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Smokey Robinson- DCC Guide

Here is the Article From Railway Modeller September 2010 For Fitting Sound To The Robinson 04 Class.
By Ian Harper Of Peasholm Models.

Robinson 04 Fitting

I am starting with this loco as it is the easiest one to convert & is a great way to enter the DCC sound club!

First job is to run the loco in as per the Bachmann instructions. This really is good advice as I needed three Loco’s before I finally got one that worked! I purchased my loco from Hereford Model Centre who were really helpful in changing the faulty engines. One had a very tight spot that just would not clear even after two days of running it. The other was more serious as the fault lay in the 21pin decoder socket which worked fine on DC whilst running in but when fitted with a decoder it would not work. At this point I will give you a bit of very useful advice which will save you a fortune in decoders.

Whenever I install a decoder whether sound or normal I always put the loco on my programming track & check it out. I use a Lenz 100 system which is a wonderful bit of kit. It has a programming system which if there is a fault will shut down the whole system without damaging the decoder. It was here that I realised there was something seriously wrong with the 21pin socket so I contacted Neil at Olivia’s Trains only to find out that the same problem had happened to him & a couple of his customers with the decoders going up in smoke. Neil now calls this model the Smoky Robinson!

Anyhow back to fitting, the first thing to do is remove the four screws that hold the tender body onto the chassis. These are fitted at each corner & are quite easy to remove. The tender top will now come off leaving you with a very easy to see 21 pin decoder socket.

Remove the 21pin blanking plug carefully & replace with the Loksound decoder making sure the one blank hole lines up with corresponding one on the 21pin decoder socket.

The tender base has some holes where the speaker fits, this is fitted pointing downwards however, before fitting fill the small slots on the speaker casing with a little blue-tak or similar.

This really helps with the sound by keeping the pressure in the casing. A little blue-tak is all that is needed to hold the speaker in place

At this point I try the loco on the programming track before putting the tender top back on. If there is a problem at least you don’t have to dismantle the whole loco again. I always interrogate the decoder by asking it for its loco address which should be three. It’s at this point with a Lenz 100 that it will either show up as three or error 1. If you see three then the loco can be tried on your track before finally entering your own loco number. If it shows the dreaded ERROR 1 then you need to check out the fitting of the decoder. I must point out it is rare for this to happen but is better to be safe than sorry!

Carefully replace the tender top and screws & you now have a Robinson 04 with sound.

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Smokey Robinson- DCC Guide