Baychattan

I have done this, and all the locos are now behaving (at least for the moment).

Doing that with 11 decoders is going to take best part of a day by the time that several decoders have needed their sound files loaded more than once to make them ‘stick’. And the issue could repeat. For many months my decoders were ‘H’ free, the ‘H’ only appeared when decoders started dropping out of the mesh. At a guess the HM-DCC app is supposed to be the host. Now, when the ‘host’ loco (only) is powered down the whole mesh collapses and all locos lose connection to the HM-DCC app. Methinks I will leave the ‘malignant’ decoders set to DCC operation, and change over the others as and when their bluetooth ‘fails’. Much easier. I will leave rebuilding the system until Hornby have fixed the problem. If any of the decoders get near to a year old before the fix appears then that decoder will be returned as defective - defective firmware is still defective goods.

I have 11 locos which have HM7000 sound decoders. When my layout is operating all are normally powered, but the ones not running are in sidings (separate power district). I have other non-HM7000 locos. Four of the HM7000 locos are now giving me grief, in that that the bluetooth part is not working. When I start up the HM-DCC app, 7 locos are found, with the first marked as 'host' with a little blue 'H' next to its blue Bluetooth symbol. The four troublesome locos have red Bluetooth symbols, and don't respond to any commands (motion, lights or sound) from the app. The HM-DCC is running on an Apple iPad mini 6, iPadOS 17.2 (ie latest). The decoders are all up to date with the latest bluetooth firmware. If I put any of the four locos on my programming track, and write 0 into CV12 (ie control handed to DCC not bluetooth), when back on the main track they operate normally from my Elite DCC controller, including lights and sound. The 11 HM7000 locos are listed in the app in the order that they were installed. The first loco listed is a 'good' one, the second and third are troublesome ones. If I start up the layout (or just restart the HM-DCC app) with the first, 'good', loco off the track (ie unpowered), the app 'finds' the second ('troublesome') loco, and it gets a blue 'H' and a blue Bluetooth symbol. But none of the other locos are 'found' by the app and stay with red bluetooth symbols. So the 'troublesome' locos are not forming a mesh with anything else. And, the loco will not respond to commands from the app, ie no movement, lights or sound. But the app is resetting CV12 to 2, so the loco needs another trip to the programming track before it will run from the Elite controller again. What are peoples' thoughts? Send the decoders back as faulty? (one is in a sound-fitted 9F).

I received a Next-18 sound decoder today, and installed it in my 'Tiger'. It's a VERY tight fit, and the cover over the decoder slot only just hangs on. But it works! With sound (Ok, not the correct sound without the app, but...) from the built-in speaker in the tender, which presumably connects via some of the 18 pins and doesn't use the speaker socket on the decoder. Successfully reprogrammed the 'loco' number from 3 to 28 on the programming track using an Elite.

My pre-orders for the 8-pin and 18-pin bluetooth sound decoders have just been "released" - but not the legacy dongle... The 'stay-alive' is also 'available to order'.

I phoned Hornby yesterday to find out about my pre-order of a R30134X Era 3 Turbomotive. Apparently 'X' pre-orders have been changed to 'TXS' ones on Hornby's internal despatch system but they can't amend what shows on the website order pages.

Does anyone know the difference between the R7399 and R7400 Vacuum Pipe Magnetic Couplings, other than one is "19mm" and the other is "20mm". The 'technical specs' are the same, and it is not evident what is 19mm or 20mm, or where one or the other would/should be used. At a guess the difference is the inter-carriage spacing, but...

I have been amused for a while with the Hornby website 'noticing' that I am "visiting from the USA" and questioning whether I want the UK or US website, whereas I am actually in Yorkshire. Less amusing is that when Hornby asked for my payment details to be updated (cos a pre-order has turned up), the website will only accept US payment methods... David

The underside 'space' for decoders, under the removable panel, is rather small. The Hornby 8-pin decoder fits, just, but other slightly larger pcbs don't. To fit a sound decoder in the NDM car is a major operation, to locate the decoder pcb at one end of the (upper) body and the loudspeaker at the other end - this needs dismantling of the model and soldering/un-soldering to get wires through narrow gaps and lengthen wires.

Any recommendations for sound decoders? I am thinking of the 5-car pack, which has one NDM and two driving cars. I presume that one sound decoder for the NDM and "plain" decoders for the two driving cars are needed.

It looks to me as if it would be feasible to 3d-print additional straight and curved track sections. David

For converting an R070 turntable for DCC control, is an R7274 decoder ok? It is less expensive than the R8249, and has the required red, orange, grey and black wires.