Hornby Accessory Decoders (R8247) and Peco points - Power issues

[John0001]

i am having a lot of trouble getting Peco points and surface point motors PL11 to work with the Hornby Elite. I have several Hornby Accessory Decoders attached to the Elite and wish to drive the points from Railmaster and/or the Elite. The problem is that the Peco points do not open and close satisfactorily under DCC control from the Elite, either directly from the Elite or through Railmaster.  Some points will operate in one direction, others neither direction. I have a foam ballast which maybe doesn't help, though it should not make any difference? I have been elevating the point motor using the Peco supplied extra plastic part. No matter what care in positioning, use of lubrication, method of pinning, alignment etc the problem remains. So the problem is one of (a) not enough power in the Elite (b) the Peco points motors don't have enough grunt or © the Peco points are too stiff (they do seem more stiff than Hornby points). All these parts are incidentally new. On the face of it there is a basic incompatibility between Peco points and the Hornby Elite?

It has been suggested to me both that

(1) the Hornby Accessory Decoders do not have much power in the incorporated CDU (cannot answer that one, though specs seem to suggest there should be sufficient power)

(2) that I should be operating my points manually not through a Decoder (for me not an option since I want an automated system managed through Railmaster programs)

I wonder has anyone else had this problem, and if so  how was it resolved?

[St1ngr4y]

Hi John,

Are you sure you have the wires connected correctly. Peco use the green wire as the common return, unlike Hornby who prefer the black. So the green wire from the PL11 should go into the middle connector of the R8247 port.

Ray

[Chrissaf]

Welcome to the forum John.

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I had absolutely the same issue as you. I couldn't even get my R8247 to properly fire a Peco PL10WE point motor directly attached to the base of the Peco point on the work bench (i.e not fixed to a baseboard) thus in the test environment, alignment WAS NOT an issue. I am using the low energy PL-10WE with the higher resistance 11 ohm solenoid coils. Just for testing purposes, I purchased a single Peco PL-10E with the lower resistance 4 ohm coil. There was a slight improvement, but still not robust enough for me to warrant replacing all my PL-10WE point motors (17) with PL-10E motors. I found through workbench experimentation that the Peco PL-10 motors needed a minimum 19 volts DC to fire robustly. The output of the R8247 just about manages 15 vdc. The internal CDU assistance of the Hornby R8247 just doesn't seem powerful enough for the Peco brand motors (in my personal experience), well at least not the low energy PL-10WE ones.

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My solution was to build a relay interface board between the R8247 and my points. The output of the R8247 operates a 12 volt relay. The make contacts on the relay fire the PL-10WE point motors via an external higher voltage (23 vdc) CDU. I know from previous posts, that other's on here have also resorted to introducing relay interfaces to overcome the power limitations of the Hornby R8247 Accessory Decoders (see the previous post to mine on the photo link I have provided below as an example). I use Elite working in conjunction with RailMaster, thus my points all work by touchscreen point and click.

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The R8247s seem to work reasonably well (as far as forum reports indicate, no personal experience that I can draw upon to confirm) with the Hornby R8014 point motor, but really struggle to robustly fire the Peco PL-10 range, they also seem to struggle to robustly fire Hornby's own R8243 point motor, which is the Hornby version of the peco PL-11. I couldn't use the R8014 with my Peco points, because I use live frog points and needed the frog polarity (PL-13 & 15) switches that are compatible with the PL-10s.

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You can see a photograph of my relay boards on this thread - very last post on the page. Link opens in new Window / Tab. Note: 5 of my points are crossovers with two point motors in parallel. Thus, there are 12 decoder ports to fire 17 points.

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My points now work flawlessly and have done so for more than a year. I designed and built my relay boards from scratch. If you would like, I can provide a full parts list and circuit diagram with construction details as a PDF document. I mounted the relays on Vero type copper stripboard. The boards (3) cost me about £17 per board to make. This of course, is a significant extra cost that can be avoided by buying a more proven point operating system up front. But if all the point motors and R8247's have been purchased already and there is no chance of getting a refund (mine had been in storage unused for a year before I discovered the lack of power issue when I went to install them, so I had no realistic refund option open to me). Then the additional £17 cost per board is well worth it, to obtain rock solid robust point operation.

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I daresay, others will offer a wide range of alternative suggestions and solutions, but this is the one that worked for me in my particular circumstances, and met ALL my expectations.

[John0001]

Hi John,

Are you sure you have the wires connected correctly. Peco use the green wire as the common return, unlike Hornby who prefer the black. So the green wire from the PL11 should go into the middle connector of the R8247 port.

Ray

 

 

 

[John0001]

Hi John,

Are you sure you have the wires connected correctly. Peco use the green wire as the common return, unlike Hornby who prefer the black. So the green wire from the PL11 should go into the middle connector of the R8247 port.

Ray

 

 Yes. All wires are connected correctly. 

 

[John0001]

I daresay, others will offer a wide range of alternative suggestions and solutions, but this is the one that worked for me in my particular circumstances, and met ALL my expectations.

 

Lot to ponder here. Thanks. I will let you know how I get on.

[Chrissaf]

John, just a suggestion, but as someone who writes long posts. I know the other readers here would appreciate it if you didn't click the 'Blue Quote' button just to write 14 words of text. It makes it far easier for others to follow the gist of the thread if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and just write your brief reply in the great big white reply box and click the 'Green Reply' button.

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There are times, when using the 'Quote' function is appropriate, but this is not one of them.....as your reply is directly below the posts you are replying to.

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This post is an example of using the 'Green Reply' button.

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Oh and by the way, as this is a DCC issue, it would have been better posted in the Hornby DCC section rather than the General section. You may find that it gets moved by Admin when they notice it.

[John0001]

Ok. Will do. First time I have posted. Learning ropes. 

[Chrissaf]

John,

No criticism intended....you're not the first....you won't be the last either.......most newbie forum users do it........as you can see, these last couple of posts are easier to read and follow without all the yellow box duplication. The 'Quote' function is usually best used when there are many posts and / or pages between your reply and the post you are making a reply about. It is not usually necessary to use the 'Quote' function when your reply is on the same page as the post you are responding to.

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You can also edit the contents of the quoted yellow box text too. For example, if you only want to quote a part of the text and not all of it. For example, an extract from your previous reply is quoted below:

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Lot to ponder here. Thanks. I will let you know how I get on.

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[Chrissaf]

John,

I see that Admin have moved your post to the DCC section and amended your reply post and removed the bulk of the yellow box duplicated text. Notice how much better it reads now.

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Thanks Adam (Admin).

[Flashbang]

Hi

There are a few things I would do.....

1) Remove motor from the point and ensure it throws both ways off the point and without any loading placed upon it. If it does work correctly check the point for possible binding . Remove cause and refit motor and try again.

2) Ensure you're leaving sufficient time between each point operation. The internal CDU on the Hornby decoder is shared between all outputs and needs to reach a fully recharged state to be at it best to provide that 'beefy' pulse of power. Allow a good two-seconds between each point move on any one decoder.

3) Ensure the pulse duration is not set too short. But equally it shouldnt exceed 0.5 (1/2) second though.

4) If your wiring distance between the point motor and decoder is longer than the three wires pre attached to the PL11 use 16/0.2mm equipment wire to extend all three wires.

5) Try one point with its Over centre spring removed, to see if that improves the throw.

[MetmanUK]

I wanted to purcgase R8247s but they were rarer than gold dust when I was setting up my Peco points and motors (from e-Link, admittedly).  For testing I purchasd a simple lever and dedicated Peco CDU.  The result was it worked BUT I had to leave 20+ seconds between throws - unworkable!.  I then purchesed DCC Concepts ADS8s and I can throw points to my hearts content.

[John0001]

Thanks especially to Chrissaf and Flashbang. For me Chrissaf's solution, whilst appealing, has some downsides with regard to the time involved and my very limited expertise with electronics. I could see myself in trouble, though I can see many others would be fine.

On Flashbang's (1) checked and all is ok (2) very good point since this is one of my problems (3) haven't addressed this yet but will do (4) noted but probably I think not an especial issue for me (5) I may try later.

Since my post I have started to use Railmaster for testing points operation. I have set up a number of very short programs switching up to four points left then right and placing in a repeat loop of 15 times. This is invaluable since it enables me to carefully position the points and motor prior to fixing. I have discovered that if you try and switch two connected points you must leave at least 5 seconds, preferably more, between each switching otherwise things don't work. This seems to be due to charging time of the inbuilt CDU as mentioned above. If you are talking a single point then 3 seconds seems to be OK, but not less.

Extremely careful positioning (one or two points have taken more than an hour each), a portable vacuum, dare I mention a touch of silicon spray sometimes, and the most careful fixing (in some cases using balsa sheet in place of the plastic insert provided with the PL11) does definitely yield results. I will keep the testing programs for repeat testing as I go forward. It is an easy way to check for correct operation. The upshot is that I now have about 15 points working properly with none failing. The key to the problem seems to be (a) to allow plenty of time between switches (b) meticulous adherence to positioning and cleanliness. I am confident now that the remaining points, another 10 or so, will not cause too much trouble. 

Hope this is useful and thanks again for advice. 

[John0001]

To finalise this post, I now know my original post was based on frustration and newness to the subject matter. In retrospect there is no deficiency with either the R8247 units or with Peco points. All these work now entirely satisfactorily on my system without modification. Basically you have to take maximum care in alignment of points, make sure track is level, and avoid changing the points too quickly.

[RobOO]

I've got to say this has been a very useful thread for me as a bit of an electrical novice. Been back out in the shed after a few months off and was getting annoyed with every PL10WE I connected to my Hornby decoders failing to fire. Tried the surface mounted ones and they worked fine. I have around 60 points and already bought all the motors so I was begining to think I was going to be replacing them for surface mounted. Anyway, thought I'd have a look on here as its always been helpful in the past and I found this post straight away and the first reply to the thread, "check the common return" yep, that was my cock up!

Anyway, got a few points working this afternoon but now I'm worried about the Elite not being man enough to power all my kit. Always been a concern as I have a lot of sound fitted locos however I don't think I'll have more than two running at the same time although the station might have a few loitering!

I've already noticed I need to count to three before changing points. Not too worried about that in operation, rather be careful than cause a crash!

Anyway, thanks.