phil_dalton

I have spent some time reviewing the relevance or not to previous responses to this problem and my findings are as follows: You can not flip a 21pin chip over as the 21 pins are aligned with one row containing 11 pins and the other 10. I.e. there is a blank at the end of the row of 10. To flip the chip over would cause a pcb pin to hit the blank on the chip.Having read V1.3 of the decoder manual the PCB for the GWR Churchward tender allows a TXS chip to be attached in what Hornby call the "compact" position. Models with larger tenders, e.g. Gresley P2 or A4, the fitted PCB requires the TXS chip to be inverted or in Hornby speak "rotated". So it is the PCB fitted to the model that determines which way up the chip has to be installed.I did try removing the weight in the tender, but discovered that this did not impede the fitting of the chip in any way.My conclusion is that the pins on the PCB are too short to adequately support a chip the size of a sound TXS chip.I will be contacting technical support at Hornby about this problem Finally, I would just like to refer the response that there is no Sound profile announced. Whilst true, one has been announced for a GWR King. In a previous forum entry of mine I questioned as to why there was no TTS chip for a GWR Castle, when there was one for a GWR King. The responses I received I took to mean that I was being pedantic as the 1:1 scale wheel size of 6ft 8.5in versus 6ft 6in amounts to less than 1mm when reduced to OO scale and they are both 4 cylinder classes. However, in the past Hornby did produce BR Castle 7029 "Clun Castle" with sound provided by a Loksound V4 chip (although actually recorded on GWR Castle 5043 "Earl of Mount Edgcumbe" on a run to Salisbury). Is it too much to ask for the sound files to be remastered to a TXS sound profile?

I have placed this item in general discussion as none of the other sections seemed an appropriate fit to me. If this is wrong, I apologize. Since I converted to DCC operation I have had a major problem with GWR tender engines. Hornby glue the handrails either side on the front of a GWR tender to the chassis, causing them to have to be cut to enable the tender body to be removed to enable the installation of a DCC chip or one with sound and a speaker. Why is it only Hornby do this? I did mention the problem to Simon Kohler in the past, who said he was unaware of the problem. But it does seem that nothing has been done to manufacture a GWR tender such that the chassis and body are completely separate entities.

I have this same problem with R30272 Caldicot Castle. Although I believe that the problem is caused by the DCC Chip having to be installed upside down relative to other classes (e.g. LNER A4 or P2). The pins on the connector do not go far enough through the HM7000 chip to give a good grip and so the chip can wobble freely. Was this done deliberately due to the lack of vertical space inside the Churchward tender? If so, then this shows a complete lack of complete design thinking for GWR Castles with Churchward tenders.

I operate my HM7000 chips from an ECOS 50200 with full capability and no problems