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I've received my stunning Hornby model of 'Elizabeth II' in its platinum jubilee purple livery. I put sound in it this evening, I had expected a 27mm bass enhanced speaker to go under the weight but it was too thick by about 2mm so I chose one of the 35x24x3 tablet speakers instead. First you need to take the 2 screws out of the back of the tender, and lift it from the back to release the clips from the front. The speaker can either be connected to the speaker pads on the models PCB or they can be connected...

This is what I would consider a more advanced method of fitting sound to the 08, it requires removing the 8 pin socket and hard wiring the decoder, but it allows for a bigger speaker and means that the stay alive doesn't need to go into the cab. We'll assume that you know how to get the body off (it's 1 screw and a clip under the cab). So we will skip to preparing the body and chassis. Take the circuit board, unsolder the 4 wires from the motor and pickups, and snip off the orange capacitors. Then unscrew the...

Two Wire Or Three Wire Stay Alives? Lots of people arent sure what they need. Loksound, Lokpilot and Train-o-matic work best with a 3 wire stay alive, Zimo or TTS require a 2 wire stay alive. If you use a 2 wire stay alive with a Loksound or Lokpilot it's best to alter any settings before it's connected. How to connect a stay alive Some, but not all decoders come with loose wires on them for a stay alive such as the Loksound 5 below. If you don't have the wires there are specific solder pads to connect them to...

A lot of people have asked how to fit stay alive's to a Hornby TTS decoder. There are some fairly large solder pads to connect the stay alive to so it's easier than you might think if you are experienced with soldering, but as this isn't a Hornby approved modification you would probably lose your warranty on the decoder. You need a 2 wire stay alive, the positive wire (usually blue) connects to the same solder pad as the blue common positive wire for functions, the negative wire (usually black) connects to the 4th pad along the side of the...

This has come up a few times as a question so I thought I'd explain the method I use. The screws to remove the body are fairly well hidden, deep beneath the bogies, so it makes it harder to remove the body than with some other locos. Firstly I remove the bogie frames, these clip on so I just use a pair of tweezers and lever gently against the wheels to undo the clip. With this removed the screws are easily accessible and visible. A magnetic screwdriver makes the job easier, particularly when putting the screws back in. We have...