Hornby Live Steam Hints and Tips

4346 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by John Webb, Apr 22, 2006

Gary

Discussion Starter · May 25, 2005 (Edited by Moderator)

(This is for the benefit of Doug who is a Hornby Live Steam newbie! Doug operating Hornby Live Steam =

)

Without wishing to promote another forum here is a link to a site was started about 18 months ago and it has now gone very quiet there as the site has had no promotion by anybody at all. However there is interesting information contained within the site about operating Hornby Live Steam and so its worth including the link here for those who may be wondering what to do with their new Hornby Live Steam set up.

If you visit the hints and tips site below then please bear in mind that Hornby have continuous ongoing development for the entire product range and the information included within the website has not been updated for 15-18 months. Current Live Steam models may have design details and engineering details that differ from those discussed in the Hornby Live Steam Hints and Tips Link. Also included is a link to the official Hornby Live Steam website where information is up to date.

We have no objection to you discussing Hornby Live Steam here at Model Rail Forum. So please do!

Here are the links below:-

Official Hornby Live Steam Website

Hornby Live Steam Hints and Tips

Happy steaming
Gary

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matty

· #2 · Jul 5, 2005

hi id love live steam but i havnt got the space for a new layout but is there a way to have both controllers on 1 track e.g a switch to power 1 controller
thanks matty

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silver760

· #3 · Apr 22, 2006

Dear Matty,

You can certainly have the 0-12VDC old style and the new Live Steam 17VDC controllers for one line.You could use the Hornby power track and set up a switch to select either transformer/controller.Im sure Maplin would do a rotary switch to do this.The problem comes when using your loco's on the line.If you accidentaly put a 12vdc train on the track when the live steam is selected,if will whiz off,crash or have the motor burn out as live steam is constantly live at 17VDC.You could fit warning lights which are also operated by the switch to aid you,but you are still taking a big risk and mistakes are easilly made!!

All the best,Stew.

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John Webb

· #4 · Apr 22, 2006 (Edited by Moderator)

Dear Matty and Stuart R,
If you go onto page 2 of this forum you will find a topic 'Mixing Hornby live steam and trad 12V' which I started in September last year. This describes briefly how I've made a layout on which I can run both sorts of loco, using relays under the track to switch between the two power sources to keep heavy-duty cables as short as possible.

By the way, I think that if a 12V loco was put on the track when it was switched to the steam power, the higher resistance of the 12V loco compared to the live steamer would cause the steam controller to cut out as if the boiler had run dry on the live steamer. But I've never had the courage to try this out!

Regards,
John Webb

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