Hornby Elite - thin on the ground?

[dlaloum]

Hi Folks,

anyone know if there is a particular reason why the Elite Controller stock has been left to rundown?

They are hard to find, and prices are becoming silly (I am seeing people selling them New for well over the retail price!).

Also various hornby digital accessories seem to have been left to runout as well.

Are Hornby planning something in the digital space? Or are we just waiting for some container loads of kit to be delivered from a chinese factory!...

 

[96RAF]

My local shop had them in stock a few weeks ago.

[Chrissaf]

Who knows....we don't.

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Also various hornby digital accessories seem to have been left to runout as well.

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I always thought it strange that Hornby made the R8238 Reverse Loop Module and the R8239 Booster obsolete. OK, the booster going obsolete I can somewhat understand as lack of demand. But the R8238 RLM is a key component in some DCC layout designs.

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Hornby in their wisdom have got a new 2020 pre-order for a large 'Dog-Bone' track pack layout that is about £600 to purchase. The design of which was discussed recently on this forum. The reason for the discussion was that it contained several 'Reverse Loops' in it and did not mention this in the technical blurb for the unsuspecting purchaser. Let's face it, it is the 'I know nothing about model railways' type customer that this kind of product is aimed at.

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Rhetorical question....no answer needed.

So what is the point of Hornby pushing this new track pack product if they do not sell the R8238 RLM modules needed to support it?

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Maybe there are new replacement products in the pipeline, but to the best of my knowledge none of them have been announced or even hinted at by Hornby.

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[Bulleidboy]

This site says expected in the Spring - so one must assume that an order is in place?

[96RAF]

I have been assured by Hornby that a new batch of Elites is in shipment, which will have a slightly different back panel to the previous Elites, in that because the existing sprung terminals are no longer available in the current size larger ones have had to be fitted.

 

The redesign to the casing and motherboard (as well as a delay to re-supply) has resulted in one of the RJ Xpressnet ports having to be deleted to make room for the two banks of terminals (Track + Prog --- Boost + Aux) either side of the realigned Power Jack, USB and RJ ports.

 

This deletion should not be a problem as normally only one service would be connected to the Xpressnet port, with splitter adaptors available if more than one Walkabout controller is required. All other services such as RLM or Booster can be daisy chained from a single RJ port or they can use an alternative connection method.

 

The larger more robust terminals should make wire connections both easier to do and give more positive contact. 

[dlaloum]

That makes sense.... thank you RAF for the update...

I had checked quite a few online retailers, all of which had "out of stock" or "pre-order"...

At present programming with RM and running with the Select is working fine, but the Elite would make things easier.

 

[96RAF]

My local model shop does not do direct on-line sales but they will take orders over the phone and post out to you and they will match internet prices and give discount for clubs, so if you are a Hornby club member mention that as well. Great Eastern Models in Norwich. Very friendly and very helpful people. They know me well. Not open on Mondays though.

http://www.greateasternmodels.co.uk/