate - another backward step from that supplied with the Class 50. It will be interesting to see if the 'reworked' Hymek retains the old Heljan details inside the chassis!

It has been commented on on other Forum that these new 33s are not fitted with the twin red lights as the first run were. There is a red LED fitted at each end, fed by the yellow/green wires as seen in photos i & 2 in post #7 above -

P1010476.JPG

the problem lies with the 'prismatic strip' that Heljan have used to transfer the light to the lens - it just about gets to the end. I am considering replacing the fitted system with LEDs to each lamp position, which would be a bit of a nuisance because I am thinking that they would have to be fitted to the body rather than the chassis which makes it awkward when taking the body off of the chassis and probably the reason that Heljan took the route that they did.

Having said all of the above, I am really pleased with the loco, still awaiting the nameplate and finalising the weathering and bearing all of that in mind, here is a short video of the loco on the rolling road, with only one of the two speakers connected - hope you enjoy it


regards

Mike
 
Last edited:
Ressaldar

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Norman Clymer said:
Hi Mike can't access the video on here either. Could you replace the plastic light tube thingy with some fibre optics?
Norman
Click to expand...
Hi Norman,

I have deleted and reloaded the video, sound starts after about 6 secs.

Fibre optics is an option which I will look into.

regards

Mike
 
Al Tait

Al Tait

Western Thunderer
I wouldn't bother with trying to light the tails lights. but maybe bi-colour LED's behind white headcodes. Once the Southern decided that two red blinds were acceptable the tail lights fell out of favour. So particularly on more modern liveries they were pretty much defunct, this being more obvious with loco's which had the lower cab ends re plated without the tail lights or simply painted over. I did have to take a look at some pictures of 33026 to check but it does retain the fittings both ends though I doubt they were often used. One of my mates is doing 33046 and this has one end with no tail lights at all and the other they're painted over.
 
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