Brawa and Roco locomotives on Hornby DCC system

[jelmusic]

I recently bought a Roco diesel with DCC and it is working fine on my Hornby DCC (select) system. However, the Brawa diesel, also Digital, doesn't seem to be responding at all on the DCC track. I have an analogue layout, and it works fine on that (even the lights come on as well).

Any thoughts and input are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[ozcavebear]

Hi there jel. Your problem may be related to the Select not being fully NRMA compatible. I had an instance with my Select where a Hornby decoder worked fine but another brand did not, I had actually purchased three of each of these decoders Hornby and the other brand ( unlikely that all three were faulty) and all of the non Hornby brand responded the same where all of the Hornby worked fine. I did find a work around which may help you. I purchased a 100uh torroid ferrite choke. You can find these on ebay or purchase from an electronics part store, they are around $3AU. Place one wire of the choke into one of the outputs of the Select, (note only one wire of the choke goes into the select) then solder the other wire of the choke onto one of the wires going to your track. The other wire going to the track connects directly to the select as per normal; basically it means the choke is in series. I believe the choke cleans up the signal output of the Select. Anyway this workaround solved my problems with certain non Hornby brands of decoders not working with the Select, I was then able to set the address I wanted and the decoders responded and worked on the layout without problem, previously I had at best been able to get them to move on their default address 3 but could not change it some would not even respond. As a follow-up I later purchased a better fully compatible controller and tested the problem decoders with the new controller without issues so I can only assume that the issues were with the Select. Anyway do a search of Select on the forum and you will see further references to its issues with certain decoders. Hope the workaround helps you. Please note you take this advice at your own risk.