Gray69

I put a stay alive in the nose of the loco behind the front grill, there is just enough room.

I removed the 8 pin connector and placed the hardwired decoder in the space left by the connector.

Thanks Nigel, I have never had anything that uses a 6 pin decoder so was unaware of the method of operation.

I get the feeling that I am missing something obvious, but I can't think of the answer. On the Bachmann DEMU, 150 and others, the coupling bar between coaches has 2 through power connections. I have been fitting head and tail light kits to a Bachmann class 166. To save having to add decoders to each end I wanted to run the wires required for the lighting functions through the coupling using a Viessmann 5048 coupling, which has 2 wires. It only dawned on me once I had the coupling that there are 3 wires required, the white, yellow and blue. So how does Bachmann operate the head and tail lighting on the trailer with only 2 connectors, and is this something that can be replicated.

I am thinking of fitting a HM7000 to my VEP. Is the sound profile available for it yet.

I hope Hornby sell the interiors for the DTC, as it could replace the ones they fouled up in the NSE version with it's solid compartment wall.

The conversation was that if there is a short on the layout that took a little time to find, if all the stay alives in the coaches and locos had been drained when the power came back on, all the current draw to recharge them would then trip the power again because of an excessive power draw. They did say that it was mainly an issue that only really affected large layouts with long rakes of coaches, but did say that if the current trend to fit big stay alives to locomotives and rolling stock was to continue, it could cause issues on smaller layouts in the future. Accurascale were been talked about because they had these issues when running their 37, 50, 66 and 92 locos, as well as the Mk2 and Mk5 coaches. It was not them having a go at Accurascale, it was a discussion about the issues stay alives can cause if you have a large fleet of locos and coaches fitted with them. I found it a very interesting and informative discussion.

I also think the prices you are charging for the Irish units are fair, and I would be willing to pay similar amounts for 455, 456, 319, SR EPB, CIG, BIG and 377 models. Also a decent 3 car 101 and 119 would be nice 😉 As for how many 455, 456, 319 and CIG in NSE, Connex and Southern. Thats 12 units to start with

It is easiest to use the '# Program address' setting in the CV programming section of the Z21 app to change the CV. With this you can choose 667 and 7818 without issues. Don't worry about CV1

When you are new to DCC, it can be overwhelming In the OP, it seemed that flockandroll was initially confused by the fact that after they had programmed a long address into the decoder, then when reading CV1, they got an address of 3. This was obviously not what they were expecting. This then starts a rabbit hole of confusion into long and short addresses If you are new to DCC, thinking CV1 will give you the loco address is an easy mistake to make. I know that programming DCC can be as simple or as difficult as you make it 😀 but thank you for the explanation, as I like to be able to understand how it works

As this question threw up a couple of queries in my mind, I thought I would look at my settings. I then got really confused over what CV1 shows. I always change a loco CV with the '# Program address' setting in the CV programming section of the Z21 app. I always use a long address as I find it easier. Checking CV1 on a loco that had a long address showed a result of 3. After having a play with the address, it appears to me that CV1 only shows the correct address if you use a short address. If you then change your short address to a long address, CV1 seems to read whatever the last short address was. Hopefully an expert will come along soon an explain this. Using short or long address doesn't really seem to matter, just use an address that you will remember. When you setup a loco in the WLANmaus with an address of say 3716, when you operate the controls, it will just send the command to any loco with that address. The functions are not stored on the WLANmaus, so when you press a function key, all it does is send the signal to the decoder to operate that function. You don't need to manually add them again. Once you have set up a loco with functions and pictures etc, If you change the address of a loco, you can simply change the 'Loco address' in the Vehicles page to whatever the new address is. It keeps all the other settings.

I don't know what the model in NSE livery is, but the original model has the motor at the other end of the coach, not at the brake van end.

So you won't be buying any of these then. He is very positive about the wagon There is nothing in Sam's video that is not mentioned in the real customer reviews.

Short of sending the decoder back to Zimo, they advised me that there was nothing else that could be done to update the decoder.

Thanks for the info on CV149 Stage 1 made no difference. Tinkering with CV150-152 in stage 2 made it a little better, and I did not understand stage 3 at all so I gave up. The only way to make the sound better on the 73 is to turn it off.