Hinchsters Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 Hi folks, Been far too long but I have now finally got around to installing some point motors. To start with I have a couple of R8247 PADs, the first of which I have programmed ok. I conneted up the first point motor and was able to successfully change it through the Elite in the normal way. But I found that I have to wait the best part of 10 seconds before I could throw the point back the other way. Is this normal? It's not something I've had experience at up until now - though I know there is a CDU inside which would need time to charge up after every use but I would've thought this would be a bit too long. I'm wondering if perhaps a CV value needs to be tweaked on the PAD - either that or it is perfectly normal in which case fair enough. I would just like some expert opinions!!!! Cheers Duncan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashbang Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 Hi 10 second to reach a recharged CDU condition on an Point Accessory Decoder is not correct or normal. It should be able to reach a fully recharged state with in a second or so. It reads as though the PAD is not receiving full rail volts to allow a rapid recharge. Are you a) Running lots of trains all at once? Running many locos all at once wont leave much power to recharge the PAD quickly. Does it recharge more quickly with no locos running? or b) How are you taking the power to the PAD from the Elite? - by rail connections (power clip etc) or direct via a DCC bus pair of wires? If via the rails, I would suggest you temporarily run a pair of reasonably sized wires directly from the Elites 'Track' terminals to the PADs input terminals and remove and insulate the existing connections to the PADs input. Then once the two temp. wires are connected test it again. If it then works as it should its your track connections that need investigating. If it still takes the 10 or so seconds to recharge its possibly faulty and needs returning to the supplier or to the Hornby Service Dept if its outside warranty period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted August 24, 2012 Author Share Posted August 24, 2012 Flashbang said: Hi 10 second to reach a recharged CDU condition on an Point Accessory Decoder is not correct or normal. It should be able to reach a fully recharged state with in a second or so. It reads as though the PAD is not receiving full rail volts to allow a rapid recharge. Are you a) Running lots of trains all at once? Running many locos all at once wont leave much power to recharge the PAD quickly. Does it recharge more quickly with no locos running? or b) How are you taking the power to the PAD from the Elite? - by rail connections (power clip etc) or direct via a DCC bus pair of wires? If via the rails, I would suggest you temporarily run a pair of reasonably sized wires directly from the Elites 'Track' terminals to the PADs input terminals and remove and insulate the existing connections to the PADs input. Then once the two temp. wires are connected test it again. If it then works as it should its your track connections that need investigating. If it still takes the 10 or so seconds to recharge its possibly faulty and needs returning to the supplier or to the Hornby Service Dept if its outside warranty period. Many thanks for the response. The PAD is connected directlty to the Power Bus. The Bus itself uses 2.5mm cable and the connection to the PAD are 1.5mm cable soldered directly to the Bus. At the time of testing I did not have any trains running. Unfortunately I'm at work at the moment but when I get home I think I'll try connecting the PAD directly yo the track outputs on the controller to see if that makes any difference. If it does - I'm wondering if I may need a power booster for the PADs - as no doubt I'll end up with quite a few. Will let you know how I get on. Many Thanks Duncan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashbang Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 Hi Duncan, Your DCC bus pair is adequate in wire size and shouldn't offer any issues neither should the dropper wires either. Suggestion, as you had no locos running previously ... Disconnect one PAD and try the other on its own - see how long it takes to recharge after use. Then disconnect that PAD and reconnect the first PAD and retry on its own. Are they both the same or is one much slower in recharging than the other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecamden Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 You don't need a power booster for the PAD's. I have three of them connected directly to the bus wire and each port operates 2 points with an almost instant recharge with 5 trains running. I suspect you have a bad connection/loose or faulty PAD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted August 24, 2012 Author Share Posted August 24, 2012 Hi all, Back at home and just done some testing........ Had the Elite connected directly to the PAD via the track outputs and observed about 12 seconds between each successful point throw from every port on the PAD. Got my other PAD out of it's box and set it up. Same result except for one port (port 4 in this case) that was throwing the point every 2 seconds with no problem. I feel like I am dealing with the dark arts here!!!! Perhaps a book on PAD Voodoo would be good? Does it sound both the PADs could be faulty? surely not. Though I am at a bit of a loss to explain this.... Help!!!! Cheers Duncan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashbang Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 Hi Duncan In your position I would..... a) Disconnect all the wires from the Elite output terminals. Then... b) Via a temporary pair of wires connect the Elite's 'Track' terminals to PAD 1 only and test it. Note the time taken to reach fully recharged state after each point motor operation. Then.... c) Disconnect PAD 1 and connect PAD 2 to the two temporary wires. Test PAD 2 and check recharge times as per b above. If both or one PADs are taking longer than 3 seconds to reach fully recharged then return them both to the supplier as suspected faulty and expect a replacement or a full refund. If they are outside their warranty period return them to Hornby Service Dept for repair etc. All the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted August 25, 2012 Author Share Posted August 25, 2012 Thanks again for the suggestions. The tests you recommended are exactly what I did - so I would suggest perhaps the units are faulty. Though it's frustrating having two at the same time that came from two different shops but both seem to be broken. I'm wondering though if the type of point motor would have any bearing witrh this issue? I'm using pm1's but I wouldn't have thought there'd be much difference. Anyway, thankyou again for your help. Cheers DRH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecamden Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Did you set the CV's for each port on the PAD? The default is '0' which is on continuous ( well was on mine). Just a thought! - setting at 1 will give a 0.1s pulse for the motor. It is important to note that accessories that function using a solenoid motor should not be set with a ‘dwell time’ longer than 0.8Sec i.e No.8 setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashbang Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Hi PM1 or Hornby solenoid motors wont make any difference. They all have a coil resistance of around 3 to 5 OHMs. Once the discharge has occurred the internal capacitors need to recharge ad this is in the case of Hornby PADs taken form the the DCC supplies power. Assuming all is correct with your Elites output voltage then the PAD should be able to recharge in seconds especially with no other loading on the Elite. I know this may seem daft but just a thought.... You have the PAD to PM1 connected as... One group of three outputs connecting.... PAD terminal + to A. PAD terminal - to B and Pad terminal C to C? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 Yeah that's how I connected the point motor to the PAD. I only knew how to do I after reading a forum post from your good self on another website!!! Having done more tests and confirmed that of the 8 ports I tested (2 PADs) 7 of them took about 12 seconds between motor throws, the other 1 only took 2 seconds. Anyway, off to give Hornby tech. support a call methinks...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted August 28, 2012 Author Share Posted August 28, 2012 Hi all, Just a quick update.... I contacted Hornby Customer Care yesterday and they advised the problem sounded like a fault with both decoders and they are to go back to Hornby for repair. Thanks for your help :o) Cheers Duncan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hinchsters Posted September 14, 2012 Author Share Posted September 14, 2012 Hi folks, Been a little while but though I'd share an update with you all. After playing a bit of Voicemail Tennis with John @ Hornby Customer Care, eventually spoke to him and he advised there was nothing wrong with the Decoders but it was the controller itself that was causing the problem. He only stumbled across this when he had the same thing happen to him at home. Basically the controller was causing Data Corruption in the signal to the Decoders which was resulting in an 8-10 second lag before the Decoder got the command to seitch the point motor. He advised the solution was just to do a hard reset of the controller. So the Decoders arrived back yesterday, I did the reset of the controller, plugged the deccoder in and reprogrammed it. Once I'd connected up the Point Motor did a test and BOOYA!!!! All ports now working as they should be. Huge thanks to John for figuring this one out!!!! So know I can get on with installing the point motors and I thought I'd share this solution with everyone just in case someone else comes across the same issue. Now I just need to remember what I did with that bag of screws....... Thanks all Duncan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonBigBoy Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Hi Hinchster, can you describe wha the hard reset of the Elite entails? Does is revert to factory settings and v3 firmware? Did you then have to do another firmware upgrade to v1.41? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashbang Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Hi Hinchsters Really please you have been able to resolve the problem and that everything is now working correctly. However I am rather sadden to read though that HCS didn't know or were able to suggest what the cause was initially and according to your report it was only by an accident of fate that they could later advise you on what to do to make the system work correctly! Well done for persisting until the correct result was found :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Hey GBB, reset will not change firmware version, rather it will take the Elite back to the settings that are stored in the firmware as the default settings. All of those will be things that you define as you customise the Elite for your particular operation. So a pain to have to do but a bit like going back to a clean slate. At least we have this one to keep in the back of our minds if it happens to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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