Hi Guy's,

I've been collecting models for a while now & with a good selection of different roads i have finally decided to go for a smaller company being the Missouri Pacific. I've opted to work on building up my collection of Mopac items & i recently acquired a Proto 1000 F3a & B unit. Although this is the basic train set standard model i am happy with it & i think with a few additional details it can be made into a reasonable representation of a Mopac F unit. There are 2 areas at the moment which are bothering me the major issue i have is the over sized couplings between the A & B units giving the model a very un-natural toy like look. Could anyone tell me if it is possible to improve this so that it has a more scale close coupling rather a gap you could park the Titanic in.

The other issue is the option of Dcc sound. When i purchased the model the dealer here in the uk said that you could get a drop in soundchip for the proto 1000 model but having looked into the mrc chip he mentioned i am not happy with the sound on the chip. Can you buy a decent chip like a tsunami which will fit in the proto 1000 unit without to much surgery to make it fit?

Cheers,

Simon

Hi, Simon!

First off, to the forum.

I can't help much with your DCC question because the only thing I know about DCC is how to spell it. However, the coupling distance between the A and B units is fairly easy to resolve. If they are to be permanently coupled together you could easily fashion a shorter drawbar out of styrene or metal. I did this when I double headed a pair of Roundhouse Critters.

I need to shorten the drawbar here but the photo shows what I did.



Here they are in operation. As you can see, the distance is a little too much but the drawbar is easily shortened.



Tom

Thanks Tom,

I will have a good look at it maybe this afternoon once i have done my motorbike lesson. I do have a good stock of styrene because i do model edwardian british outline in P4 so this won't be a struggle just wondered if there was an off the shelf item to fix it quickly.

Simon.

Simon,

Welcome!

Kadee offers these instructions specifically for close-coupling P1K F-units: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kadee.com/conv/pdf/l340.pdf">http://www.kadee.com/conv/pdf/l340.pdf</a><!-- m -->

Soundtraxx has this guide to choosing the right sound for your diesel. Being a steam guy, I am not sure what you should pick, but there appears to be at least three options depending on the age of the F-unit you want to model: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.soundtraxx.com/choose/choose3.php">http://www.soundtraxx.com/choose/choose3.php</a><!-- m -->

Hope that helps... Google is your friend!


Andrew

Before you close couple, check your minimum radius that you want to operate on. The reason for the long coupling distance between units is to operate on the typical 18 inch radius of a train set. If you are running on a 30 inch radius or larger, close coupling is no problem. If you will need to run a tighter radius, you will need to experiment to see how close you can couple the units without having interference issues.

For sound, the best sound I've ever heard is from Railmaster Hobbies speakers. He specializes in the Lok-Sound system, but has his own line of custom designed speakers built into a baffle to maximize sound quality. I don't know if he has any dealers he sells to in the U.K., but you could contact Jeff at his web site and ask if he sells to any dealers in the U.K.

The url is <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.railmasterhobbies.com">www.railmasterhobbies.com</a><!-- w -->