Some more “quality” products from Hornby.

Sorry, worse than that.

Many locos I have chipped over the last 5 years from a range of manufacturers have had appalling wiring quality including bad soldering, wires crushed between chassis and body parts, wrongly assembled connectors, weak decoder socket springs, circuit board resistors missing a conductive terminal. Most of the faults not visible to a DC only check.

Also on many decoders, wires breaking off, blobs of solder, low grade wire, burred pins on 6 pin decoders.

On the whole I use cheaper brands of decoders (and no sound) for most locos as they do what I want and the odd defective is accommodated by lower price.

Of the more expensive brands of decoders I have only tried Lenz decoders, they appear to be made very well but the price is somewhat higher.

Quality control is the biggest issue across the hobby, and don't get me going on the well packed rolling stock arriving with parts shaken loose in transit within the box .

Pays yer money and hope for the best.

Or just stop buying

 

Agreed, however the 'manufacturer' who these days is really just the brand owner and design authority should still confirm product quality by sampling on arrival from the factory, be it national or international before distribution.

The quality of goods made in China can be very good, however like in any country the individual factories can vary enormously both in capability and ethics and so it is up to the customer of the factory, e.g. Hornby in this case to pay enough for the goods to be manufactured to specification and enforce it.

Therefore in the case of this decoder it is the fault of Hornby if the standard of wiring is poor. But to allow such an image to publicise a new product beggars belief. Their items are not cheap when one considers how basic in functionality their decoders have been compared to other brands and reveals the level of contempt to us, their customer, by Hornby.

I would point out that amateur soldering can often look like this, (I have had aerospace quality training in such skills) and so probably it does not look amiss to many buyers so Hornby and other brands can get away with it.

The lock down in the UK has given me, like no doubt many others across the globe time to pause and reflect on what we have become habitual in doing, I'm not buying any more locos and rolling stock now, (already got too much anyway ). On several occasions in the last two years I have felt conned by quality and price in the so called DCC ready market and the eccentric wheel/limping wagon department.

There are more important concerns now and my railway is my escapism in this increasingly fraught world even though I retired a few years ago.

Jim.

 

Many companies do that, set themselves up as a benchmark, even acquiring names e.g. the owners of Triang buying the Hornby name and disposing of their products, a variation of asset stripping.

Then they breed brand loyalty by saying we are the best, buy us, and many do without question.

"more money than sense", me too but getting over the cold turkey well in the present climate.

 

Every TTS equipped loco that I have (Hornby Castle; Hornby Brittania; Hornby Lord Nelson; Bachmann 9F; Hornby S15) will suddenly start on it's own without input from an NCE Pro Cab whilst I'm running another Loco equipped with Zimo or ESU Loksound sound decoders. I am heartily sick of them.
Of course they don't do it to start with, then one by one over the course of a few weeks they started doing this, I have a lift up flap on my layout at the entrance to the room, and unbeknown to me the 9F decided to try suicide whilst I was busy with something else, and landed on the floor with damage to various parts.

I also purchased 3 Merchant Navy TTS decoders, and they worked on my ESU decoder tester but not on the locos, they just turned wheels one rotation or so and stopped, I replaced the decoders with their originally fitted TCS DP2 uk decoders and the locos worked just fine. I also altered CV settings to no avail. I complained to Hornby who said it was the loco at fault !!

I no longer buy any TTS Decoders, they're a waste of good money.

Eve

 

Thanks Paul, I'll try that, but the 9F was just crawling so slowly that I couldn't hear it. Others are at full speed.

Eve

 

Oh & here's a link to the CV calculator that I used to use when I used GM prodigy Advance https://www.digitrax.com/support/cv/calculators/ . Don't really need it now that I use NCE Power House.

Eve

 

Hi Eve.

This blame game thing with manufacturers is a real pain, I'm glad I only use DCC for loco speed control, at least they are less of a waste of money when they play up.

Ouch, I know it's a bit late for your 9F but I would put switched safety zones in place at the lift up sections.

Just fit micro-switches to the lift up section such that when lifted power is cut from the track approaching the opening on both sides, I allow 0.5 to 1 metre either side (dependent on line speed), it also prevents disasters if I forget the "bridge is up" and try to run a whole train over the edge.

Jim

 

I always remove Bachmann's own decoders, and most times the Hornby ones (except in their Pecketts which are tolerable) because they generally have very limited speed settings, (some don't even have mid and max settings) and poor loco behaviour, some almost behave as though they have only two speed steps, slow and fast.

I have also noticed that on Hatton's pre-owned sales that Bachmann locos with or without decoder seem to be priced virtually the same these days, maybe market forces are indicating buyers bin the Bachmann decoders.

Jim