ColinB

Either way it doesn't matter, most people just want value for money and couldn't care about the rest. To be fair, if they didn't we would be paying ridiculous prices for everyday things. I have a few items preordered with Hornby that I will honour, especially as they are at old prices. I tend to buy most of my locos prefitted with DCC sound, so that dismisses most of Hornby anyway. I just got fed trying to find the space and watching bits drop off, trying to fit DCC.

Not necessarily it all depends what it is, most of it is made by machine so materials has a bit input.

I worked for a small company once, it is a constant headache, because you are small there are not the volumes for purchasing components. So yes they can be lean and mean but they have a lot different issues, finance etc.

So you are comparing a TT:120 with an HO, that is not really a fair comparison. TT is meant to be marketed as a a cheap alternative to OO, well at least that was Simon's original idea. I was comparing the Hornby OO range as that is closest to OO.

Actually that is not much different to the price of a Bachmann class 66 with sound, the Hornby is Railroad so you can't count that, but some of their super detailed diesels if you add decent sound would be getting very close to that figure. My favorite is the class 87, do your figures on that one, limited lighting, plastic pantograph.

In the UK they are considerably more expensive than Accurascale. Cavalex and Dapol. If you then add the extra features you get from Cavalex and Accurascale, things like fully fitted "stay alive" and working metal pantographs, it makes the comparison even worse, but you are entitled to your opinion. I think the engineering on a Roco or Marklin is in a different league, so I expect them to be expensive.

Hornby have had a problem with quality for years. The small vocal minority notice it more than the rest of us do, I notice it when I buy a broken second hand one and figure that it could never have worked properly. The big issue for Hornby is they have jacked their prices up to be the the Rolls Royce of model railways, so people will check every detail to justify spending that much money. Very few people criticise their Railroad Models because everyone, including Sam appreciates that they are built to a price, although the Beatles and Coca Cola stuff (excluding their very nice trams) probably even stretches that view.

I agree with you. The 4 pin tender connector could be an issue if they didn't crimp the pins properly, but generally it is ok. I think they implemented the new design because Dapol did it and they wanted more than 4 connections. I had to take my one apart on my A4 as I got glue in it (putting real coal in the tender and not noticing that there was a leak) and it didn't look like that drawbar was that robust, two many bits relying on plastic which after a couple of years will snap off.

That fault that his model has is a well known one, there is a thread on RMWeb that highlighted it ages ago when they first introduced it. Even Jenny Kirk highlighted that it was an issue, so best not to separate loco from tender. So when he picked it out of the box the two were separate so Hornby definitely shouldn't have packed it like that. PCB edge connectors were pain when I was working in electronics, which is what this is. Yes, it is a pain when you get something that doesn't work and in my case even if it gets sorted (which in this day and age seems to happen less and less) it puts me off buying that product again. As many of you know I used to work in design in the motor industry and the lengths we used to go to for Press release vehicles being perfect were amazing. Then you realise they generally won't give a bad review because they won't get anymore to try out. As one of my bosses once said if you sell someone something duff, you lose that sale plus all their friends and colleagues ones as well. There was a lot wrong with that model, I still have one on order but the lack of a flywheel when other companies provide them is serious, especially when this model was substantially more expensive than its competitors. The hanging PCB again shows a lack of design and possibly an after thought. As he quite rightly said, add your extra features, but not at the expense of the main model design. How do you manage to warp a diecast running board?

I wouldn't buy an Elite unless it was substantially reduced, there are better cheaper solutions. It is good for programming though.

Yes NSE456 you should return it, you shouldn't get this effect on a brand new unit. My Elite exhibits this behaviour but I know the rotary encoders are shot on my one and it is quite old. It is a not a very good idea to have to push the same button as the one you have just rotated, it relies too heavily on the encoder being perfect which it is not.

Well I for one have bought models that he has reviewed, quite often because I didn't know they existed. I am sure I am not the only one. Similar thing could be said for Jenny Kirk. Then there is the subject of DCC fitting because he does an analysis of the mechanism, he highlights the ease with which the DCC socket can be reached, which again is very important to someone like me. I like to know if when I take the body off what else may fall off as well.

Before this thread gets locked I thought I would add that Sam did an interesting review of a Bachmann B1. This is one of the few occasions where the two main suppliers make the same model. He was quite fair in that the Bachmann had a better paint job but on virtually every other aspect the Hornby was better. Highlights were Hornby has tender pickups and a better cab detail. Now these things don't get mentioned in the manufacturer specs for the models but they would definitely make a difference in which one was the better one to purchase.

I doubt they will, they wouldn't want the negative publicity. Sam also sells a lot of Hornby models when he does a good review, which he does. Nobody on this site mentions his top ten of Hornby decent locos, he is right because I have most of them. I am sure I am not the only person that goes out and buys an obscure Hornby model because he did a decent review of it. It is not his fault he got sold a duff Evening Star, mine is perfect, but then that comes down to what we all moan about, Hornby Quality Assurance. The thing that was interesting was the old Railroad model was listed in his Hornby decent locos top ten. I have this model I bought it years ago and yes he is right it is a decent model. On mine a pain to fit DCC as it is in the loco but comparing the two when I run them, unless you knew which was the newer, you can hardly tell the difference.

Have they modified the connection between loco and tender? If they have that would explain some of the differences. A modern 8F/Black Five will have a different tender weight to that in an old 8F as it contains the DCC socket. On an old model it is just a rectangular lump, the modern one is a lot more complicated, the same as fitted to late Scots/Duchess and Princess tenders.

I watched that Sam's video, quite tame with what he used to post, but then I get the feeling he is worried that Hornby may shut his channel down. As far as I was concerned nothing he said was vastly wrong, a lot of the prices he was quoting did seem inflated compared with the original prices. The price of TT items has been slowly creeping up. The HST gripe was exactly what most people would think, in OO scale you thing "well that is because they have cost reduced the model" but with TT that doesn't seem to be the case. Fortunately he hasn't done a review of Hornby's latest 8F offering in OO scale a 20 year old model with less features, that costs considerably more than the retooled Black 5. If I remember rightly he generally bases his prices on the old price plus the necessary inflation in the necessary years to work out if a product is "overpriced". In OO scale it is quite easy to do a comparison, compare a Hornby model costs with a Accurascale, Cavalex or Dapol one, but that probably explains why I have been picking up a lot of Hornby releases at bargain basement prices.

I called it a voltage doubler because that seemed an easier description. Ii is a switched mode integrated circuit that does the necessary conversion in this case stepping the voltage up from the stored value on the capacitor. Actually from your description it is a voltage doubler because fully charged the charged voltage will be 5 volts.

BritInVanCA is not in the UK so I imagine sending it back is an expensive option. I have to agree though speakers shouldn't blow and if I remember from my audio days, if they go short circuit they take out the audio stage of the driver.

I know I did all that, I found it to be a big issue with 6 pin decoders, put in one make and the loco hardly moves put in another and no issue. One of the first things I generally do is check the current rating, plus on virtually all my steam locos there are no functions used. That is why on older locos I exclusively use Zimo decoders.

I don't know what your setup is, in that do you have a DCC controller? If you do then what I suggest is after you have converted your older locos to DCC, test them with a decent high current decoder. I am going to say a Zimo one because I have found to be the best at driving older locos and believe me I tried many when I converted mine. I will add I have no financial interest in Zimo, I just find them to be the most reliable. If if works with one of these then it proves your conversion is correct. Then try it it with the HM7000. On a lot of my old Hornby 0-6-0 locos I use a 6 pin connector for the conversion and initially because they were cheaper I would use cheap N gauge decoders mainly because Zimo ones are in the order of £30 plus. Surprisingly a lot would exhibit the behaviour you are getting. For some reason certain decoders don't always work. On all of them I checked the maximum output current in the specification but come to the conclusion that there might be some artistic license in there somewhere. I have only ever used HM7000 with my brand new locos from Hornby, so I can't really comment as to whether they will work with older locos.

No someone else said that, probably why you can't find it, I thought they were wrong but I just thought I didn't want to correct them. I am pretty sure on the LaisDCC Kung Fu ones I use, they don't, as they use 4 capacitors and on the one of mine where the wires fell off there was no voltage doubler device (it needs more than 3 pins). By using ordinary capacitors that is how they can sell 5 different sizes. Also if they used a voltage doubler device they would be more expensive than what I pay. Looking at the PCBs Train O Matic use them, as do Zimo on their more expensive "Stay Alives".

Of course it works, they wouldn't sell it if it didn't but given the description I suspect not as described. This is my last comment on this as I just think it is not all that it is made out to be. Normal "stay alive" has two connections which normally would go to VRef and Ground, so if there is no logic on the decoder Powerbank must have the same, so unless you have some supporting logic on the decoder which connects to Vref there is no way you can control the charging current with a port on the decoder. As I say they work, so that is it. I did read a lot about all different ways you could implement "stay alive" by using voltage doublers as in the case of the Train o Matic ones (looking at the components on a LaisDCC pcb they don't do it this way). So I will leave it at that.

I know I have racked my brain with all the electronics knowledge I have learn over the years and it doesn't make sense. To control a transistor on the powerbank you need a separate input. The Powerbank only has two, you would need three to make it work.

Great thanks that is how I suspected it worked. The decoder I also assume contains the diode that feeds VRef when the "stay alive" is in operation.

I understand that there are no charging components on the decoder but are you saying that the transistor that controls the charging is on the decoder pcb?