GMD Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 I know that for most seasoned users of this forum this is telling you all what you already know, but if its of any interest I recently installed the above stay alive on an 8-pin HM7k chip connects dto a Bachmann 08. Delighted with the results. Video link here 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritInVanCA Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 I appreciated the video and it aligned with my experience however if you look through this forum you will see a few warnings about the fact that although these power banks have the Hornby connector they are not Hornby “approved” as compatible. Also there are some technical details that differ about how these power banks work. As I said I’m happy but I think there is some caution and caveats here that people should be aware of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Too Tall Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 (edited) Maybe, but its irrelevant as you cant get the hornby Powerbanks. I have yet to use my AE, but I have just ordered another set of 3 so I have one for each 00 loco (if I have room). The reviews I have seen show it just a little over half the run time as the Hornby one, but that should still be enough for most cases. Edited June 8 by Too Tall 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dBerriff Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 I find this whole business frustrating. The HM7000 series power supplies are not resilient enough for a few real-world operational requirements. A bit more capacitance would smooth over some of the problems. There is a quick fix - add a minimal stay-alive. But because the Hornby offshore manufacturing/ packaging/ shipping/ distribution cycle takes so long we have to rely on 3rd party solutions. I can live with this but the HM designers must be frustrated? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) 1 hour ago, dBerriff said: I find this whole business frustrating. The HM7000 series power supplies are not resilient enough for a few real-world operational requirements. A bit more capacitance would smooth over some of the problems. There is a quick fix - add a minimal stay-alive. But because the Hornby offshore manufacturing/ packaging/ shipping/ distribution cycle takes so long we have to rely on 3rd party solutions. I can live with this but the HM designers must be frustrated? It is interesting about the fact that the HM7000 is less resilient for a real world operations. I did back to back tests on HM7000, TTS and a Zimo decoder and HM7000 is no worse than TTS although a lot worse than Zimo but there again some of the other makes suffer the same. I don't know if it is capacitance or Zimos have more rugged software that has better error handling. Hornby lost a golden opportunity, they could have done what Zimo do on their sound decoders and made the decoder handle the "stay alive" with just the addition of a capacitor. The alternative "stay alives" are just as good as the Hornby offering, in fact I am not sure if they are not better. The Hornby Powerpack uses 3 capacitors in series whereas the others seem to use four which means they can store a higher voltage without compromising the components. HM7000 is what it is, a cheap sound decoder. I limit HM7000 to locos with tender pickups which means there are very few issues. I know a lot of my locos with "stay alive" will run for 10 seconds or more but in reality do you really need that, one or two seconds should be enough. Edited June 9 by ColinB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dBerriff Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 I agree Colin, 1 or 2s is enough. I would just add that Bluetooth exacerbates the problem because it takes a while to reconnect; too many seconds to be acceptable on a public layout. For my own use I will stick with HM7000 and use 3rd-party stay-alives if needed (not yet). For my 08 shunter it will be a third-party decoder as well but I do have a Dongle. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 I believe that many commentators on here fail to acknowledge that Hornby have had to design a system that offers the best level of performance to a mass market. It has to work well for less experienced modellers and layouts that maybe are not used daily and don't get cleaned on a regular basis. I was going to suggest that consequently the performance specifications are a compromise but in reality, they have to be targeted at the lowest common denominator. The standard Powerbank is perfect for the majority of home layouts but, as a consequence of the compromises that have to made to achieve this, they may be a bit overpowered for those whose main hobby is fervent track cleaning. I would also argue that the only mistake they have made is to have underestimated the demand for the products. Perhaps this was driven by a degree of caution, not wanting to end up with unsold stock if the system didn't take off. I can forgive them that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dBerriff Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) While that is true - and I agree that it is the mass market including me that needs stay-alives - how long is it since anyone has been able to buy a Hornby stay-alive? They are the lowest technology part of the system if we just want minimal time periods. They could be assembled here in the UK for a faster turnaround. This is DCC Concepts' gain and as far as I know they are an excellent company so perhaps that is not a bad thing. 😎 Edited June 9 by dBerriff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 Could they? Is there a company able to produce them in their thousands and with capacity to accommodate a short notice order in the UK? Is the component supply available for that short notice order? And if the components and capacity were available, would the price still be competitive? There I go, being realistic again.😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) 23 minutes ago, SteveM6 said: Could they? Is there a company able to produce them in their thousands and with capacity to accommodate a short notice order in the UK? Is the component supply available for that short notice order? And if the components and capacity were available, would the price still be competitive? There I go, being realistic again.😉 Yes plenty, it is just once you get absorbed by the Chinese bubble it is hard to get out. Dapol have demonstrated successfully that you can make rolling stock here and generally it is cheaper than Hornby's. As to electronics, yes there are companies that do that sort of thing you just have to do a bit of work. We are talking 3 "stay alive" components, two smd transistors and a zenor diode possibly a few more bits, hardly rocket science. We used to do it all the time if we got stuck. The issue we used to have was finding a firm that only wanted to do 10 to 100, 1000s they would love. Edited June 9 by RB51 Banned word removed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) 54 minutes ago, dBerriff said: While that is true - and I agree that it is the mass market including me that needs stay-alives - how long is it since anyone has been able to buy a Hornby stay-alive? They are the lowest technology part of the system if we just want minimal time periods. They could be assembled here in the UK for a faster turnaround. This is DCC Concepts' gain and as far as I know they are an excellent company so perhaps that is not a bad thing. 😎 I wonder where they get theirs made? I think AE who make them is a German based company. Edited June 9 by ColinB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Hornby are intending to supply PBs in much smaller packaging to accommodate small wheelbase locos better. Is this not the reason for delayed manufacture - i.e. sourcing smaller components? If so then I can fully understand why they wouldn't want to spend money on a batch of the existing footprint in the meantime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dBerriff Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) Take a look at Pimoroni in Sheffield and what they are able to manufacture on site. Compared to a RP2040-based board (Raspberry Pi Pico family) this is a trivial exercise. The full Raspberry Pi series is manufactured by Sony in South Wales. We have not quite as a nation sold out to offshore manufacturing although that is what many accountants would seemingly have us do. I had better stop at that except to say that I remain fully supportive of Hornby and would like nothing more than for them to meet the requirement. ColinB - some of my fellow members in the Model Electonic Railway Group (MERG) have shown that it is now not particularly expensive to get circuit boards manufactured in moderate numbers. Edited June 9 by dBerriff shortened Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 4 minutes ago, Brew Man said: I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Hornby are intending to supply PBs in much smaller packaging to accommodate small wheelbase locos better. Is this not the reason for delayed manufacture - i.e. sourcing smaller components? If so then I can fully understand why they wouldn't want to spend money on a batch of the existing footprint in the meantime. No as far as I can gather that is for the future, this is just a rerun of the existing design. According to 96RAF the smaller component is based around a different technology, so that is definitely one for the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 (edited) 8 minutes ago, dBerriff said: Take a look at Pimoroni in Sheffield and what they are able to manufacture on site. Compared to a RP2040-based board (Raspberry Pi Pico family) this is a trivial exercise. The full Raspberry Pi series is manufactured by Sony in South Wales. We have not quite as a nation sold out to offshore manufacturing although that is what the accountants would have us do. I had better stop at that except to say that I remain fully supportive of Hornby and would like nothing more than for them to meet the requirement. I know it really annoys me, sure to get something made in the UK can be expensive but not always. The rest of the World including China is catching up fast. Edited June 9 by RB51 Political comment removed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Too Tall Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 (edited) Just to say, just installed an Hm7K 8 pin decoder in a Bachman 56xx, stock speaker on the medium sized square chamber and located in the smokebox with black tack, weight above motor cover removed and makes just enough room in firebox for the AE stay alive, with the decoder siting snugly between it and the socket, above the kapton tape covered motor. wires all snugged up and everything just fits with no extra work. a quick test looks to be between 2.5 and 3 seconds run time with sound on once lifted from rolling road. That will do me nicely 🙂 Edited June 17 by Too Tall 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rallymatt Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 Latest Hornby powerbank has been seen, Jenny Kirk has one for test. It seems very compact and at least the 40% smaller Carl hinted at. Hopefully deliveries of production version will be very soon. Will be interesting to see endurance but 2-3 seconds really should be enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ateshci Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 It has been overdue because the size of TT models demands very small footprint and thickness. A total capacity of 0.15F@5V combined with a stepup circuit is able to deliver enough current at somewhere around 10V to keep a train going far enough to overcome that dead spot even under full load (~200mA) of the loco. 1-2 secs is a very convenient value to meet these requirements, and avoid excessive uncontrolled movement should the loco derail or lose contact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 @Rallymatt Do you have a link to her video? I've had a look but nothing is coming up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 12 minutes ago, Brew Man said: @Rallymatt Do you have a link to her video? I've had a look but nothing is coming up. She only gave a quick mention of it. Her test video will drop over the next few days. No doubt some will complain that she shouldn't be saying anything until it's available to the general public but be aware that it's a preproduction sample and hasn't even been released to the wider test team for evaluation yet. Only a few actually available. It made sense for Hornby to lend her that one as she has already got a good comparison video for the mark 1. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 Yes, I've seen her comparison between the Hornby PB and the AE Models one and that is quite informative, so looking forward to her appraisal of the new offering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 3 hours ago, Brew Man said: @Rallymatt Do you have a link to her video? I've had a look but nothing is coming up. Last Monday Club - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George-351466 Posted June 20 Share Posted June 20 Size of the new Hornby pb will be interesting. I’ve just managed to get an 8 pin HM7000 chip into the boiler of Bachmann 5MT with small speaker enclosure in the smoke box. But with only loco wheels collecting current, a stay alive was essential. Hornby’s was too fat and even an AE one was just too bulky. Eventually I tested the smaller Laisdcc lying flat on top of the decoder and this allowed me to fit the body. They need soldering of course (tricky and invalidates warranty), but it gives 3 - 4 seconds power when lifted off track, so delighted with that. Of course Hornby won’t care about HM7000 fittings in old Bachmann locos, but I will be interested in their new smaller pb as I’ve other older (non Hornby) locos I’m keen to run via Bluetooth and I’d rather plug in than solder. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 On 19/06/2024 at 10:04, SteveM6 said: She only gave a quick mention of it. Her test video will drop over the next few days. No doubt some will complain that she shouldn't be saying anything until it's available to the general public but be aware that it's a preproduction sample and hasn't even been released to the wider test team for evaluation yet. Only a few actually available. It made sense for Hornby to lend her that one as she has already got a good comparison video for the mark 1. It completely blows away the concept of an independent reviewer though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 2 minutes ago, ColinB said: It completely blows away the concept of an independent reviewer though. The other spare device has been assessed by me on a small test track (as my layout is packed for moving) and passed to another team member for trials on his layout which has a ladder of 6 back to back points and if his Class 08 traverses that lot at speed step 1 then job's a good'un. Jenny was, as stated given access to one as she is part of the test team, and she already had a comparative video of the original PB. Hence all reviews are independent and the general results will be aired concurrently as and when Hornby drops the flag, such is the beauty of working under an NDA. In the meantime here is a redacted picture of the new one alongside the old one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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