Hornby early decoder with Dynamis

[Doubleslip]

I have a new DCC fitted Hornby M7 with a "white dot" decoder which I suspect is an early one. It doesn't respond at all to commands from the Dynamis. The loco works fine with a new Hornby R8249 decoder or on DC. I sent the decoder back to the shop assuming it was faulty, but they have returned it saying it's ok leaving me no better off.

Should the decoder work at all with the Dynamis, or do I really have a dud? Should the retailer be selling DCC locomotives that don't work with their DCC controllers? (The same one supplied both). Any ideas what to do with the old chip, and how do I know if another Hornby DCC fitted loco would work or not?

[amdaley]

I have a new DCC fitted Hornby M7 with a "white dot" decoder which I suspect is an early one. It doesn't respond at all to commands from the Dynamis. The loco works fine with a new Hornby R8249 decoder or on DC. I sent the decoder back to the shop assuming it was faulty, but they have returned it saying it's ok leaving me no better off.

Should the decoder work at all with the Dynamis, or do I really have a dud? Should the retailer be selling DCC locomotives that don't work with their DCC controllers? (The same one supplied both). Any ideas what to do with the old chip, and how do I know if another Hornby DCC fitted loco would work or not?

 

I bet the shop used a Hornby control unit to test the chip Ask the shop who's control unit they used to test it. Have you tested the chip again since you received it back ? Maybe it was fitted the wrong way round. The early Hornby chip had problems with every control except Hornby. If the shop won't help you could send it back to Hornby themselves who will probably replace it with a later version.

I would also suggest that you use some other companies chips.

[Doubleslip]

The chip has been tried in a couple of locos since it came back (it's travelled 36,000 miles so far between England and Wellington) and still doesn't respond either way round. With this one I wanted DCC fitted because I had heard that the M7 was tricky to fit a decoder to, so it had to be a Hornby decoder. Turns out to have caused more trouble than I expected. One more thing- there was no DCC leaflet with the loco- is this usual for Hornby DCC fitted?

[RedgateModels]

My Stanier 8F still has an original issue R8215 decoder in it and worked fine with Dynamis

[Ron Ron Ron]

If, as you say .....

 

the M7 works OK on DC....

and works OK on DCC with the other Hornby decoder,

plus, the suspect decoder doesn't work in the M7 or in the other locos...

 

....then it appears that the problem lies with the decoder as you suspect. It's either dead or faulty.

 

The Dynamis is NMRA compliant and should work with any NMRA decoder.

 

IIRC the early Hornby decoder was not NMRA compliant and problems with it are well documented. That's why Hornby attempted to fix it by modifying it twice before giving up and quickly replacing it with the R8249.

Unfortunately they seem to have stuck the stock of old decoders into some of their DCC fitted models and left their customers to pick up the pieces.

 

I would do as Tony suggests and return this decoder to Hornby with a nice letter explaining your difficulties. Hopefully they'll replace it with a new model.

 

Apart from that, I would also follow Tony's other advice and give Hornby's current budget decoders a miss.

In fact, may I suggest that you be a little wary of using any Budget decoders. They have their place, but with their limited capabilities can deprive the user of the best running performance and some of the advantages of DCC operation.

 

 

.

[melmerby]

I have had two Hornby locos "DCC fitted" with early chips, One was the Stanier 4 tank the other was the M7.

 

The Stanier would not work on my Lenz system and when it tested back at the retailer would not work on their EZ command DCC controller either, neither would another they had in stock. They supplied a new R8249 to replace the "faulty" one.

 

The M7 again would not work on my Lenz system, this time I got in touch with Hornby directly who could not have been more helpful.

After determining which chip I had they supplied a new R8249 by next post. Excellent service by Hornby.

 

The woes of the early chips are well documented, the R8249 is OK as a super-budget chip but is a bit lacking in functions in my opinion.

Better to move up to some of the other offerings. I have used a lot of TCS chips.

Lenz and Digitrax chips also seem to be well regarded (amongst others)

 

Keith