ColinB

I was answering Fishmanoz and 96RAF. I suspect the system Hornby were thinking of probably didn't work that reliably or the person that was working on it left. It sounds like the system they were proposing was just a proximity detector either picking up the magnetic field of the motor or using other sensors. Trouble is you would probably feed the data into RailMaster, so if you changed the loco you would have to change all the data. I can see how you would do it. I suspect the changes to RailMaster ruled it out, that is a lot of programming effort. You can probably easily detect the loco by having an isolated section that detects the loco as it crosses into it, bit like the autofrog device, then once it has detected the loco switches the DCC to that section.

I see what you are saying, so yes you can do it that way but you are duplicating the data. So effectively when you set the DCC address into Railmaster you would also have to set the corresponding ID that is on the loco. So how did Hornby propose doing this, a bar code under each loco? Anything is possible it is just how much time and money you want to spend on it. As I said, I can understand why Hornby hasn't implemented it. One of the things I would like them to do, is implement the reduced voltage DCC feature as in Zima and certain other decoders, where if the loco sees a reduced voltage the motor stops but all the other features work. On my DCC layout I have lots of switched sections which stop the loco if the points are against it. As the sections are controlled by relays it would be really easy to add the reduced voltage feature, but my TTS powered locos don't support this.

At the moment I have an Excel spreadsheet for DCC loco addresses. So I use the same for listing the locos. As to pricing them, I must admit I haven't at the moment but there is the point that if something nasty happens to you it might by useful to however has to sort out your stuff. If lets say you have a loco worth about £100 probably at current market values nearer £200 and it contains a Zimo or LokSound decoder, to the average person it looks like a £10 special not realising that effectively the locos replacement value is nearer £300. On a couple of occasions I have bought a second hand loco, to open it up and find a Zimo or Loksound decoder. Lets not forget even if the sound decoder doesn't work, you can trade it in for a new one for £30.00, so effectively a broken one is worth £70.00.

I know this subject is a long time ago. Since this topic was posted I have gained more of these locos. I found with the very latest and greatest there is no issue, but with the older ones with the movable pony truck such as the "City of Chester" there is an issue. I eventually traced it to the design of the front bogie, funny the tender driven locos don't seem to have an issue but these do. Looking at the difference between the "City of Chester" front bogie and say the "City of Edinburgh" the design is different but importantly the latter design contains a spring to keep the front bogie in tension. This seems to solve the issue. Sadly Hornby don't do the new bogies as a spare part, but if you can get them the latter Princess Elizabeth ones will fit if you straighten them out slightly. I also found the same issue with the previous design of the Princess Elizabeth, but in this case all you do is fit the later front bogie and reposition its mounting point further forward.

Has anyone ever seriously thought about this one. To do serious loco detection you really need to know the DCC address of the loco, which is a big issue. Sure you can detect a loco, but how do you know which one it is? Now I think DCC has a facilty for reading back the loco address, but to do this you would need sections of isolated track at the detection area or a different system for detecting the loco id. That is why I suspect Hornby has not implemented it. I can think of loads of ways of doing it badly but to do it properly you need a system that detects the ID of the loco via DCC.

I suspect the major reason is that they can sell it cheaper. So what is different about this PSU requirement?

The early Bachmann one I have is not bad. As I run DCC I had to convert it by isolating the motor, but they do run well.

I have the Bachmann one, they made it with their split chassis design. Alternatively get someone like TMC to renumber and rename a Mallard for you.

The easiest solution is to use a Zimo decoder these have higher function current capability. I successfully used these in my early 80's locos with smoke units. To be quite honest if your loco is relatively old they are a better bet as their max output current is 0.8 amps compared to 0.5 for a Hornby one, with better function capability. Some ringfield motors can draw more than 0.5 amps. Zimo decoders are virtually the same price as a Hornby one at full price. Sadly paralleling up two function outputs is not a good idea as you cannot guarantee that the two functions will split the current equally. I did find that my Hornby smoke units drew less than 100 milliamps, but with tolerance spread it could be more with a different unit. Anyway using a higher spec decoder makes wiring easier.

The thing is does your HST pick up power from both bogies, some of the early ones use one bogie for one side of the supply and the other bogie for the other side. What you can do is buy a class 90 pickup (which you will need to trim) or a later HST one (if you can get it) so that the front non powered bogie picks up both sides of the supply. The only issue is that you have to be careful that the extra pickup doesn't cause too much drag.

I see the issue you have, the pin is on the loco rather than the tender, if the Scotsman is the top one. This makes it a bit difficult, I have this issue with my A1 Tornedo, the only way I can think to fix it is to put a small piece of plastic tube at the bottom of the pin, once the drawbar is fitted.

In my case the first thing I do if there are any issues is replace the speaker. no a couple of them have just failed.

The Hornby 6 pin one will fit, a Zimo MX617 even better. The technique is to wrap the decoder in two halves of the barrel. There have been posts on this in the past'

The one in the dummy has not got a motor load so reading CVs will be an issue. If you had done what 96RAF and myself do and wired in sockets you could swap between dummy and powered ends. I have a couple of TTS decoders that have failed with no sound so it is not so unusual. Next time test the decoder before you chop off the connector. In this case though there is plenty of space to wire a socket and you can get some really cheap ones off EBay if you don't want to pay Hornby prices, although I must admit their latest version is really good.

I am just finishing up the last of my tender driven loco conversions. The Duchess fitted straight in the only thing I had to do was make the front and middle wheel arches slightly bigger on two out of the three.. One of the A3 fitted perfectly but the other using a replacement body from Peters spares, I had to remove some lugs from inside the body. On both I had to machine away the raised numerals on the back of the body to get the location piece of metal to fit. The Princess Elizabeth fitted straight in. The Britannia (Morning Star) fitted straight in. The only one that needed a lot of work was the A4. On this I had to machine the back, make up a plate to hold the rear fitting in and because on my tender driven locos the front is held on by the cylinder block, make up a plastic mounting. Comparing the old Hornby with new chassis against the new Hornby they weren't that much different. The newer bodies tend to have a lot of separately fitted parts, which if you could get them separately would probably make them the same. The other thing is the paint job is much more superior on the new ones.

I suppose each to their own. I have very many locos fitted with TTS sound, admittedly I generally use a different speaker, but they sound ok to me. I must admit the diesels sound better. Considering a standard decoder costs about £20 and some TTS decoders on discount are as low as £30, the TTS decoder is good value for money. I have a few Zimo sound decoders and a couple of locos fitted with the the LokSound decoders, I must admit that they are streets ahead of the TTS, but they are nearly 3 times the price.

My local DIY shop still sells them and last time I looked so do "Hobbycraft".

In that case it is probably the buffer that sits between the processor and the programming output. I suspect someone like Lendons can probably fix it. It depends whether it has taken out the output port on the main processor, but I doubt it, PICs are pretty robust devices. If mine ever goes wrong I will probably let you know exactly what it is.

So BigNoj did your Elite completely fail, or was it just the programming output. I suspect if Hornby can't fix it in an hour they write it off.

What I do, is as "Going Spare" suggests. Buy the 4 pin plug and socket. On the tender, I think your tender bottom is coloured but if it is not, you can buy the upgraded tender bottom that takes the 4 pin socket. You will also need the tender wheel holder that has the cut out. The tender bottom is the same on the Duchess, Princess and rebuilt Scot classes, so it gives you lots of spares options. Alternatively as I have done with models where I cannot get a new tender bottom is file out a rectangular hole in the existing tender. As for the DCC socket, Peters Spares did have some of the latest weights that have the mounting points on them Sadly he has sold out, so you can mount a Hornby PCB holder onto the weight, to take the 8 pin PCB. I am currently doing the same modification to a City of Glasgow that is not DCC ready.

The Hornby power supplies will be CE rated, that is why you find with a lot of devices that there is a separate power supply. We were thinking of selling one of our internal designs at work, it quickly became very apparent that to have the power supply separate made getting CE certification a lot easier. A good quality laptop supply will be CE certified, so if you stick to these you should be ok.

Generally a laptop charger should work, I use them for powering Leds in my kitchen and the lighting for my railway. There are two things you have to worry about. First is the output from the charger too high and secondly is it too low. Generally most controllers have an AC filtering stage where they filter the "nasty s" from the power supply so as long as your charger's voltage is not too high then no issue. I had this same issue with my Fleishmann controller, which is obsolete so no spares, in the end I just tried it and it worked.

Even if it isn't DCC ready, with this one it is really easy, but I am pretty sure it is DCC ready. Getting the body off on these is relatively easy, check you don't have a speedo drive to remove before you pull the body off.

According to the "Model Rail Database" and one that is for sale on EBay it is DCC ready. I suspect the socket is in the loco.

I might be telling people something they already know, but I split the gear on my Duchess centre wheel. It was a loco I had just bought secondhand as a non runner. Did you know that the idler gear that you buy when you buy x8849 seems to be exactly the same gear as is on the centre axle of the Duchess. I compared them both before I fitted the new one and they were exactly the same. Put the wheels back and my Duchess now runs perfectly. Correct me if I am wrong.