paul_harness Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Way back in the mists of time when Hornby announced the loco, no-one had heard of HM7000. They said it would be DCC, plain & simple. Our current setup is using a laptop, railmaster and an elink with an old ipad; this has worked well, up until today. Now it has arrived, we find the loco has an HM7000 decoder. So we need an ipad with compatible ios. Now we have to buy a new ipad that is compatible with the Hornby DCC app; major expense. But that will mean running 1 loco using the new ipad and the rest using the old ipad. So that now means getting a bluetooth legacy dongle to allow them all to run using the 1 new ipad; more expense. But that doesn't fit in an elink. So to get it to fit in a compatible controller, it means buying an elite; more expense. So this 1 single loco could prove to be almost as expensive as the whole layout has previously cost. PLUS it proves how much loyalty Hornby show to their previous products (now that they no longer support railmaster). How long til they realise they've wrung us dry yet again with HM7000 and come up with a new wizard wheeze to rip us off? And why has it taken TWO YEARS from announcing it to actually getting hold of one? Disgusted. Yet again. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntpntpntp Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) So just run the loco on your DCC system. HM7000 decoders can run on traditional track power DCC too. From what I've read, quite a few people are doing that and maybe only using the bluetooth and app for programming the decoders. Edited March 21 by ntpntpntp 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 (edited) Load the sound profile via your phone then run everything DCC as usual. Extra expense - nil. For more details, check out the Hm | DCC forum. Edited March 21 by Fishmanoz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTSR_NSE Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Just now, Fishmanoz said: Load the sound profile via your phone then run everything DCC as usual. Extra expense - nil. Shouldn’t even need to load profile - such a new one would hopefully be the latest ready to go! 🤞 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moccasin Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Ad everyone says the loco will run normally on DCC and, just to clarify further, if factory installed the sound profile should be already uploaded to the decoder. The only time you’ll ever need a phone with the app is if you need to update/change the sound profile. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moccasin Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Should also add that most recent tablets or phones should run the HM7000 app. It operates via Android or iOS/ipadOS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Most factory fit profile loads will be out of date at launch so at first connection with the app expect a day 1 update flag. As stated @paul_harness your little tirade was a waste of effort as the loco will run fine as a DCC loco in RM using the eLink. Your only problem is the exact function key pattern will not be in RM until the next update (expected last xmas) so you will have to set that up manually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 All the relevant information has been in the public domain for more than enough time for the pre-order to have been cancelled if you felt it was not for you. As it is, your outrage is misplaced as you can see from the replies above. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTSR_NSE Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Just to add one final correction to the ridiculously inaccurate title… this loco wasn’t delayed waiting for HM7000 (that has already been available for over a year.) This loco has taken time to develop due to three innovations: • synching the chuff to axle rotation • fitting the atomiser & reservoir • synching the steam to sound profile(s) Those features would’ve taken the same development time - regardless of the decoder used! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Actually for once I am with Hornby. I was really surprised at how quickly it got released considering how long it takes to release a normal model. I was even more surprised that it works well. They could have perhaps told us that F24 switches the steam on or off, but I wonder if that was an afterthought. There again F24 is a long way up the function list so I suppose less people would have seen it and if they had defaulted it to off, then we would have had lots of posts on how do I get it to work. The original P2 without smoke was released ages ago so there was no wait for the model, in fact I now have two of them one with smoke I bought ages ago and this one. The only thing that concerns me is running it dry to put it back in the box, I am wondering if they could have included a function which basically keeps it smoking to get rid of the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 @ColinB you have answered your own question. F24 toggles power to the steam unit so that is your 'function to run it dry'. For those using the app with a bit of fiddling you can allocate F24 to the first page of functions next to F1 and shift the displaced function onto another page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulleidboy Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 (edited) Another who has no knowledge or understanding of conception through to fruition of a new model, but is ready to come on to the forum and moan. Edited March 23 by Bulleidboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Actually 96RAF it is not, it just switches the steam off and on. The steam is a function of the algorithm within the decoder. So on Friday to clear the loco of water I basically had to drive the loco to generate steam to empty it. What I was talking about was a function to bypass the algorithm to just generate steam with the loco stationary just to empty the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 6 minutes ago, ColinB said: Actually 96RAF it is not, it just switches the steam off and on. The steam is a function of the algorithm within the decoder. So on Friday to clear the loco of water I basically had to drive the loco to generate steam to empty it. What I was talking about was a function to bypass the algorithm to just generate steam with the loco stationary just to empty the water. A bit like stationary thrash on a diesel. Flagged to Hornby Tech for consideration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 3 minutes ago, Bulleidboy said: Another who has no knowledge or understanding of conception through to fruition of a new model, but is ready to come on to the forum and moan. Actually Bulliedboy that is a bit unfair, do you know exactly how long it takes to make things from design to production. It is Hornby's fault they announce new models generally before they have done the donkey work to work out how to make them. I worked on a two stroke Fiesta many years ago, it never made production but Ford never announced it would be making it. If they had they would have announced it when they were about to make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 7 minutes ago, 96RAF said: A bit like stationary thrash on a diesel. Flagged to Hornby Tech for consideration. Thank youi. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulleidboy Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 @ Colin - Hornby have stated in the past that it takes approximately three years from when someone comes up with an idea, and that idea arrives in the shops. BB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 1 hour ago, Bulleidboy said: @ Colin - Hornby have stated in the past that it takes approximately three years from when someone comes up with an idea, and that idea arrives in the shops. BB Yes to you closely involved with the hobby you know that, for the average person that buys a catalogue or looks at a web page they don't. Hornby make it worse because they often put over optimistic release dates on their product. Nothing new though, Triang used to do it, I remember as a child being hugely disappointed to go round the toy shop and find the model had not arrived by the date stated in the catalogue. Most industries got rid of those practices once they had to face Japanese competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTSR_NSE Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 @ColinB - considering other model manufacturers use preorders to gauge production size, if all design & development for models had to be completed before opening order books, there would be an awful lot of waste/dead time. Manufacturers would either need even larger investment funds (to cope with longer period between start of development & customer purchase) or else would have to produce less models, more slowly - massively impacting profitability. Doesn’t sound like a great business strategy?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 I hate to say it but other manufacturers manage to do it, we used to call it product planning. In our company they got paid extremely well for it, as the risks were recognised. Being as I have picked up various models at incredibly discounted price just lately, I get the opinion it is not working that well for Hornby anyway. As you say though, it does seem to be a trait unique to Model Railways. For me it doesn't matter much, I have as many locos as I will ever want so I doubt I will be preordering many more anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 We seem to have strayed away from the OP’s original and negatively framed complaint that delay leading to an HM7000 decoder being fitted to his loco has caused him extra cost to run that decoder. Initial replies ignored the negativity and simply pointed out the decoder could be run by his existing setup at no additional cost in buying app hardware. Surely that’s an end to the topic? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM6 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 You'd think so wouldn't you, Fishy. 🤐 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brew Man Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 It would be nice to get some response back from the OP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 (edited) Well perhaps they didn't realise that a HM7000 is basically a DCC decoder, so this model is no different to buying a Bachmann model with sound fitted. Trouble is people get carried away with the bluetooth capability ignoring the fact that as far as DCC is concerned not much different to TTS. Ok it is better sound and can be reprogrammed but it is just another sound decoder. The difference is that there is a big deviation from Hornby's other P2s in that the decoder also controls the smoke so if you don't like the HW7000 sound you can't just rip it out and replace it with a Zimo or LokSound decoder. Edited March 23 by ColinB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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