RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 8, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 8, 2016 I currently have two of the current Hornby King (both King James 1) which I have been trying to fit with DCC. In both cases I am having the same problem (neither loco will work) Once fitted with the decoder the loco is unresponsive (has a tendency to run away, only works in one direction, makes a loud humming noise (almost like a DC loco running on DCC). the emergency stop wont stop the runaway. In each case the decoder can be programmed ok, and has since worked perfectly once put into a different loco. I have checked the tender wiring for any faults, and it appears ok. I also tried the tender from a Castle (which works perfectly when coupled to its own loco), but again the same problems. Wheels are clean and there are no obvious issues with pick ups. Any thoughts on what could be the issue, before I start stripping down the loco? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castle Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Hi Rich, Have you tried tracing the wires to the plug pins on the decoder socket? I have just added DCC to 4 Hornby Castles and I found that several wires were wired up in a somewhat "interesting" and "unexpected" fashion. I took both the tender and loco body off each model and traced it from right rail to red, left rail to black and so on. There were mistakes in there so it is worth checking. I am not a DCC expert - as some of my questions on this forum will testify - but it is relatively easy to see if the wiring is right and if it isn't, you can easily rewrite at the DCC socket. If it is a problem beyond the socket, it will be down to more experienced advice from the gurus on here that I depend on! I hope this helps! All the best, Castle Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 8, 2016 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 8, 2016 Hi Rich, Have you tried tracing the wires to the plug pins on the decoder socket? I have just added DCC to 4 Hornby Castles and I found that several wires were wired up in a somewhat "interesting" and "unexpected" fashion. I took both the tender and loco body off each model and traced it from right rail to red, left rail to black and so on. There were mistakes in there so it is worth checking. I am not a DCC expert - as some of my questions on this forum will testify - but it is relatively easy to see if the wiring is right and if it isn't, you can easily rewrite at the DCC socket. If it is a problem beyond the socket, it will be down to more experienced advice from the gurus on here that I depend on! I hope this helps! All the best, Castle Certainly I think the loco which has been renumbered to King Henry VIII had a short between one sides pickup and the motor on the 8 pin socket, however given that Berkeley Castle runs perfectly fine with a castle / tender, yet the exact same tender coupled up to the King results in the same erratic running makes me think it's the king at fault. Has anyone else had issues with DCC and the King James I release? I'm wondering if there is a capacitor issue or something integral with the locomotive... Once I have dug out a couple more decoders I guess a full strip down and wiring check is going to be necessary. These decoder installs in the tender are fantastic when it all goes right, but a total pain in the backside when it doesn't work. At least when there is an issue with the socket in the loco it's easy enough to just hard wire it. Hopefully in this case it will not come to that. Slightly more fun was playing with double headed castles tonight. Though I really ought to get some track laid in the fiddleyard (and the missing board built) so I can do some proper running! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castle Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Hi Rich, Mmmmmmm - double headed Castles! The issues I had I were initially down to the Caerphilly Castle release which I think is a known problem. This was exacerbated by the fact that my friends and I have swapped a few tenders around our individual loco rosters to get period correct arrangements! This meant some engines had 2 sets of suppression capacitors, some had none, some were back to front and others were - you get the drift. I hope it goes better for you. In the end, I just got out the multimeter, soldering iron and some spare wire out and re-wired about 2 1/2 to 3 locos by all reckoning. My friends enjoyed the growing frustration as we found another and then another combination that refused to play ball though so it was at least fun somewhere along the line for someone! We do now have 4 really interesting Castles that I haven't seen elsewhere though so that's cool! Best of luck! Castle Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 10, 2016 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 10, 2016 Problem hopefully solved... While I have yet to try with a decider I think I've cracked it. This evening I removed the body from the first king (loosing some details in the process of course) only to find the wiring was perfect. So attention moved back to the tender, i wired up a DC controller and stuck the loco and tender chassis on the track with no blanking plate in the DCC socket. Applyin power the loco still worked, so clearly a short between pickups and motor. Looking at the mess Hornby made of the wiring I'm not supprised! The tender pickups are not isolated and can touch (fixed by gluing an off cut of plastic sleeper between them) The 8 pin socket looked like it had been soldered by a blindfolded 2 year old. And clearly had at least one short between motor and pickups The loco tender connector was shorting on the screw Shorting between pins and had bare wires where the insulation had split. I think all are now resolved on Henry VIII, and Richard I will follow tomorrow, then it's time to try a decoder again All in all I'm shocked st such poor QC from a Hornby, in particular that it's impacted two locos bought from different retailers If I hadn't done all the work rebranding to Hawksworth livery they'd be going straight back! In future DCC conversion needs to be done first (rather than just testing on DC... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 11, 2016 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 11, 2016 Now tried again with a new decoder, while the initial short seems to be sorted. There is still another issue, with both locos refusing to work with the decoder Cannot believe how poor the wiring is in this loco.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractor_37260 Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Problem hopefully solved... While I have yet to try with a decider I think I've cracked it. This evening I removed the body from the first king (loosing some details in the process of course) only to find the wiring was perfect. So attention moved back to the tender, i wired up a DC controller and stuck the loco and tender chassis on the track with no blanking plate in the DCC socket. Applyin power the loco still worked, so clearly a short between pickups and motor. Looking at the mess Hornby made of the wiring I'm not supprised! The tender pickups are not isolated and can touch (fixed by gluing an off cut of plastic sleeper between them) The 8 pin socket looked like it had been soldered by a blindfolded 2 year old. And clearly had at least one short between motor and pickups The loco tender connector was shorting on the screw Shorting between pins and had bare wires where the insulation had split. I think all are now resolved on Henry VIII, and Richard I will follow tomorrow, then it's time to try a decoder again All in all I'm shocked st such poor QC from a Hornby, in particular that it's impacted two locos bought from different retailers If I hadn't done all the work rebranding to Hawksworth livery they'd be going straight back! In future DCC conversion needs to be done first (rather than just testing on DC... The soldering on that socket is shocking - did it come from the factory like that ? no wonder you're having problems with botches like that ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 11, 2016 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 11, 2016 They were both like that fresh from Hornby.... I've seen a couple more mentions of similar issues, so it must effect a fair number... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted December 13, 2016 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted December 13, 2016 For comparison here are the same parts from the initial release of the 3800 Far better design, and quality to match. The connector shown was redundant from a hard wire job, and will be soldered into the first king at the weekend to see if it sorts the issues. If it does I will be writing to Hornby to ask for replacement parts for the other Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted January 10, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 10, 2017 For completeness Hornby have offered to repair the locos if I send them back (not going to happen given the relivery work) annoyingly they won't just send a replacement wire/socket The first king is now fixed after soldering in the above socket, the second is going to be more tricky given the inability to source a replacement wire. Plan a is to unsolder the socket and resolder it to a new board. Plan b is to hardwire the loco to the 8 pin socket. Fortunately the king from the Bristolian has been converted to DCC without any problems (and testing on the clubs test track it worked perfectly). The wiring still doesn't look particularly well put together though, still with exposed joints etc as before. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil47gwr Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 My thread "Help - decoder burnt" also deals with problems arising +from King James I. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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