ColinB

When I did this to my locos, I fitted a 6 pin socket as it gives you more room. I then used a Zimo direct plug in 6 pin decoder which happily handles the current. As I am always saying the socket gives you the ability of easily converting back to DC if you ever have issues with the loco.

When I have been buying spares for my locos it seems A1/A3 are the only locos that Hornby do seem to have spares for, so you might well be lucky. If you can't find the Service Sheet compare the shape with those on Peters Spares website.

A good idea is before you do any programming get the Elite to read a CV like Manufacturer's Id or the loco address, then you know that the Elite is seeing the loco. Generally I have found Hornby TTS, Dapol, LaisDCC and Zimo decodes work perfectly OK with the Elite, for some reason I cannot get Gaugemaster OMNI and some DCC concept decoders to program with an address.

Hattons have just cancelled my R3843 P2 in Garter blue. Basically that is all my preorders of Hornby from Hattons cancelled, the only they didn't cancel I did. It is not that much of an issue, I just ordered one from Derails, but it cannot be good for Hattons business.

Just as a final ending to this story, I searched around for some proper diodes to fix this item properly. Eventually I found someone that sold ones that would fit and had a better voltage rating. Have you ever tried to solder grains of sand as they were virtually that big. It now works and I am a really happy person.

My Merchant Navy is quite old and I have found that a Zimo 6 pin rewired to 8 pin will fit, I have done this with other models. On my other one I rewired it so the decoder was in the tender. Where I went wrong with this one was to fit a Gaugemaster Omni one, which was a little too wide, I had filed away a bit of the body to make it fit. That particular DCC decoder doesn't seem to work that well with old locos, hence why I am changing it. So there must be 3 types, analogue, DCC in loco and DCC in tender. I have got caught up with that when updating locos where the bits can cost more than a new loco on discount.

I was fixing my rebuilt Hornby Merchant navy, when I noticed that I had damaged the body in my quest to get a DCC decoder to fit. So I thought I will see if there is a decent body on EBay, it was from a set so it didn't matter what name it had as there is no box. Anyway there were quite a few on there ranging from reasonable to amazingly expensive. So anyway I put a bid on one of them. Later on I was looking at Peter's Spare and he has brand new bodies listed for not much more than my maximum bid, so I thought s*lly me. Anyway, auction ends I get "outbid" by some amazing amount, which was good because I ordered the brand new one from Peters Spares. Do people not search anywhere else other than EBay?

I have had about 3 or more of my preorders from Hattons cancelled. The funny thing was I cancelled my blue Merchant Navy "East Asiatic Company" from them before they did and ordered it from two different suppliers as I thought it would be a popular one. Surprise, surprise Hattons have loads of them as it appears has everyone else and I now have two. No issue, it is a good model, I just thought it was funny. Mind you they cancelled my preorder for the Thompson A2 and I have noticed that there are a lot of those about as well. Given the bad reviews I can understand why, although my one runs ok although it has a lot of detailing faults. I must admit my experience with "Rails of Sheffield", when they did Hornby, was entirely different they never let me down.

Well looking on the web if you are referring to R2447, Princess Arthur of Connaught, this looks to be I doubt it has it. The newer version of this type of loco has it on all the time as the DCC decoder is in the tender, so it is either derived from the motor feed or the pickups. On your one if I am right, the DCC decoder is in the loco so if you want to add firebox flicker you can add a flickering LED to the smokebox and either use the F1 wire or use two diodes off the front and rear light pins.

I think what you have to do is power the unit on, before the Hornby comes up the screen basically "blacks" each square of the display. Now press the "loco" button. I just did it with mine and it works. If it is like most of the software I worked on, the system needs to know the initial state of the keys so it can tell that one is pressed, so letting it display a "blank" screen before the "Hornby" logo tells you it is set up.

Have you checked that the brass driving gear on the end of the armature shaft is not slipping, that happens a lot. The other thing to check is the traction tyres, if they have gone hard then you will not get much traction. Usually though if it is traction tyres at fault you get a horrible squealing.

I have loads of TTS decoders at least 20. I also have a few Zimo and LokSound decoders. As long as you accept that the TTS decoder is what it is and as you say it is a third of the price then there really is no issue. The TTS decoders are guaranteed for a year even if you damage it accidentally, so they are worth the money. I have been a critic of them but I now accept generally that they are good value. Yes, I get the odd one that doesn't work but generally they work ok. Virtually all my Bachmann diesels are fitted with them and they work ok, I do have two with LokSound decoders in that came with the locos, they do sound better but are significantly more expensive. So don't let this put you off put a good speaker on the diesel ones and they are perfect and generally once fitted, work ok.

Thanks Chrissaf, I never thought to look there. I will do that next time.

Oh I forgot, I would have expected them to have added the movable coal option, even my United States Lines has that.

I had already converted one of my old ones to DCC and sound by adding in the 4 pin connector and adding a socket in the tender, which is quite easy to do. The biggest issue was cutting the hole and mounting the 4 pin socket on its PCB. It was just I would have thought they would have updated the chassis in line with all their other locos. As I say I am happy with the loco, just surprised even more so that that the RRP for this model is about the same price as the newly released Unbuilt Merchant Navy.

I sent the class 37 one back about 3 weeks ago. I plugged it in the tester it buzzed for about a second then no more. As a decoder it worked perfectly. I tested the speaker which was 8 ohms and replaced it with another, but still no joy. Fortunately I now have one that works. It is worrying though, that they are so unreliable, I had one one Saturday in a Battle of Britain that just suddenly lost sound after 10 minutes, fortunately after switching the DCC off and then on the sound returned. I suppose with the expensive Zimos and Loksound devices, they have to test them to load the sounds so generally they get tested before you buy them.

I bought this off Amazon for a quite reasonable price. I was amazed when it arrived, to find that it is virtually the same as my 20+ years old one. The only obvious difference is the 4 pin connector between loco and tender. Now I am not complaining, it was a good model and still is, but I am amazed that Hornby have not upgraded it in all that time. The only noticeable difference is that this one doesn't have the speedo drive although there is a slot in the body for it. It even still has the movable rear pony track, which Hornby dispensed with on the rebuilt Battle of Britain/West Country ages ago.

It may be that you have the same issue I had with one of these decoders, the sound didn't work. I returned it to get a new one. I learnt very early on with these decoders and advice from members of this forum, to buy a decoder tester. With TTS decoders there is a minority that have issues, so I always test them before I fit them on a loco tester. It becomes really important with the 21 pin Bachmanns as the only way to get then to fit it to hard wire them to a 21 pin header (not enough headroom for an adapter), so before you cut the 8 pin header off you really need to be sure the TTS decoder works.

Just because you haven't used it for 5 years it does not mean that the pickups cannot oxidise. It might be that you have a very fine layer of oxide on the wheels and pickups which is preventing it running. Try cleaning the wheels before you start pulling it apart. The other thing to do seeing as it is working, is run it at medium to fall speed for a couple of circuits of your layout which might clean all the oxide off.

The factory fitted lighted carriages seem to have a lot less drag. Like you I retrofitted lights to some old Hornby carriages and had the same issues.

I have just bought a Hornby Rebuilt Merchant Navy off Amazon Prime. It was at least £20 cheaper than anyone else on the web.

Yes it can be addictive. Don't what ever you do get into DCC and sound that is even worse. I seem to enjoy fixing locos and making them go better and always finding ways to improve them. Once I got into to sound I found I wanted to add it to all my locos, but at £100 a go for a decent sound decoder, you can see how expensive that can get.

I know it is a thing of mine but the one thing Hornby could do is make some spare parts locally rather than not doing them at all. The spare part market is where you can charge a little bit more for a part as the Customer needs that part to fix their $150+ loco. Obviously for some parts it is non economic to make them separately, but for things like buffers I am sure there is and Hornby sprung buffers are really good quality. The thing is with China is that they are cheap for production of high volume items, I am not so sure with the quantities Hornby produce whether they save that much, once you take in the reject rate, shipping and communication links, but obviously Hornby Management are closer to the product so it must be. I did read that since Christmas shipping from China has increased substantially.

I have read many reports in technical magazines that indicate that the cost of labour in China is increasing, I think that is why a lot of firms are looking at India. India though has lots of issues their whole system seems to involve a lot of bribery. Hornby definitely has an issue with that they don't own their production process which means sometimes they get a good batch of locos (recent Merchant Navy release) and others which have many detail faults (Thompson A2). I think one of the other issues with Hornby is that I get the opinion that a lot of their processes are very labour intensive. Trouble is a lot of industries never look further than the past, so they never understand how with new technologies things can be done just as cheaply in the UK. At work we got a load of PCBs made in China which were very cheap, it was not until I went to an electronics exhibition that I was told that a UK firm could make them better and cheaper, basically because they had invested in machinery that could achieve that. The thing most manufactures don't seem to have got to grips with is that 10% failure rate is considered acceptable by the Chinese and there is no such thing as copyright.

Unfortunately with DCC it is so easy to blow decoders up. It is usually because assuming you wire it up correctly, when you try and squeeze it into the available space some stray wire touches the chassis. The other issue with older locos is they draw more current than new ones, so you fit the decoder test it on a length of tack, but when you try it on your layout with points and curves the motor has more load and suddenly you smell the telltale sight that another one has died. I killed loads when I first started, fortunately of late that has stopped. Hornby will replace a TTS decoder if damaged and under one year old, even if you accidentally damaged it.