ColinB

@VESPA you are absolutely right, I did exactly the same. Fortunately I managed to acquire by a mixture of second hand and old stock, but they are always doing it. They sold a whole lot of Scotrail carriages, the blue ones like Bachmann now do, with no diesel to go with them. I had to go and find a Dapol one.

I did wonder 96RAF if perhaps many retailers were not doing them because of the issues, so when they run out they don't restock. There were an awful lot of them. I did do a search of many, I didn't check Hornby because they are not very competitive in pricing. As to the cost I just mentioned Hornby are very expensive at over £50.00 a go, which may be why they have stocks left. Bure Valley were doing them for £35.00, yes I appreciate that they were probably old stock hence the low price. As to the 21 pin, I suspect that we won't be seeing any of that until early next year, although they did already have a 21 pin socket that fitted into the tender for the early locos with LokSound decoders so really they just need to resurrect that. It was a really nice board in PCB terms, I even bought a couple of tenders second hand just for that board. It is also a direct replacement for the PCB with the 8 pin socket. Hattons did have both but I have just scanned and they no longer have them. Even Hornby are saying that they are the last few. I have just found one at the old price at Tennants and on that site it also says discontinued product, so perhaps it is.

Sadly wapples you said it in your response that it is your first. I have two DCC controllers, basically because I fix broken ones. I have a Fleishmann Twin Track and an Elite. The Fleishmann is brilliant for running, but not so good for programming. The Elite is great for programming, not so good for running. The really annoying features I find with the Elite is the rotary switch with the push button. Quite often you select an option with the rotary control only to find by pressing the knob the value increments or decrements the value you set, this only gets worse as the rotary control gets older and looser.The Fleishmann gets over this by only allowing values to be set via the keyboard. The other thing with the Elite I found while running is although it is marketed as a twin controller, you have constantly select each loco before the second controller will work, so the two controls are not independent. I don't know much about Railmaster, but looking at demos it is not what I want. I am seriously thinking of upgrading to a DigiKeijs as from what I have read it is the sort of device I am looking for and is substantially cheaper than an Elite. I suppose it really depends on what you really want, the Elite is really easy to use but so if the Fleishmann.

I must admit I didn't check that one, they are too expensive, but an awful lot of the retailers were saying it is discontinued. I think the class 60, was still marketed by them but again very few retailers have them.

Ok this sounds like a moan, but it isn't it is just an observation. I have just ordered the new A3 from Hornby, go to buy a suitable TTS decoder and notice that Hornby have discontinued it. Fortunately there are still a load of Retailers with them, but isn't this a missed opportunity? Similarly, about a month ago Hornby released a class 60 diesel, same again Hornby have stopped doing the TTS decoder. These are just a few of many. As we know from the TV program all TTS decoders are the same, they just load the particular locos signature into it (I knew this ages ago, but the program proved it), aren't Hornby missing sales opportunities? As for me, if the loco is any good I will put a decent sound decoder in it, fortunately with the price rises TTS decoders are not such a good value as they were.

I am sure it is fixable but obviously if you are paying someone to fix it then it is the best idea to sell it. Just list it as normal stating that it kills decoders, there are a lot of people that still run DC. It has got to be fixable, trouble is I hate to say this, a lot of so called repairers don't have the skill, but obviously take the money. Finding shorts is time consuming. I have fixed many locos supposedly previously fixed by a repairer. That is why I am a bit harsh with some of my responses, I hate to see people getting "ripped off". Before you sell it check to see if it has a capacitor across the motor, they sometimes go short circuit and blow up decoders. If the socket is in the loco check the pins of the socket aren't too long and touching the chassis, that would short things out and if the spacing was marginal.

If you buy a 6 pin socket off of Bachmann, Laisdcc or DCC concepts it does in fact come with the right colours. Probably the Hornby 4 pin does because they probably buy in the sockets with looms all ready wired. As I said before I can see why Hornby use all black, when I used to work on avionics generally the backplane used all the same colour wire. It is a bit of a pain as when you disconnect the wires from the motor unless you label them, it is so easy to get them round the wrong way. That is probably what happened with this guys P2, the person puts the new 5 pole motor in and just wires it up. The only way I tend to notice that they are wired up incorrectly is to run them against an unmodified loco, generally a new one. I cannot believe we are still discussing this. One Dapol loco I have, I think it is the class 73, they miswired the whole lot so to get the lights to work properly you have to reverse the motor connections. It even says it in the instructions. I suppose I am unusual especially since I worked in software most of my life, I tend not to change CVs unless I absolutely have to.

It appears Hornby do use grey and orange on their 4 pin connector for the 0-6-0, I have have just looked at a spare brand new motor I bought, perhaps this is where the confusion comes from?

I think we have done this one to death, but 96RAF which locos have you been looking at. I don't think I have ever seen Orange and Grey wires going to the motor on a steam loco and I have repaired an awful lot. As I was saying earlier generally they are both black. Your are right with the red and black. It gets even worse with the locos with the socket in the tender, all wires in the tender are either red or black, red for one side and black for the other. When you come to the loco all the wires go to the 4 way connector and they are all black. The only ones I can think of that might be orange and grey are the small tank engines. I assume they use read and black as it is cheaper in production to limit the type of different wire. There is a photo of an A3 Flying Scotsman insides on another thread, surprise wires are black except for the red pick up wire. Trouble is by telling people they are orange and grey means someone will open up the loco and be immediately confused. In fact if you buy a replacement socket from Hornby pre wired, you will never guess what colour the wires are? Yes red and black.

It happens at bike autojumbles as well. Dealers go round before the public and buy up the good stuff.

I don't know if anyone is interested but Rails are doing a Bachmann class 66 Evening Star. The thing about it is that they are selling this model with sound fitted for £207. When you realise the sound decoder itself is worth over £100, that is really good value for money, the Bachmann class 66 is a really good loco. I received mine this morning after waiting for about 2 years. I know it is not Hornby but currently Hornby don't do Evening Star in class 66.

I think when I tried it, it did work with the existing worm, but I decided just in case to use the longer worm off the original motor. I assumed that Hornby must have used the longer worm for a reason, although of late I am beginning to wonder. The good thing about those pendolino motors is they are relatively cheap compared to other Hornby motors. Mod note - your two duplicate posts removed Colin.

I found with a lot of my electrofrog points that on a few of them the links fell off all on their own, perhaps I have a bad batch. I also found that it is a good idea to do this anyway as quite often as the wheels of the loco move across the point you can get a short. It took me ages to figure how it did it, but it does.

@Deem funny that someone would take the flywheel out, if you use the Pendolino motor it has two shafts so it is a straight swap. I did worry at the time that the Pendolino motor would be too fast but it doesn't seem to be.

I hate to say this Fishmanoz, but when was the last time you saw an orange and grey wire in a Hornby loco. Generally the two wires going to the motor are black, well definitely in all steam locos I have. I have fixed many Hornby locos and this is generally the case. I have never checked on diesels as generally I am not fixing those. So yes I agree if the direction is wrong swap the motor wires around, I would suggest at the motor end as it is generally easier and safer. As I said in an earlier post half the issue is that both wires are black so if you do anything to the motor there is a 50% chance you will get it wrong. I think perhaps the author should have a long hard think and decide whether they are running DCC or DC as generally if a decoder is fitted it is not a good idea to run DC. I sometimes run a DCC loco on DC if I am testing it out and I can't be bothered to setup DCC, but generally I am not bothered which way it goes in DC. As both functions are controlled by the software in the decoder, I would expect the loco to go the same way in DCC and DC, but it is entirely dependant on who programmed the software.

I don't know if anyone else has done this, but on my DCC layout I use lots of isolating sections in front of points. The effect of this is if the loco comes the to the point it automatically stops as there is no power. So anyway I needed a switch to enable power to these sections. I tried the Peco ones and found they put a huge load on the point motor and it meant I had to use Peco point motors. Then I tried microswitches, again a pain to set up, then I can across this idea for electrofrog points. What you do is attach one wire to the blade of the point and the other to one of the outside rails. So that when the blade is touching the other rail you get the DCC voltage across the two wires. You now feed this signal into an AC driven relay board and hey presto you have a system that will work reliably with any point motor. If you use a double pole relay you can even switch the frog voltage. Note the wire is attached to the part of the blade that doesn't move.

Correct me if I am wrong but it is basically a Jinty same as Thomas the Tank. I have had issues with these where the pinion on the axle wears. The user then plays around with the motor mounting to get it to work. I have been through it where you can get it to go forwards but then you find it doesn't run properly backwards. Now it could be the guy that sold it on EBay had stored it forgot about this and sold it on. Either way that could be your issue. Annoyingly when I replaced the crown wheel or what you call it I could find nothing wrong with the old one but definitely the new one fixed the issue, so the worm must wear away the crown wheel in a consistent pattern so it is smaller with no noticeable indent. The other thing with these is the pickups can "ping" off the wheels so check that they are located properly. The motors are pretty basic their only fault is they fry very easily.

Which is what I said about 5 posts ago.

Vespa it did the verification check on both cards, texted me a code to put into the application, as I said in one of my earlier posts it appears Hornby haven't properly implemented the last bit of the security check, someone on another thread did say it is easy to get it wrong. Sadly Hornby do it all too frequently. I suppose another issue is with their price rises they might have got over the limit for a payment but I doubt it. Incidentally I have been using my card for other purposes since and it works perfectly.

The issue with electrofrog points is mainly the frog. To get the best out of them you need to isolate the frog from the main point. Peco allow links which you push out for this. Originally I didn't bother so you just put isolating pieces in the right place and it works like an old point. Trouble is Peco's welding of the links isn't that great so they fall out on their own, so in my case you eventually have to power the frog separately. The easiest solution is to buy an autofrog device which does it for you and relies on the loco to set the polarity of the point, so not that big an issue it just that you have to wire it in. I have used them and they definitely work. Because I use isolating sections I use a double pole relay board to do the same, one side of the relay enables the isolating section the other does the frog. The way I drive the relay is to use the DCC on the blade of the point to switch a relay. If you are interested I will post a photo of the modified point. Alternatively you can use a microswitch on the point lever itself. Some point motors already have it integrated, seep being one. They definitely are a huge improvement.

If you really want to remove the problem, replace the points with electrofrog points. Trouble is this brings a whole set of issues although I must admit once resolved does give much better running. My DCC layout is wired up with isolating sections before each point so that if the point is set wrong the train stops. I also just set up sections so I can isolate parts of the track, awfully useful if you have a short and cannot find it. With normal points the big issue seems to be the plastic piece in the frog. On a lot of my old ones the plastic expands differently to the rail so sometimes an 0-6-0 tank pirouettes on its middle wheel that is resting on the plastic part. I don't use shorting links, I am still trying to work out why you would need them, but I suppose it all depends how you wire your layout.

Well it probably will because if changing CV29 didn't work you obviously haven't set the bit. The trouble I have found is with my Elite it quite often says it has changed a valve when it it has not. I have got to the point of counting the relay clicks, which I assume is the Elite putting power onto the programming track. This gets tons worse if you have bit of dirty track or "stay alive" fitted. It also has a habit indicating it has finished when you know it did it too quickly so has failed but not told you. Generally I always try to read back what I initially set but with the Select, I gather that is not possible.

Funny I have just got a response from my email. Interesting though says they say phoned me on my mobile although my mobile has no missed calls and to phone Customer Services with the phone number, which surprisingly is closed on a Saturday. I assume they must be working from home.

Yes, Britannia builder I had the same mail at 15-05 pm yesterday which unfortunately was 5 minutes too late for their Customer Support lines. They don't seem to answer their EMails for a couple of days either. I did start an alternative thread about it.

According to the datasheet am LM358 op amp should be capable of driving 30 mAmp. So that is more than enough to drive a LED.