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Crosland

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Everything posted by Crosland

  1. Did you set the JMRI connection preference to SPROG or SPROG Command Station? You need the former for programming on the programming track. Use the firmware version tool in the SPROG menu of JMRI. Does it report the SPROG version? If so, that confirms the USB connection is good. If not, do you have the correct port selected ion the JMRI connection preferences? What did you do to determine JMRI isn't sending any commands to the SPROG?
  2. If you ask on the SPROG specific group https://groups.io/g/sprog-dcc/topics someone with direct experience may be able to help. I don't, unfortunately, have access to Mac hardware. As Nigel says, it's best to state the specific issue, if there is one. Andrew Crosland sprog-dcc.co.uk
  3. To send a moderately heavy small parcel from the UK is well into the teens of £s when you add tracking and, maybe, insurance. The £19 may be high, but it's not a total rip-off, depending on the size and weight of the parcel.
  4. Its a USB interface, not just cable and passive components.
  5. So what doe the Radio on and radio status indicate?
  6. The requirement for suppression is a basic requirement, not related to TV and, in any case, terrestrial digital TV still uses the same frequencies as analogue. Most interference caused to TVs, at least in more recent times is due to poor aerial installation and wiring.
  7. What happened to soaking in coke (the liquid, drinking variety!) or scrubbing with Cif 😀
  8. Exactly! I may have an advantage in having a technical background including coding, but there are free open source solutions with plenty of help available on the web. Hosting doesn't cost an arm and a leg and the maintenance is very low effort, apart from infrequent major upgrades that can be more painful. There's plenty of help available on line on various forums. That's not necessarily true. I added new products and they were indexed and ranking top three within a month. The ranking does probably depend on the search terms used and they are, admittedly, fairly niche products, so little competition. I guess that depends on the margins, but it's only a few percent of the sale price with PayPal, less with something like Stripe, even less if you have the volumes to get good rates on a merchant account. If you take card payments at shows or in your shop then it's not an issue as you are going to pay these fees anyway. Some customers pay by bank transfer which is free on both sides. A shop or show stand taking cash or cheques will may incur fees for paying in to the bank account. That's true if you have show or shop sales. For a purely on-line presence a decent e-commerce package will manage stock levels in real time. To avoid accusations of advertising I will leave off any signature. Those that matter know who I am :)
  9. Hmm. It's still there, despite saying it has been withdrawn. Having read this page it seems you have to first e-mail your requirements. It may be they provide their full address in reply, before accepting the order, in which case they are probably compliant. A PO Box is not sufficient. It must be a full geographic address. As a small trader myself it irritates when others do not follow the legal requirements. I see it all too often. One fairly well-known supplier was claiming to be a Ltd company when they weren't. Again, that was illegal. I won't name them as I believe it's fixed now.
  10. It's not only unreasonable not to have a contact address, but most likely against the law. I'm thinking of switching to Stripe, for this reason, but will probably offer both. A lot of payment processor require a sizeable volume before they beat PayPal (or at least did last time I checked). With a small hobby supplier you are most unlikely to be entering details into their website. The rules around security, etc., and the cost of developing the site, would be too onerous for a small cottage industry. I would be VERY worried if I wasn't redirected to one of the well-known payment processors. Even major on-line retailers often use the likes of World Pay, etc. And that price list should have a contact address. The only way around this is if they provide the contact address before they take your order, which would be a bit of a faff with the required to-and-fro.
  11. On-line selling rules are in addition to distance selling rules, see https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses I didn't realise you couldn't order online. How do you order? The distance selling rules still requite them to provide the address before you place the order.
  12. The law requires that any business selling on line provides a full geographic contact address. Their contact page now has nothing, not even a 'phone number. A PO Box address was also in breach of the law.
  13. I would just order a few. Distance selling rules allow for refunds if you just change your mind. You might lose the original postage, depending on the sellers Ts&Cs.
  14. 2D or 3D? Do you want to draw things (like Sketchup) or "program" or "parameterise" them (like OpenSCAD)? There are zillions of YouTube videos for all the popular packages.
  15. You can make a small fortune in model railways. If you start from a large one 😁
  16. If they have a two pin power cord, then they are designed to be below 65 W. Anything above that almost always has an earth. Otherwise the filtering gets very difficult.
  17. It's 2 V, tops, in the bridge rectifier in the decoder. The H-bridges in the booster/command station and decoder will both be MOSFET based these days and very low resistance. If the booster/command station can be powered by AC then there will be another bridge rectifier and another 2V max drop. Some systems allow the track voltage to be adjusted down. The loss in the decoder will be a lot better than 4 V.
  18. Picoscopes have DCC decode software, but they can be pricey (mine is an MSO and was a few £hundred). You may need to check if it works on the cheaper models https://www.picotech.com/library/oscilloscopes/digital-command-control-dcc-protocol-decoding
  19. Decoders would normally go bang and maybe let out a puff of the "magic smoke". Anything more than that is probably internal wiring, maybe the varnish on the motor windings.
  20. We get regular posts on our local facebook page of the "that's my parcel, but it's not my door" kind. Often they are in the next town/village. Evri are a total s**tshow around here. They seem to take the satnav "you have reached your destination" as having reached the exact address, without realising a postcode can cover quite a number of properties.
  21. Why did you need to book a new one if it was collected? If the collection fails you can simply reschedule it at no extra cost (I've done this). It's only "no extra cost" whilst collection is free. If/when they start charging for collections you will lose the collection fee for failed collections. If you longer want to post the item you can request a refund online. It takes a few days (again, done this). I recommend creating an account on the RM website and logging when sending. The system remembers who you are (to populate the sender address) and you can easily see your previous transactions.
  22. If that's really what you were told, then they are not knowledgeable. No DCC decoder can be programmed at 1 V. What they probably meant was that there is only a very low current available for programming and the very high inrush current to charge the stay-alive triggers an overload detection. This can also be an issue when trying to turn the power on for a layout with many stay-alive fitted locos. Better decoder/stay-alive combos will limit the charging current.
  23. I have found the collection service to be utterly reliable. It's brilliant, in fact, and a much better experience than the rude counter staff in the village PO. The only times I have had issues, including chasing the postman down the street to ask why he didn't collect, turned out to be my errors.
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