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Britannia Builder

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Posts posted by Britannia Builder

    40% Smaller Power Bank from Hornby

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted · Edited by Britannia Builder
    Aux 1, not 3

    To get back to the original topic, it will be interesting to see if the new PB from Hornby uses 4 supercapacitors rather than 3, to give a higher voltage. The 3 in the current PB only give about 8 volts, 4 albeit smaller ones should give over 10. The lower voltage causes the LED carriage lights in my DMU, wired to Aux 1, to flicker on points, and my Bachmann 3MT Tank when running at fairly high speed sometimes slows right down after passing over points. I don't really understand the latter problem because the power interruption is only momentary, but it seems to send the decoder into a deceleration which lasts for 20-30 cm or so before it resumes normal speed.

    I think a higher voltage PB with smaller components and much less capacity would be an improvement.

    Regards, John

    Delete Activity Stream?

    in Forum & Website Feedback

    Posted

    I've now found a screenshot of a custom activity stream on the Invision community forum, and the required option button is part of a rather chunky selection box at the head of every custom activity  display. I can understand why Hornby may have deliberately decided not to show this - it rather clutters up the display. I think I'd forgo the option to delete rather than see this all the time. I've bookmarked the stream that I use, which bypasses the unwanted ones that I can't delete.

    Regards, John 

    • Like 1

    Getting into forum topics

    in Forum & Website Feedback

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, Rana Temporia said:

    John, thanks for posting this link it’s the only way I can get on to the topics using my iPad, I don’t know if any other iPad users are having the same issues? I have tried following the other information but the options aren’t working. 

    The link https://community.hornbyhobbies.com/discover (ie without the /8 on the end which in my case selects my custom activity stream) will get you to the default activity stream. This shows all recent activity but I don't find it particularly useful because it's cluttered with Airfix etc and lots of notifications which I find irrelevant. However, from there you can create a custom activity stream which in my case shows just topics (ie threads with recent posts) for just the sub-forums that I'm interested in (eg general discussion, HM7000, DCC, Railmaster). Having bookmarked the url for this custom stream, I can see instantly the recent posts without any further navigation. This custom stream feature has been there all along but I only discovered it when my previous url was broken by the recent update! I can't find any way of editing the custom stream criteria, but it's easy enough to set up another one if needed.

    Regards, John

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Getting into forum topics

    in Forum & Website Feedback

    Posted

    14 minutes ago, 96RAF said:

    You still have the option - which has never changed to view activity of your choice -  usually folk choose to see unread content. There are other options in the left hand drop down.

    Thanks Rob. I'd previously dismissed the activity view because it included Airfix etc and lots of other updates irrelevant to me, but I now find that I can set up a customised activity which just shows recent posts in the sub-forums that I'm interested in. Presumably this has been there all along but I'd never spotted it. So I'm happy again!

    Regards, John

    • Like 1

    Getting into forum topics

    in Forum & Website Feedback

    Posted

    It's a retrograde step as far as I'm concerned. I used to be able to see a list of recent postings in all the sub-forums that I'm interested in on a single screen - now I just see a list of all the sub-forums and have to go into each one in turn to see recent posts.

    Regards, John

    Elite & Wi-Fi

    in Hornby RailMaster & TrackMaster

    Posted

    I've noticed exactly the same thing in the last few days - strong wifi signal and the browser connects normally, but the internet symbol on RM doesn't light up as it used to do. Maybe it only lights up if it can connect to the RM server?

    Regards, John

    Step in speed progression

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    This is a strange problem, but given all the things that you have tried it does seem to be a faulty decoder. It appears that when it reaches a certain output voltage some alternate path opens up to drain some of the current.

    I don't think that wiring the decoder directly would invalidate the warranty - I should return the decoder to Hornby.

    Regards, John

    Railmaster support Email conformation.

    in Hornby RailMaster & TrackMaster

    Posted

    I successfully deregistered a few weeks ago after a hard disk failure - I loaded an evaluation copy on the new computer, tried to register with the original key, it correctly said that it was in use, and gave me a form to deregister which I filled in with the original licence details. No response initially, but I later found the confirmation email in my junk mail. So the deregistration had happened almost immediately and I was able to re-register successfully. Perhaps worth checking your junk mail?

    Regards, John

    Backing up Railmaster

    in Hornby RailMaster & TrackMaster

    Posted

    All back up and running now. Railmaster support had deactivated the key from the dead computer immediately, but their confirmation email went to my junk mail so I didn't see it immediately. Now successfully activated on the new computer, and the track plan and all 8 locos are working again. The trickiest part of the track plan was to work out by trial and error which port numbers I'd assigned to the points - luckily I remembered that I had used the range from 50 upwards.

    I've decided to back up the important RM files in future by attaching them in an email to myself. I've saved the following files:

    activate.dat

    railmaster.ini

    [trackplan].pln

    resource.mdb

    I don't have any RM program files to save.

    Regards, John

    Backing up Railmaster

    in Hornby RailMaster & TrackMaster

    Posted · Edited by Britannia Builder

    Just a word of warning...

    The hard disk failed in my 10 year old HP laptop a couple of days ago, so I've bought a new bottom-of-the-range HP Windows 11 laptop (£259.99 from Amazon, amazing value, much less than the old one cost 10 years ago) and successfully restored all my documents, spreadsheets, photos etc from Google Drive, which I had set up to do automated backups of any file that changed. However, when I installed Railmaster some years ago I overlooked the fact that it keeps its data in a program folder, not under the main Windows Documents folder hierarchy, so my Google Drive wasn't backing it up. My fault entirely!

    So now I've downloaded Railmaster to the new computer in evaluation mode and got it talking to my elink successfully - this worked first time, after some grumbling from Windows Defender about viruses in the software, and I've rebuilt my track layout - luckily I found a saved screenshot of this, so it didn't take long to redo. I just now need to set up the locos in Resource.mdb again - I have an old saved copy of this with some of my locos, plus an up to date Excel spreadsheet of the Resource.mdb contents, so this shouldn't take too long. I found the Railmaster CD with the activation key, still sitting in the Majestic train set box, so I've submitted the details to Railmaster support and hopefully they will soon deactivate the key from the dead computer so that I can activate on the new one.

    We live and learn!

    Regards, John

    Losing control of my Deltic

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    After experiencing the CV19 corruption when running under Railmaster I did wonder whether the RM red 'all stop' button would have stopped the runaway loco (in fact I used my physical emergency power off switch), but it sounds as though it wouldn't have done. Presumably the controller sends out a stop to each address that it knows about, rather than some generic DCC 'stop all' command that would have covered the corrupt CV19 address?

    Regards, John

    Posting of images to gallery area

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    A few observations:

    - I've created a member gallery called Britannia Builder's Layout - it contains 4 photos, which are all visible if you go into the gallery, but the summary says there are only 2 photos.

    - as others have mentioned, I can't edit the photos after posting to give them more meaningful names.

    - when I go in via Create and choose to add a new photo to an existing gallery, it seems to give me all the members' galleries to choose from - I didn't actually try to add to another gallery, but surely this ought to be restricted to the owner (creator) of the gallery?

    But overall the gallery facility seems very useful.

    Regards, John

     

    • Like 1

    Consist CV19 changes with no reason on HM7000 sound 8 pin

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    My DoG SD066 profile was only installed a week or two ago and so is presumably the latest version of the software. The address in CV1 is 6 - I don't use long addresses or high values. The other instances of loss of DCC control that I experienced were all nearly a year ago, on a Bachmann 3MT Tank running the Black 5 profile, but I don't know if these were CV19 corruption - I did a CV8=8 reset to recover. I rather thought that the problem had been fixed in a software upgrade, since the Bachmann has been trouble free for such a long time after 3 or 4 failures in relatively quick succession. I have a power bank in the Bachmann but not in the DoG. I'm using Railmaster; Fabio is using Rocrail. I don't use the app for train control, so Bluetooth isn't connected when the problem occurs.

    The only common factor that I can see is that the loco is in motion (under DCC control) at the time that control is lost. I wonder if the decoder is susceptible to some random glitch in the power or the DCC signal which causes it to write random CV values? My CV19 corruption was a value of 16; Fabio mentions a value of 16 but also other seemingly random values.

    Have there been other reports specific to CV19, apart from Fabio's and mine? And how common is the corruption of CV2?

    It's all very puzzling, but not too serious as long as you have an emergency track power off switch close to hand! Knowing now that it's CV19 that needs resetting saves having to use CV8=8 and then laboriously reset all the other customised CVs.

    Regards, John

    Sorry - this is an edit of previous post, changing CV19 to 16 rather than 4. I tried to edit the post but seem to have created a duplicate.

    Mod note - your previous unamended post hidden from view to avoid confusing folk.

    Consist CV19 changes with no reason on HM7000 sound 8 pin

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    I've just had an occurrence of this CV19 corruption problem that Fabio reported above. I was running my Duke of Gloucester with the new SD066 profile under Railmaster DCC control when it stopped responding to the throttle. I had to power down the track to stop it. Interestingly it still responded to sounds, which I guess is how a consist works - CV19 for the throttle, and CV1 for the sounds? I then used the app to read all the CVs from the decoder, and sure enough CV19 was set to 16 as Fabio reported earlier. I've no clue as to what might have caused this CV corruption - the loco was running normally beforehand, and I hadn't been using the app at all. Resetting CV19 to 0 cured the problem.

    Incidentally there's a minor bug in the app CV editor for CV19 - it isn't possible to set the CV to 0 from the slider or keyboard, but it can be zeroed with the reset button.

    Regards, John

    • Like 1

    Self Re-setting CVs

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    While upgrading your Elite to the latest version is undoubtedly a good thing to do, I'd be surprised if it fixed the problem of CV corruption that you describe in your original post.

    There's plenty of anecdotal evidence on this forum of this sort of problem - I've had 3 or 4 instances (not recently) of loss of DCC control while running at speed, necessitating a CV8 reset, and someone else spotted that CV19 had been corrupted after he lost DCC control. I don't know what the answer is!

    Regards, John

    Powering track using Hornby eLink

    in HM | DCC (HM7000)

    Posted

    The eLink should work perfectly well as a power supply. It's obviously normally used with a RailMaster PC attached, but I've often used my eLink to power the track without bothering to connect the PC when using the app to download profiles etc.

    Regards, John

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