Pendragon Sailing

As an experiment, I tried to retro-fit one of the tiny plugs, and found it impossible. The connections are so minute there are no tools (or eyesight) that I know of that would allow you to do it at home. If you want to avoid soldering directly to the 21 Pin decoder, all you can do is to wait for Hornby’s PB supply chain to free up again. Alternatively, if you can get your hands on some suitable plugs that have already been wired (good luck there), you could then just solder them on to your Lais Stay-Alive’s wires. Not very helpful, I know. But there it is 🫤

As the originator of this post last September, I thought it would be useful to provide another update of where I’ve got to with HM7000, a year on from its original launch. I now have 34 locos fitted with HM7000 with all running smoothly and (mostly) behaving themselves out on the track. The one thing that upsets them is either a dirty piece of track and/or a dodgy point. The Bluetooth signal can’t cope with even a momentary loss of power and has to reset itself when this happens, which can take up to 30secs or so, depending on where the loco is listed in my ‘Engine Shed’. However, that’s the nature of Bluetooth, and in my opinion, its advantages for outweigh its disadvantages. This connection issue aside, I’m absolutely delighted with the performance and reliability of my 34 decoders. I’ve no doubt that I’ll be adding more over time (particularly when the 6 pin version is released). Furthermore, I have switched a lot of them from loco to loco and uploaded new sound profiles on many of them. The process is now second nature to me and rarely takes more than 10mins from start to finish. I don’t use the Elite or Select, therefore the Dongle is not an option, but that’s fine with me. My non-HM7000 locos run off my Digitrax Controller alongside the HM7000 on my iPad Pro. Everything runs seamlessly. Yes, the App still has a few little foibles that need to be resolved (Hornby is on the case), and of course we can never have enough sound profiles to choose from, but these small things aside, I count myself a firm supporter of the system and will continue to use it alongside my other, much more expensive, decoder solution (ESU LokSound). I look forward to further expansions of the system that will no doubt come in time, and in the meantime will enjoy what HM7000 currently has to offer.

Yes, the CV accel/decel settings made under BT control do stick when you then use the loco under DCC control, indeed ‘most’ CV setting do, but there are a few that may not (CVs 17, 18 & 19 sometimes play up, for some reason).

Have a look at the speakers available on the Roads & Rails website. They have many different sizes available with lots of helpful advice on what/how to fit in which loco. https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/collections/speakers …and yes, HM7000 decoders need an 8 ohm (or equivalent) speaker load.

Correct, Too Tall. That profile is not on the list (yet), but you might consider using the 2MT or maybe the 4F, in the meantime.

I’ve just posted a follow-up question on this topic, on the JMRI users website…..stand by

Malcom, for what worth, I’ve had up to 6 locos running simultaneously (the maximum I can cope with, not the system), so HM7k is more than able to run multiple locos at the same time. I power my layout using the Hornby PSU P9300 (5Amps) and control it using an iPad Pro 6th Generation. You mention that you’re powering your layout with the Elite, but on what platform are you running the App? Don’t give up, there is a solution out there for you and you will be able to run multiple locos.

Thanks Rob 👍🏼

Have Hornby issued the Function List yet for some of the more recently released profiles? (e.g Class 20, Hall Class, W1). I can’t see them listed on the latest link to the profiles page…….

All clever stuff….and utterly beyond me ! 😵‍💫 thank goodness we have some clever chaps on this forum 👏👏👏

That’s very true Rob, but at least the files are now free! By the way, I wasn’t advocating switching to Loksound, merely that ESU were changing their approach by providing free downloads of UK sound files, presumably as a direct reaction to Hornby’s products. 😃👍🏼

Clearly as a direct reaction to the free HM7000 sound files provided by Hornby, I now understand that ESU have released a large number of their LokSound 5 UK steam & diesel profiles, as free downloads from their website. Isn’t good competition a wonderful (and useful) thing ! 😃👍🏼

Actually, I’ve just re-read the Manual on this topic and the following wording on page 21…… HM7000 8pin and Next18 sound have provision for connecting a loudspeaker on the decoder pcb in the form of solder pads and a two-pin socket. HM7000 with 21 pin connectors do not have free solder pads for speaker connection… speaker connection is made through the 21 pin socket in the usual way or via the dedicated decoder speaker socket. I believe that Pins 9 & 10 of the 21 Pin sockets are those assigned to the Speaker outputs (but please check the Manual for that)

If I remember correctly from when I did this, the solder pads are marked ‘SPK’. They should be easy to identify. Good luck!

I guess that’s just the ‘burden’ of having too many locos in your collection, Ninja ! 🤷🏼‍♂️