Hi Everyone,

If you have been following my Hornby Magazine DCC sound fitting features recently, you will have seen that I've been bitten by the challenge of fitting sound to N gauge locos, aided by the excellent range of miniature decoders from ZIMO.
 

There is now a family of narrower (9mm width) sound decoders, MX649.

Although I've used them in and N gauge loco, they will work perfectly well in 00 gauge too. Especially useful for small steam shunters where available space might be too tight for other sound decoders.

I've just completed my installation of sound in a Farish Class 20, using one of the new ZIMO MX649 6 pin decoders.

(I have the 6 pin on a harness and 8 pin on a harness too).

The slim, 9mm, width makes the job so much more straightforward and makes the LokMicro look like something out of the 'Land of the Giants' (for those of you old enough to remember that program).

I've upgraded my ProtoDrive Class 20 project this week to sort out a technical problem but especially to match the characteristics of the model and speaker (small sugar cube).

The result is the best Class 20 sound (I am slightly biased in this, perhaps) and of course it features the new Brake Key which I have been developing with ZIMO for the last 20 months or so. This works like the real loco braking system, short dabs give moderate brake force, longer gives progressively more. How did we manage without working brakes for so long?

It's hard to appreciate the difference this makes unless you can see it in action and use it yourself.

This special project is only available from Digtrains who will have the entire family of MX649 decoders available from tomorrow.

I've made a short video clip of the 20 here:

 Avant d'accéder à YouTube

 

Kind regards,

Paul

Great video Paul, that Bachmann 08 I have is one of yours and needs '2' pressing to use the breaks, is that similar to this?
I really enjoy operating it!!
Keep up the good work Paul, will you be at the Spalding show next month?

Cheers
Ron

Hi Ron,

Yes, the brake feature is very similar, just tweaked for an even better experience.

I am glad you enjoy operating the 08 project, I put a great deal of thought and effort into its design.

Yes, I'll be at Spalding all weekend. (And so will the Class20, in 0, 00 and N gauges).

Kind regards,

Paul