Some more “quality” products from Hornby.

Discussion in 'DCC Control' started by Kimbo, Apr 21, 2020.

  1. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    oddly, I have two lenz equipped locos that now do this. Neither have DC set. Comes to a point where my son has to take the loco off the board. Both are hard wired. One is a Bachmann 20 and the other a kit built Yorkshire 02.

    I’m at a total loss as to what to do...

    We also have a great running Hornby TTS Hogwarts (again my sons bought by grandad) that will sometimes go off on its own as a crawl. Can’t be anything to do with the address system as it’s 5972, so not even close to a default 3?

    on another note, not quite wiring related, is the DCC controller we have. The Gaugemaster prodigy. When there is a short short, it will randomly change the handset to another loco and set a random speed setting, such as yesterday it would jump to loco 153 and speed setting 54...

    We hadn’t even used 153 yesterday?
     
  2. Walkingthedog

    Walkingthedog Full Member

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    Go back to analogue :thumbs:
     
  3. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    never.. not now.
    No lights and sounds and all that extra wiring for sections just seems so lifeless and labourious!
     
  4. Walkingthedog

    Walkingthedog Full Member

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    I dislike sound so that wouldn’t worry me. I can just about put up with 0 gauge diesel sound. Considering that it seems the norm to have bus wires and droppers every section I can’t really see the difference to analogue.
     
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  5. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Some of the wire used on decoders is very poor, even some mixed, some colours had tinned copper others plain, I suspect that the untinned wires are brittle , or just very low quality.
     
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  6. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    No inflexible control panels, independent running of multiple locos on the same piece of track, no complex power distribution for cab control.

    I don't like the quality of sound for OO either even before the horrendous costs, I only use DCC for the flexibility of loco movement control, nothing else, my points are controlled by wire in tube where possible, locally switched electric point motors where that is not possible.

    The only fancy add-on I use is a wifi adaptor that allows me to control my trains wirelessly from an old iPod Touch.

    The 'only two wires hype' did more harm than good IMO. :hammer:
     
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  7. Walkingthedog

    Walkingthedog Full Member

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    If I decided to change that is all I would do. Can’t say I have any plans to convert but never say never.
     
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  8. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    The level of control can considerably better with DCC - depends on the decoder, and more importantly it's set up. Anyone who has a DCC system that can connect to a computer, then I would heartily recommend installing JMRI, just for the Decoder Pro part. This allows you to easily configure your DCC decoder from the PC screen. And back them up, so if a decoder gets scrambled, or fried, it can be reprogrammed in minutes.

    Paul
     
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  9. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Hi Paul, totally agree, I use the JMRI Decoder Pro for my fleet of locos for that purpose. It allows me to effectively archive all the settings and where I have multiple of a particular class of loco (e.g J94) of identical manufacture and decoder the replication of proven decoder settings is easy. Also when fitting a decoder to another similar loco I can select the nearest similar one as a starting point, saves a lot of time.
     
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  10. Walkingthedog

    Walkingthedog Full Member

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    I have perfect control with my Gaugemaster. Very slow smooth and precise running, what more do you need?
     
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  11. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    I’ve never had a bus wire and only feed a line where I need to, ie before or after an electro frog point and where and insulated fish plate is installed.
    I don’t even cut the wires on the frogs. I’ve been DCC 20 years and never had an issue in needing to do it? some folk go overboard...
     
  12. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    I’d like to say we have the same with our Gaugemaster.. there are odd times you turn the knob down to stop and it seems like it’s just not picking anything up.
    The WiFi often drops out to decoder pro WiThrottle leaving your train trundling along with no one driving... no functions. Yet when it is connected, you change to select another loco and it stops all operating trains... it’s brilliants when it works (with all the functions listed from the roster) but nightmare if I walk to the bottom of the line. Yet the WiFi still says I have a strong signal.
     
  13. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    I'm a battleship build, belt and braces, man overboard .... :avatar:

    My approach hopefully ensures that as I get older my one and only layout which has many awkward accessibility places (it's multi-deck, the lowest is crawl under) has enough solidity and built in redundancy to out live my ageing muscles and dexterity. :scratchchin:

    If you are younger with more space and intend moving house sometime, keep it simpler. :)

    Your life, your layout, your choice :thumbs:
     
  14. Walkingthedog

    Walkingthedog Full Member

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    WiFi, functions, WiThrottle???? :facepalm: That is the very reason I have DC. :thumbs:
     
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  15. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Hi Andy, originally I thought my wifi had issues, turned out later to be poor loco pickups, the wifi is solid and reliable. Jim.
     
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  16. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    Yeah, but for some reason it’s not reliable. Yet when I run via decoder pro to the computer, it’s a different matter.
     
  17. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

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    Defiantly not the locos as we all experience the same issue with different devices with different locos.
    I personally think it’s faulty. But, it’s proving it.
     
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