"New" Elite Controller

[Brew Man]

Well I'm a very happy bunny today! Last week I purchased a pre-owned Elite from a well known dealer at an incredibly discounted price, reason being there was no transformer included. So, bit of a shot in the dark. While waiting over the Easter WE for delivery I purchased a 15V, 5A transformer for an additional £14. Today my Elite arrived, and wow! it is in pristine condition. Gingerly I connected the transformer to mains and plugged into the Elite, and.... it powered up faultlessly. The first thing I did was to update the firmware from 1.3 to 1.45.

So all ready to go now, except that when I took my first layout down it was decided that the room was to be re-decorated before anything else happens, so it could be a while sleepy.

The only thing I'm wondering is, what happened to the original transformer?

[96RAF]

The 4-amp PSU was probably split from the Elite pack and sold on, or one may have failed and the dealer used yours to replace it under warranty, hence why you got the Elite for a bargain price.

Well done updating the firmware. V1.3 is old. How old - you may be surprised - look at the date code on the bottom of the case - xx/YR.

Whilst waiting for opportunity to rebuild the layout, check your Elite over fully by programming a few locos to long and short addresses and changing a few CVs. You can always reset them to factory default if required.

Another quick check you can do is press and hold the LOCO button as you power it up. Release as soon as you see Hornby on screen.

Let it go through a self test, when it will report pass or fail, then you can press every button, twiddle every dial and get on screen confirmation of them all working.

To revert to normal mode, simply power down and up again.

[Brew Man]

Good tips, thanks, Rob. Yes I looked at the version history, 2008 for ver. 1.3. As you say, old. I'll run through the checks you suggest over the coming days. One thing I have noticed, though obviously not yet connected to any track or locos, is that if I have channel 1 set in reverse direction then switch to channel 2 and set that in forward, when I switch back to channel 1 it still shows forward. Is that normal behaviour?

[96RAF]

Can’t say I have noticed that, but I tend to either only run one loco manually or several using RM.

The way handover from channel to channel is handled has changed over the various firmware revisions. It used to be you had to click to take control, then you just adjusted a speed to take control, now I think its click again.

Next time I have things cranked up I will take a look.

[Brew Man]

I just tried the self test mode by pressing and holding the LOCO button at power-up and it just booted up as normal. I tried releasing the button as soon as 'HORNBY' appeared and keeping it pressed for a second but it didn't appear to start a self test. Am I doing something wrong?

[ColinB]

I think what you have to do is power the unit on, before the Hornby comes up the screen basically "blacks" each square of the display. Now press the "loco" button. I just did it with mine and it works. If it is like most of the software I worked on, the system needs to know the initial state of the keys so it can tell that one is pressed, so letting it display a "blank" screen before the "Hornby" logo tells you it is set up.

[Brew Man]

Nope, tried that and it boots as normal, but thanks for the suggestion.

EDIT: So just to be clear, Colin: Power up, press and hold LOCO while black squares are showing, then release LOCO as soon as Hornby appears. Or, press and hold LOCO after black squares have gone but before Hornby appears, then release as soon as it does. I think I've tried both to no avail.

[Brew Man]

Well, the darndest thing! I just tried pressing LOCO while the unit was in normal state and nothing happened, so I pressed it a few times rapidly and it worked as it should allowing me to which channel controls which loco. Then I rebooted to run self test and it worked successfully along with all buttons and dials appearing to be OK.

So I guess it was just a sticky button.

Thanks to Rob and Collin for their input.

[96RAF]

Press and hold LOCO, plug in power with the other two hands.

Release button as soon as you see Hornby.

This screen will populate.

Followed by this screen (hopefully - not Fail).

You can then press each button, twiddle each knob, etc like this.

[Brew Man]

Yep, that's all working fine now, thanks, Rob

[96RAF]

Sticky buttons - no big deal and usually easily fixed.

Behind each button is a curved triangular contact which clicks as the button is pressed.

Without frequent use the tracks on the PCB can tarnish, but exercising the buttons a good few times polishes off this corrosion, as you have found.

[Brew Man]

Yes, probably been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years, (not me, the Elite grinning).