[Giovanni Pasta]

Well after waiting for the holidays to be over, I have managed to get some distilled water, and my rolling road arrived this morning. I aquired a LS Mallard set before Christmas, one of the later manufactured models, all complete and never been used. You can imagine my frustration, having the set and not being able to use it, due to the lack of stockists that sell distilled water,fortunatly I have found a marvelous model shop (2K Technologies ) in Hipperholme that stock virtually everything that is left of the LS spares and the elusive distilled water. This morning armed with everything needed to run the Loco, I set about putting the control,transformer and rolling road on the kitchen table, while my wife was occupied dusting in the front room. I connected evrything up, filled the tender with water and the Loco with Oil, turned on the power and hoped that it worked. Success not only did it build up steam, it worked brilliantly and was responsive to the controls, I was a little apprehensive, after reading some of the story's of other peoples first attempts with LS. Now to get on with building a layout, and looking for more Loco's to add to the collection.

 

[Icurus]

Hi

A great result, but please next time, post some pictures

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

I will do as I am going to do another run soon, so I will probably video it and post the link.

 

[sid911]

Hi I would not be tempted to run the train on the rolling road for long period’s at a time as it has a tendency to lock up the tender wheals also make carton that you cheek them for free running after a run on the track as well, this will save you having to replace them.

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

Thanks Sid, I will remember not too, I have it on the road now, but looks like I put too much oil in, the front of the loco is covered, looks like a big clean up job soon.

 

[John Webb]

QUOTE (Giovanni Pasta @ 5 Jan 2013, 19:57) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks Sid, I will remember not too, I have it on the road now, but looks like I put too much oil in, the front of the loco is covered, looks like a big clean up job soon.
There is a line of thought that putting in the full amount every three or four steams causes more oil to be lost on the first run after the full refill than if a smaller amount is put in before the start of each run. This saves oil and mess!

sid911's comments about the tender wheels is because they carry the heavy current to the heater - it is possible that if the tender wheels are not moving the concentration of current over a long period of time at one spot on each wheel or it's contact wiper can cause the wheel or wiper to weld up, although I haven't noticed this happening on either of my two locos.

Regards,
John Webb

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

Hi John, I had it running for the first time today, and loaded 0.5 ml as the manual states, then added the first line on the syringe of oil on the second run, obviously, it was too much, never mind trial and error and all that. Being brave, I thought time to have a go on the track, setting a small oval on the tiled kitchen floor, loco up to steam and four coaches added, click, click and off we go, nice and steady just like the real thing, feeling confident now, open the regulator and get a bit of speed up, still going good, practice slowing and stopping, still fine. It would appear that either the loco is really responsive, or I am a born steam driver lol. After about ten minutes or so i decided not to push my luck and stopped the train, after lifting the engine off the tracks and starting to uncouple the track I noticed a piece of melted sleeper next to the fishplate on one of the straights, it would appear that either the fishplate was a little loose, so would soldering a connection between each track solve this ?.
Thanks.

 

[John Webb]

QUOTE (Giovanni Pasta @ 5 Jan 2013, 22:55) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>.....After about ten minutes or so i decided not to push my luck and stopped the train, after lifting the engine off the tracks and starting to uncouple the track I noticed a piece of melted sleeper next to the fishplate on one of the straights, it would appear that either the fishplate was a little loose, so would soldering a connection between each track solve this ?.
Thanks.
Indeed such overheating does indicate a loose fishplate. The Live Steam system uses 10-20 times the current of a normal 12V loco, and will rapidly show up poor connections. The sooner you can arrange a permanent layout with fixed track and either soldering up the fishplates or adding jumpers across track joints, the better. Also a permanent layout means you can have a 'bus' underneath, and rather like DCC connect up each section of track to the bus rather than relying on the track joints. Also a good idea to minimise joints by using flexible track as much as possible.

Good steaming,
John

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ppf8HO8-qAA?rel=0 this is my second run with the Mallard, as you will see I over filled with oil, so a clean up job is in order. And before anyone says did I use the oil can in the background, no I didn't lol I just took some oil from it to lubricate the linkage.

 

[sid911]

Hi Giovanni Pasta as stated above the fish plates that are not making a good contact will heat the rails up to the point of melting the sleepers so if your use sing a temporary track run your hand over the joints as your waiting to get up steam to run the train you will feel the heat if the fishplate are loos. If you do fell any heat then turn of the controller and sort the fishplate out before continuing also it is preferable to have the track fixt down as running the train round will start to push them apart over time. After watching your video I no test that when the whistle blows you are clicking the lever many times before it stops this is not how it should be done you need to hold the lever over till it stops then let it go then continue clicking it over till it starts, as for oil only use a small amount after two or three runs that's all it will need. I have two A4 & one A3 Hornby live steam trains and hope to expand this when i have done the garden layout in OO & O gauge. Anyway hope this helps you.
Sid

 

[Big Dave]

I have not looked at the live steam before but being theres a A4 in one that did get me a bit interested

. But looking at the video can not see any steam

,I was thinking of clouds of steam coming out of her

but not a bit to be seen

,do they not puff steam

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

QUOTE (Big Dave @ 7 Jan 2013, 00:23) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I have not looked at the live steam before but being theres a A4 in one that did get me a bit interested

. But looking at the video can not see any steam

,I was thinking of clouds of steam coming out of her

but not a bit to be seen

,do they not puff steam

Hi Dave they do puff steam out, some locos more than others, it is hard to see it in my video, because of the background, if you see one running with a black background, you will see very authentic looking steam being puffed out.

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

Hi Sid, thanks for the advice, I forgot to hold the regulator over, as you say, and I certainly don't need as much oil as I thought.

 

[rgmichel]

QUOTE (John Webb @ 5 Jan 2013, 20:56) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>sid911's comments about the tender wheels is because they carry the heavy current to the heater - it is possible that if the tender wheels are not moving the concentration of current over a long period of time at one spot on each wheel or it's contact wiper can cause the wheel or wiper to weld up, although I haven't noticed this happening on either of my two locos.I bought a Mallard that had burnt flat bits on the wheels, presumably because the wheels never turned on a rolling road and it finally welded itself to the road. It was really funny to hear it flopping around the track on those wheels!! It was easy to replace the wheels, although it was like pulling teeth to find new wheels, but they seem to be more readily available now.

 

[rgmichel]

QUOTE (Giovanni Pasta @ 5 Jan 2013, 16:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>due to the lack of stockists that sell distilled water,It is not necessary to buy Hornby distilled water, or any other expensive distilled water, to run the Hornby LS locos. Of course you should not use tap water, particularly a water with a high solids content such as hard water with high calcium/magnesium. It sounds like you can't obtain distilled water in the supermarkets in the UK, but it is easily and inexpensively obtained in supermarkets in the USA, and it is fine to use. Also, a lot of the "purified bottled drinking water" that is in bottles is likely ok, as long as it has been purified with the reverse osmosis (RO) method. Just don't use bottled "spring water" as this is likely to have high solids content.
To give you some numbers, you can measure the dissolved solids with a fairly inexpensive conductivity device that measures "Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)" in "parts per million (ppm)" which is the same as micrograms per mL. Hanna is a brand name of the device that I use. Distilled water is going to be 1 ppm or less TDS. I have successfully used RO water, TDS of 5 ppm, for Hornby LS. I make this water myself using a hardware-store apparatus made by General Electric. I have measured melted snow and rain water, both at about 5 ppm TDS, but filtering such water can contaminate it. I have measured natural spring water in bottles with a TDS of between 25 and 250 ppm. This is NOT good. I have never tried to use "purified bottled water". I have two measurements yet to make, one is "purified bottled water" and the other is "scientific purified water", which is likely too pure. Elsewhere on this site, I detail some of these measurements mentioned here.
I should point out that you are putting about 10 mL of water in the tender. So, for <1 ppm TDS, distilled water, you have about 10 micrograms of solids in the tender. As I say, I run with 5 ppm TDS with no problem.
BTW: 1 microgram is 1 millionth of a gram

 

[rgmichel]

QUOTE (John Webb @ 6 Jan 2013, 09:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Indeed such overheating does indicate a loose fishplate. The Live Steam system uses 10-20 times the current of a normal 12V loco, and will rapidly show up poor connections. The sooner you can arrange a permanent layout with fixed track and either soldering up the fishplates or adding jumpers across track joints, the better.I heartily endorse this viewpoint. If you keep running these locos on the "kit" tracks, eventually the locos will give you all sorts of trouble due to dirt on the track, from all that oil and water mixture spattering about, and loose electrical connections etc. These problem make you feel like you forgot how to use the loco, or that something is wrong with the loco. The sooner you have a good track with a good bus, the better.

 

[Davo]

Using snow and/or rain water will give you plenty of 'distilled' water for your loco boiler, because it should not contain any minerals at all as rain is pure condensed water, the same as distilled water, except that its condensation takes place high in the upper atmosphere. If you think there may be some dust particles in your meltwater or the rainwater(especially if the latter has come off the roof), simply buy some high quality filters from a chemical supply shop and use them to take out any dust or fine particles. If you don't know of any chemical supply store, ask at the science section of your local high school. They will certainly know of the nearest supplier. If you ask the science teachers nicely, they'll probably give you a pile of them for free - especially if you offer to demonstrate the model to the kids!
Maybe a coffee filter paper might work perfectly as a dust filter too? Anybody got ideas or experiences on that?

 

[rgmichel]

QUOTE (Davo @ 11 Jan 2013, 00:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Using snow and/or rain water will give you plenty of 'distilled' water for your loco boiler, because it should not contain any minerals at all as rain is pure condensed water, the same as distilled water, except that its condensation takes place high in the upper atmosphere. If you think there may be some dust particles in your meltwater or the rainwater(especially if the latter has come off the roof), simply buy some high quality filters from a chemical supply shop and use them to take out any dust or fine particles.Elsewhere on this site, I addressed this issue, and measured the total dissolved solids in rainwater and snow, as I mentioned above. Filtering actually makes the water worse. I tried high quality scientific filters and coffer filters, and they both contaminated the water. My measurements gave 5 parts per million total dissolved solids in both rainwater and snow. Snow was easier to obtain without large particles. Collecting rain water is a bit of a pain. Snow is easier, but hardly worth the trouble of waiting for the snow. Snow and rain does contain solids, often at the ppm level, because it comes through all the pollution that we put up there. However, it is better than hard water, and spring water. If you can find a home-use under-sink reverse osmosis filter system, you have useful water on tap. If you can buy distilled water in the supermarket then you are golden. Also, if you can find bottled water that has been purified using reverse osmosis, and the Coke people do this, then you are likely golden too. I just have not measured this myself. (I plan to do so)
I should point out that scientific filters, by Whatman etc., are not designed to take out particulates, even though they do trap them to some degree. That is why we use a reverse osmosis (RO) filter for cleaning up water. RO filters take out 95 % of particulates. (You can check this at the General Electric web site to start:
The one I use is at geappliances.com: Product: GXRM10RBL)
The thread where I said these things before, "Is this actually distilled", is at: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.mod...byfaqpEbTvMXxgA

 

[Giovanni Pasta]

This is interesting Rgmichel and Davo, I thought of using the very same water as you are talking about here, melted Ice from the fridge,rain water, and reverse osmosis. The problem with that is, and I know this maybe just hype from the manufacturer,ie: Hornby, they warn against using reverse osmosis treated water,as it will attack the silver solder they use on the boiler joints. Now not being a metalurgist, I am not sure if this is true,or if it is just a marketing ploy to sell their own brand of distilled water, although I have read in the forums that this is true. I have found a supplier of the Hornby brand water which retails at £6.95 GBP a litre, but can be as much as £11.95 GBP depending on supplier. I have also found a water company that will supply distilled water in large amounts 5 to 25 litre drums that would work out at about £1 a litre. I was thinking of distilling my own with a home made still, but in England, owning a still even for water is illegal, our crazy laws lol.

 

[rgmichel]

QUOTE (Giovanni Pasta @ 11 Jan 2013, 06:38) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>melted Ice from the fridge,rain water, and reverse osmosis. The problem with that is, and I know this maybe just hype from the manufacturer,ie: Hornby, they warn against using reverse osmosis treated water,as it will attack the silver solder they use on the boiler joints.Hornby is warning against MORE PURE water than regular household RO water or distilled water. It may be true that the purest of scientific water might dissolve some solder, but few can access such water (I can actually but don't use it). Household RO water is fine, and is similar to distilled water. I have measured its total dissolved solids (TDS) and it is fine for Hornby LS. Fridge and rain water are red herrings. Fridge water is full of nasty contaminants from food, and rain water is full of rather large particles. If you filter them, then the filter will contaminate the water, and the food contaminants will not come out. Rain water is hard to collect too, as a matter of routine. RO water can be poured out of a tap, once you have fitted the filter in your kitchen. I have posted the numbers in several places now. The only thing I have not tried is bottled RO water. I am going to measure it.