ColinB

I think in virtually all cases it is cheaper to buy the loco with the DCC/DCC Sound option fitted. Normally the saving is £10 to £20 and you don't have the hassle of taking the loco apart to fit it. Also with special releases it is quite often difficult to get the right sound decoder separate.

To be fair I don't think any of the other manufacturers do either. I think the only ones I have got with the DC header (blanking plate) included are the ones I have bought from Rails where they have done the conversion. Mind you I have loads of the 8 pin headers. Every time I buy a DCC socket it comes with its own header, which I very rarely use. Trouble is a lot of the newer ones have diodes and smd components on them to make the lights work when running on DC.

Thank you for the information. The Lais ones I have, actually have 4 devices.

That is why I said 5 volts maximum, I knew it was less than that but thank you for pointing it out. Either way it is not 15 volts.

Hornby put 3 in series because they are only rated at 5 volts maximum, so you get 15 volts, you are not really meant to do that. I assume AE do as LaisDCC do and put them in parallel with the right voltage across them.

I am not promoting them, I use them because they are useful and it appears a lot of people don't know they exist, if the evidence from most of the posts is anything to go by. I have bought many brands than don't actually work, that ended up wasting my money, I would like to stop other people falling into the same traps. I have no financial interest in this firm and I pay the same price as anyone else so what is the issue?

Trouble with this video the guy eventually got someone else to fit it for him, so not really much help. If you are going to use a Zimo decoder generally you can get away with just adding a capacitor which is what is usually supplied. So instead of using the supplied one from YouChoos you can couple 4 surface mount tantalum capacitors together which will fit in a much smaller space. If you want to use "stay alive" LaisDCC market one that is incredibly small. Mod note - guideline #1 - no active promotion of other brands although discussion is allowed.

Should be roughly the same, a lot depends on the capacitors they use. I use LaisDCC ones with my Zimo decoders and the time is roughly the same. The HM7000 doesn't have one but the Zimo and Train O Matic decoders have a CV for setting how long the long will run without a DCC signal. For the HM7000, I imagine 0.5 of a second should be good enough.

I know, Detroit is opposite Windsor in Canada, just crossing the bridge or tunnel from Detroit that separates the two countries, is like going into a different world. The beer is also better.

I know I read a lot of posts like these on this forum. What people don't understand is that all you need to do, is feed the same DCC signal to all sections so basically paralleling up the feeds to one source. The separate isolating sections are really useful if you have a short you cannot find.

I have converted many of my old models to DCC that includes many Ringfield motors and Bachmann split chassis. The ones I don't convert are my Wrenns because why butcher a collectable loco and some really old Triang locos where the pickup arrangement is not that robust and it is so easy to short the motor to the pickups taking the decoder with it. The big issue is that a lot of these locos use high currents in Model Railway terms so a good starting point is to test them with a decent decoder that has decent motor control. I used Zimo ones for my conversions, I found Hattons, Hornby and many others had a habit of blowing up even though according to the specification the current limit should be ok. I have never tried with a HM7000 but to be quite honest if you want to convert your old locos, convert them to DCC first, check they run ok then add the HM7000. I have seen a number of posts saying that these decoders are not as reliable as they should be, one of mine just failed for no valid reason. As to the Blue Merchant Navy, I converted mine, in fact the new ones Hornby make to this day are no different except they have put the decoder in the tender. When I converted my one I decided the area inside the loco was too cramped so I I added the 4 pin connector between loco and tender and put the decoder in the tender with a socket so it is easy to test and upgrade decoders if you ever need to. I forgot to add adding extra pickups as you have, improves things a lot, with the class 29 ( I have one ) the big issue is that the ringfield has traction tyres so you cannot pickup current on these wheels. I also added extra pickups to the trailing bogie by using later Hornby parts.

Can you let us know if they work, I suspect they will. The big one will be if you can read back CV parameters while in programing mode.

Unless AE have reversed the connections in the plug, nothing will happen. I am not surprised at the failure rate, I must admit all mine work. The good thing about Hornby is generally there is no quibbling. To do detailed analysis of a broken decoder takes time and I doubt they would bother doing much other than checking if it works. DCC Concepts are marketing this device, if they didn't think it worked they wouldn't sell it.

As I said in your other thread how are Hornby going to know. The AE "Stay Alive" has the same connector, so you just remove the "Stay alive" before you send it back. Anyway I really do doubt you would blow the decoder up anyway.

I read the data from DCC Concepts and the AE "Stay Alive" has the same 3 pin connector as the Hornby Powerbank. This means you will not be soldering directly to the HM7000 so you will not invalidate the warranty. If by chance the decoder dies (which I very much doubt it will), you just unplug the "Stay alive" and return the decoder to Hornby. How are they ever going to know. I doubt DCC Concepts would be advertising it as an alternative if it didn't work or damaged the decoder, it is not like they know nothing about DCC. The bigger issue is size, it is bigger than the Hornby Powerbank. Perhaps long term AE will make a smaller pack, which I suspect will sell quite well.

I glad you did that, I was wondering what the comparative sizing was. Compared to a LaisDCC "stay alive" the Hornby one was pretty big.

Past recordings and merging sounds. So they might take the sound of a similar engine and then add whistles from another one. I must admit I would like to know what file format they use.

Great, Thanks a lot.

Do Hornby do the loco images as separate files? I know you can load them into the HM7000 App but I want to load them into the Z21 App.

I hate to say it but the UK is not the highest cost labour nor is it the most problematic anymore. You obviously are stuck somewhere in the 1970s. Read any newspaper/webpage and you will find as a country we are no worse than the rest. I read a report about the US and Germany suffering similar issues and Tesla had no issues opening a plant in Germany, although reading latest reports I suspect they are beginning to regret that now. To go on strike in the UK is extremely difficult with the latest labour laws, so please stop knocking this country and please don't believe everything you read. Most issues with the lack of working population is they don't want minimum wage jobs or zero hours contracts, they want meaningful employment which there is an increasing lack of. Right political bit over, sorry about the rant but I hate it when people are so negative. I have travelled many places with my job and you would be surprised how bad they are, try getting some work done during the Germans lunch break or moving the contents of you desk in the US without getting a fine from the Union responsible for normally doing it. As to moving production to the UK, who knows, I have made my feelings clear on numerous occasions.

No, unless they have changed the design lately. I tried them.

Their decoders may be clones but in this case they are not. Now whether I haven't found the company they cloned them from, but any decent analogue electronics can design one so I am sure they can. They also make four sizes ranging from large to small, which no other company does. Zimo and YouChoos do one you can populate with your own capacitors but the circuit is missing the all important switching transistor, which means it screws up programming mode. As I said I have tried several different makes.

96RAF stated that LaisDCC "stay alives" were not very good which is an incorrect statement, they are in fact very good. I only use them with my Zimo decoders. With my HM7000 decoders I either use the Powerbank or in the case of P2s and 9Fs none at all. Perhaps one day when I am brave enough, I might see if a LaisDCC works with a HM7000 having looked at both circuits they look very similar. I suspect the HM7000 just uses a software switch to enable it.

It is probably the "stay alive" in the Cavalex that is helping it. I fitted "stay alive" to my Hornby Jinty and was amazed by the effect.

It does and that is what I said, it is you guys that seem to be kicking up a fuss. I just pointed out the LaisDCC ones work perfectly well, which they do.