I have just received the Hornby Schools Class DCC Ready loco from Hattons and it has a major problem. The TCSP-EE02 blanking plate that is fitted to the 8 pin connector shorts out the layout. Luckily the NCE EB1 circuit breaker which I fitted on the very good advice of Kimbo and others saved the day. The solution is to remove the blanking plate and replace it with a DCC Chip or another blanking plate. There is a very small capacitor on the plate and that is creating the problems. All of the Hornby locos I have bought, have never had this type of plate so one can only assume that it is the culprit. I'm not the only one to have had this issue , there are two other members of the club who had similar problems. The worst case while running on DC was there was so much heat being generated from the short that it melted the tender sides. I cannot believe that Hornby would ship this out to it's suppliers in this state. It is clearly not a one off problem.
The thing is, without a circuit breaker there would have been a very good chance it would have melted itself like Ali's did. Or worse turned all of my Zimo chips into crisps. I guess the moral of the story , like santa, is to always check twice before running a new loco on the layout.
Thanks Steve for the heads up What is the R number of this new model with the Odd 8 pin plug. It's possibly a short cut in China to add a suppression device as required in a lot of euro devices, it's just not executed in the right way. May only be suitable for DC and should be on the male DC bridging 8pin plug not the female plug on the tender base.
Hi Steve Nothing surprises me with Hornby locos with tenders, as you know I've had several Q1 problems where the tender is wired incorrectly to the loco. I've contacted Hornby several time and always get the same reply.....return it to the dealer you purchased it from....not so straight forward for us modellers living in Australia to send them back to Hattons. Thanks again for the heads up.....lesson here is ALWAYS test them on a test track first. Kim
Kimbo wrote: And part two of the lesson is to test it for more than just a few seconds. "Hang on where's that smoke coming from? I didn't think this had a seuth fitted to it. Oh well it makes it very realistic....... well at least once."
I've had at least one Hornby product where pin 1 was incorrectly identified, although not had your problem with "Schools" class loco's. I have 3, 2 were DCC ready, the 3rd a tender drive "Dover" model which I DCC fitted. Is this problem confined to a recently re-issued loco by any chance? Keith.
Keith M wrote: I just put a Decoder in a Hornby Lorna doon GWR Single spinner tonight whilst at a Xmas function and pin one was as regualy found with Hornby incorrect and was pin 8. I'd say of the last 40 Hornby 8 pin models I've had across the work bench, I have found at least 1/3 were incorrect in one case I did 2 of the same GWR 28xx model first 1 was wrong the next one was correct. And you guesses it after finding the first one wrong I fitted the decoder in the second one as per the first only to have to unplug and reverse it after testing it, seems QC is nonexistance with Hornby now days. Any of my own Hornby Locos, I tend to remove the Hornby wiring bits and rewire them with hard wire decoders.
About 3 years ago I purchased the Hornby Railroad DCC Ready version of the Schools Class, R3158 (Dover). It ran faultlessly on DC power and runs perfect on DCC, fitted with a DCC Concepts decoder and Stay Alive. Would it be true to say that the newer batches of locos are having the issues ?? Cheers, Gary.
As a newbe im starting to think dcc is more trouble than its worth at times sure it helps on them oversize amercian basement layouts oh wishful thinking but for my planned shelf layout i think i might just stick to dc as i can only really run 1 loco at a time
alco4401 wrote: It's the bells and Whistles side that usually gets a modeller over the line to DCC and if you can't make use of all these functions then DC is the way to go. However a truly good DC throttle will cost as much as a Base NCE Power Cab but you then have to consider that every loco then needls a Decoder for you to run it Basic decoders start at $25-35 dollars and when you consider sound etc your looking at $80 for a cheap Basic sound then watch the $$$ signs go round as the quality increases. Then you consider already DCC fitted models have a premium price over the DC version. So DCC is not just the price of the comand station. Plus DC control is much more forgiving of little issues with pickups and track work issues than DCC.
E should not be any issue with incorrect decoder wiring. These manufacturers should be able to get that right. I'm not keen on hornby and buy as little as possible from them as I have had various issues with what I have bought. Everybody to their own as all our experiences are usually different but I tend to try and steer clear of them. Bachmann first time every time for me. Toto
In some n scale i want i dont think u can fit in a decoder so thats why im happy with the dc esp as im only going to run 1 at a time
