Accessory decoder faulty?

[Rocketcooper2000]

Accessory decoder not responding. 

Attempted reset cv8 to 8 and readressed. 

Any ideas. One of the ports( 1) is occasionally making the point motor 'pip pip' sporadically and has done this before. Im guessing the decoder is faulty umless there is a fix' 

Thanks for help anyone.. Otherwise  hornby will hopefully replace. 

Mark

[Rocketcooper2000]

Update. So I sent to hornby and they tested and said it was programming ok, it said on the 'recipt'.. So I presumed they did something like reset it on their equipment..  

So I wired up and after working ok in a couple of throws it reverted back to its previous symptoms.. Just not responding to anything and port1 just recieving a constant pulse and going pip pip pip ocasionally.. 

Had enough of this one I think!! 

Bizzare how Its worked fine for yrs and now doing this and yet hornby engineers says its OK..?

Does anybody know if hornby actually do phsical tests..? 

Maybe il give up on this one as ive wasted enough time as it is and buy something else.. Oh well..

Can anyone recomend an alternitive..

[poliss]

Have you tried resetting the controller?

[Chrissaf]

Extract from Forum Rules:

• Discussion of non-Hornby brands is allowed, however, active promotion or advertising of these brands is not permitted.

Makes it a bit difficult to actively recommend alternative brands. If you search the forum for 'Accessory Decoders' I'm sure you will soon pick up a few tips regarding what decoder brands / models others here are using. To be honest, none of them are perfect, just some have less issues than others.

.

Presumably, you don't want to replace the solenoid motors, so you will want a decoder supporting solenoids. That narrows the choice of alternative brands considerably.

.

PS - I got browned off resetting CV8 to 8 and readdressing an errant R8247 every other week. In the end I just replaced it and fitted suppressors to my DCC bus, no problems since. The R8247 is prone to damage derived from transient short circuits elsewhere on the track.

 

[96RAF]

Before slinging it over your shoulder give it one last chance by trying this:

 

Try a reset again on CV8 - you can actually enter any value, but 8 is the recommended value to stay aligned with loco decoders.

 

Connect a solenoid point motor to port 4 of the decoder and program it again. Once the programming has completed successfully it should activate channel 4 and throw the solenoid.

 

To ensure the solenoid can move positively either way position the armature in the centre position.

 

Colour code for wiring Hornby solenoids to their acc decoder is:

Red = +

Black = C

Green = -       although depending upon when the motor was made this may be brown or white.

 

You may also wish to check that the duration of each port is set to default of 1 (100ms) - on CVs 3, 4, 5 and 6.

 

You may also want to check that the point motor you are using is not faulty.

 

Other manufacturers solenoids wiring colour code may and probably will be different.

[Rocketcooper2000]

How do you 'reset' a dynamis..? Restore to factory settings yoy mean..?

[Rocketcooper2000]

OK thanks il give it ine more chance before I sling it.. 

 

I know about other products being discussed but I wasnt asking for them to be promoted!! Thanks. Point motors are fine!! 

[poliss]

Yes. Restore to factory settings. You have the Dynamis? Have you replaced your room lights recently? The wrong type of light, and even sunlight, can affect the commands from the Dynamis.

[Rocketcooper2000]

No lights changed..  Nothing..  Its a dudder!!

[Paul.P]

Before slinging it over your shoulder give it one last chance by trying this:

 

Try a reset again on CV8 - you can actually enter any value, but 8 is the recommended value to stay aligned with loco decoders.

 

Connect a solenoid point motor to port 4 of the decoder and program it again. Once the programming has completed successfully it should activate channel 4 and throw the solenoid.

 

To ensure the solenoid can move positively either way position the armature in the centre position.

 

Colour code for wiring Hornby solenoids to their acc decoder is:

Red = +

Black = C

Green = -       although depending upon when the motor was made this may be brown or white.

 

You may also wish to check that the duration of each port is set to default of 1 (100ms) - on CVs 3, 4, 5 and 6.

 

You may also want to check that the point motor you are using is not faulty.

 

Other manufacturers solenoids wiring colour code may and probably will be different.

It should be green positive,black control,red negative,you can swap the green and red depending on which way the point is thrown

[Rocketcooper2000]

I got pecos..  Green is common return.. 

All fine for yrs.. Nothings changed in my set up. .   Ive checked everything... 

[Chrissaf]

Paul.P

In your other thread you stated that you got the Hornby colours off of YouTube. How can you be so absolutely sure that your colour scheme is more correct than RAF's......I've seen Red = + in text more often than Geen = + not that it really matters, because as you say and I concur, if needs be to get the point thrown in the correct direction the Red and Green can be reversed.

[Chrissaf]

Further to above:

.

One of many, but here is an information web site showing accessory decoder wiring for both Peco and Hornby point motors. This site shows Red on +

.

http://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/DCC%202.html#Accessory

.

YouTube can be a great information finding tool, but I treat it like Wiki.......with caution.

[96RAF]

The manual for the surface mounted point motor is of no use whatsoever for wiring as it doesn't show the wires coming from the motor and all connections are to the track.

 

Back to the subject - Lets get the terminology correct for a start Paul.

 

C is Common and is at around 12V DC positive potential. It is not Control. The actual control is via the other 2 connections upon command of the controller.

 

+ and - are not positive and negative they are both the same potential when they are activated/switched on by the decoder) and they are negative relative to the C potential. The + and - merely indicates a 'left' and 'right' channel for standardisation of connection purposes.

 

The colour connection to these latter ports is not important as they are swappable to correct wrong direction upon installation. Think about it - you can wire them perfectly per wiring plan (if there was a good 'un to work to) but which side of the point you put the motor on immediately puts this in jeopardy.

 

The only standard bit I can find about points wiring is on the leaflets for the points motors themselves where Hornby shows the C black wire in the middle of the point, the + red wire to the curved side of the point and the - green wire to the straight side of the point. This wiring only in conjunction with a passing contact switch not an acc decoder unfortunately. The acc decoder manual doesn't mention wiring at all apart from vaguely connecting it to the track.

[Chrissaf]

Another indicator that Red = + is that in Hornby RailMaster when you add point control buttons to your track plan. The Red button is ALWAYS automatically added to the LEFT direction of the point and the the Green button is added to the point turn right direction. These automatic assignments can not be changed.

.

1. When you click the RED RailMaster point operate button, the decoder ' + ' terminal is energised with a negative voltage.
2. When you click the GREEN RailMaster point operate button, the decoder ' - ' terminal is energised with a negative voltage.

.

Granted this is only an indicator, but to me it indicates Hornby consider the RED colour as the ' + ' terminal.

[96RAF]

Maybe Hornby would have been better off using arrows to indicate 'one way' and 'tother way' on their acc decoders rather than + and -.

The Markings would them become a more logical   <  +  >

[Chrissaf]

As far as I know (subject to me being shot down in flames for talking rubbish) all the AD brands seem to use the + C - labels. Could it be in the NMRA specs?

 

 

 

 

Do I hear a "tally ho" 'rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat' somewhere......

[Paul.P]

thankyou for all your help guys

[Rocketcooper2000]

Solved!! (Hopefully)..

Well excuse me for being naughty but I thought id post the solution so we all learn.

Unfortunately I have bought another acc decoder! Imagine my despair when I wired all up and it started doing the same thing!! 

Im afraid the one thing I didnt try was restoring to factory settings on the dynamis! Sorry poliss your stab in the dark was right!  Everything working again points snapping along lovely! Only thing is I have a spare decoder so need to think of ideas for this.

Im off to reprogramme my stable into the dynamis.... Thanks polisss!

[poliss]

Glad you got it sorted. 😆 Not so much a stab in the dark, but a check list.

1) Check you have it plugged in.

2) If it's plugged in make sure you've plugged the right thing in. (Took me ages to find that I had my DC controller plugged in and not my DCC controller).

3) Check all connections.

4) Reset the decoder.

5) Reset the controller.

6) If that doesn't work, go to 1). 😆

[TitoBill777]

Set the Elite to classic mode. With the decoder on the programming track and no other decoder on the programming track, do a factory reset by writing 8 to CV 8. The red programming light should flash on and off no more than 7 times. If you are successful it should work. Some times the group address fails to be set. To check this read CV 513. This should return the group number. That is:- if the decoder is say the third one on your layout then a 3 will appear at this address. You don't need to set this address manually. It is just a way to check that the chip was correctly setup. If the group address has a 0 in It, the decoder will fail again. You will find out that it has been set to a negative value because of the absence of a correct group address. In the case where a 0 is found in the group address just reprogram the chip and try again.

A word about connections and dirty track and wheels. These situations cause havoc with the DCC chips. Always keep up the maintenance by regularly cleaning these items. To deal with interference caused by arching and sparking use suitable DCC filters.

Troublesome chips can be difficult to deal with. If you haven't resolved the issue just buying a new one won't be a long term solution.

 

Regards

Bill Hughes

[Michael_A]

Glad you got it sorted. 😆 Not so much a stab in the dark, but a check list.

1) Check you have it plugged in.

2) If it's plugged in make sure you've plugged the right thing in. (Took me ages to find that I had my DC controller plugged in and not my DCC controller).

3) Check all connections.

4) Reset the decoder.

5) Reset the controller.

6) If that doesn't work, go to 1). 😆

Question. If you have a number of acc. decoders and only one does not work, do you think resetting the controller would help in this case? And does writing 8 to 8 wok on an acc. decoder?

[96RAF]

@MA

An acc decoder is just a static version of a mobile (loco) decoder and you can read and write cvs just the same. According to NMRA its default address should be 2 but I cant find out why, nor why a loco is default 3. Connect one to your programming track and you can read it in RM.

 

I would think if only one acc decoder  is playing up then a controller reset is unlikely to be the answer but one never knows with electronics.

 

I'm still looking for the hole where they put the smoke in, that acts as an indicator when it has been cooked.

[Fishmanoz]

Should be easy to find Rob.  It has a cover with a screw slot in it and a little sign next to it saying "if you have cooked the decoder, please adjust this cover for minimum smoke".

[Michael_A]

@MA

An acc decoder is just a static version of a mobile (loco) decoder and you can read and write cvs just the same. According to NMRA its default address should be 2 but I cant find out why, nor why a loco is default 3. Connect one to your programming track and you can read it in RM.

 

I would think if only one acc decoder  is playing up then a controller reset is unlikely to be the answer but one never knows with electronics.

 

I'm still looking for the hole where they put the smoke in, that acts as an indicator when it has been cooked.

Many thanks!