Ighten Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) I have my CV 127 high at around 75 if not higher depending on the motor, in conjunction with some other CV settings and speed curves I have it so even from notch one (about speed step 7 you can have a nice realistic brake stop).. one thing I do notice though if you use it in conjunction with cv28(the auto thingy) the manual seems to indicate you should be getting brake squeal, but I never hear this diesel or steam. Edited January 3 by Ighten Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NXEA! Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) Received an 8-pin chip and stay alive for Christmas (how does Santa know?!), and took the plunge a few days ago and fitted to my B12. It’s a tight fit squeezing it all into the tender but pleased to say it went fine and the set up on the app was really easy. Have used it both via the app and on my NCE PowerCab and runs really well. Sound is good quality for the price, I might upgrade the speaker down the line but absolutely fine for most people I think. For £63 including the stay alive, I’m very impressed, hats off to Hornby. Edited January 3 by NXEA! 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metropolitan Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 (edited) On 15/12/2023 at 10:19, Ighten said: Until Hornby actually manage to manufacture smaller components for this system it will indeed be half and half IMO. At the moment half the things won't even fit into there older and current range never mind other manufacturers. If they solve that issue we are one step nearer an alternative system.. the next bug bear though is that smaller pin chips are totally soundless, which isn't a constriction of DCC. Re size. The problem seems to be the antenna. I'm wondering if the solution would be to put it on a separate board with a wired connection? It would reduce the size of the boards by 25% with a bit of further rearrangement. Or place it on top of the main board? Either way, they do need to find a way to reduce the size if it's going to be a total solution. I find them to be excellent. The problem being that they will only fit into a small percentage of my fleet. You can set them to run with an analogue DC controller but for some reason it's not recommended. Edited January 6 by Metropolitan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 1 hour ago, Metropolitan said: Re size. The problem seems to be the antenna. I'm wondering if the solution would be to put it on a separate board with a wired connection? It would reduce the size of the boards by 25% with a bit of further rearrangement. Or place it on top of the main board? Either way, they do need to find a way to reduce the size if it's going to be a total solution. I find them to be excellent. The problem being that they will only fit into a small percentage of my fleet. You can set them to run with an analogue DC controller but for some reason it's not recommended. The subject of a separate Ae has previously been discussed in various forum, but the design of the next generation is already set with an improved Ae sizing. Jenny Kirk has done comparative installations and found that she could get these decoders into almost all her locos and she noted that the 21 pin variant is smaller than some big name decoders. Ref her channel for those details. Ref running on DC, this is well covered in the decoder manual and recommended for moderate steady state running-in purposes only, for the reasons stated. General stop/start running is not recommended due to need for the decoder to boot/reboot at each throttle on/off/fwd/rev selection making for poor control, the same forvany decoder equipped loco on DC. Added to this is the chance of some DC controller waveforms spiking a decoder at high throttle setting. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold RedgateModels Posted January 6 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 6 2 hours ago, Metropolitan said: Re size. The problem seems to be the antenna. I'm wondering if the solution would be to put it on a separate board with a wired connection? It would reduce the size of the boards by 25% with a bit of further rearrangement. Or place it on top of the main board? Either way, they do need to find a way to reduce the size if it's going to be a total solution. I find them to be excellent. The problem being that they will only fit into a small percentage of my fleet. You can set them to run with an analogue DC controller but for some reason it's not recommended. Good to hear from you again 😁 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metropolitan Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 (edited) 2 hours ago, RAF96 said: The subject of a separate Ae has previously been discussed in various forum, but the design of the next generation is already set with an improved Ae sizing. Jenny Kirk has done comparative installations and found that she could get these decoders into almost all her locos and she noted that the 21 pin variant is smaller than some big name decoders. Ref her channel for those details. Ref running on DC, this is well covered in the decoder manual and recommended for moderate steady state running-in purposes only, for the reasons stated. General stop/start running is not recommended due to need for the decoder to boot/reboot at each throttle on/off/fwd/rev selection making for poor control, the same forvany decoder equipped loco on DC. Added to this is the chance of some DC controller waveforms spiking a decoder at high throttle setting. That's interesting. Thanks for the information. Edit: Kirk is butchering to get it into the Dapol so that's no good for me. And I find that the power bank is essential really to guarantee flawless performance. (£15 for two shrink wrapped 2p caps!! 😀) Edited January 6 by Metropolitan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM666 Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 1 hour ago, Metropolitan said: (£15 for two shrink wrapped 2p caps!! 😀) Three. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metropolitan Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 15 minutes ago, SteveM666 said: Three. Ah! Well, two would be more than enough.😀 I'm surprised that no one's making a cheap clone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM666 Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 No doubt it will happen in time. Hornby did say that they had to go with three to ensure there was enough stored charge to maintain power to the decoder - these stayalives are not of the minimalist style to give a momentary nudge over a speck of dirt. They also share some components on the decoder to complete the charging circuit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meatloaf Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 21 minutes ago, SteveM666 said: No doubt it will happen in time. Hornby did say that they had to go with three to ensure there was enough stored charge to maintain power to the decoder - these stayalives are not of the minimalist style to give a momentary nudge over a speck of dirt. They also share some components on the decoder to complete the charging circuit. Indeed the one in my class 73 takes almost 30 seconds to discharge after power off the layout 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metropolitan Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 (edited) 1 hour ago, SteveM666 said: They also share some components on the decoder to complete the charging circuit. Really? Looks like three cheap shrink wrapped caps in parallel to me with no additional components. May disembowel one and have a look. I suspect that there are no additional components other than the wee electrolytic caps despite what Hornby might say to justify the price. I could be wrong. Anyway, Hornby are out of stock at the moment so they must be selling like hot cakes! Edited January 6 by Metropolitan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted January 6 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 6 (edited) 1 hour ago, Metropolitan said: Really? Looks like three cheap shrink wrapped caps in parallel to me with no additional components. May disembowel one and have a look. I suspect that there are no additional components other than the wee electrolytic caps despite what Hornby might say to justify the price. I could be wrong. Anyway, Hornby are out of stock at the moment so they must be selling like hot cakes! I think SteveM666 is saying some of the components normally included on a stay alive are on the main decider board on the HM7000 decoders. Edited January 6 by spamcan61 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenericRMWebUsername Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Looks like Rivarossi will be the first international brand to add HMDCC. Their E.656 and several of their trams will feature it according to the range release. It's good to see Hornby integrating HMDCC into more of their products! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cravensdmufan Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 1 hour ago, GenericRMWebUsername said: Looks like Rivarossi will be the first international brand to add HMDCC. Their E.656 and several of their trams will feature it according to the range release. It's good to see Hornby integrating HMDCC into more of their products! Good news indeed. The system has so much potential, especially that the end user can so easily make adjustments and even reprogram the decoders without needing specialist equipment. I have now fitted 12 into different loco classes - every one without any issues. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) 18 hours ago, Metropolitan said: Really? Looks like three cheap shrink wrapped caps in parallel to me with no additional components. May disembowel one and have a look. I suspect that there are no additional components other than the wee electrolytic caps despite what Hornby might say to justify the price. I could be wrong. Anyway, Hornby are out of stock at the moment so they must be selling like hot cakes! I took mine apart, I needed to add thinner shrink wrap to get it to fit. It has 3, it looks like 1 Farad capacitors, a SMD transistor and a couple of diodes. To be honest circuit looks similar to the LaisDCC "stay alive" but I didn't try to work out all the connections so it may well not be. I think the 3 capacitors are in series, but again I could be wrong. If so it has 3 more to do with voltage rating rather than capacity as 3 in series actually reduces the capacitance. It certainly works although so does the LaisDCC on another decoder from EBay at two thirds the price. Trouble is you can't fit a LaisDCC one so it is a bit of an academic argument. If anyone knows more I would be interested to know. Edited January 7 by ColinB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Richy59 Posted January 7 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 7 Has anybody taken the drastic step of cutting down a Next18 board? I watched Jenny Kirk’s video on removing the little plug sockets, but I’m looking to remove the antenna area of the board. Going by the traces on the board it only looks like the antenna is attached to the end of the board, so I’m wondering if I can cut it down to shorten the chip it’ll still work. Trying to fit it into a Bachmann V1 and it works well, but it’s too long to shut the body now at its standard length. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM666 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) No, that will completely knacker the decoder. Better to wait until the 2nd generation decoders come along. No idea of timescales but they have been designed and signed off but component availability is an issue. As to the V1 - I fitted mine by removing the screws from the mounting socket, clipping in the decoder then a wrap of Kapton tape and leaving the whole lot free to float inside the body at an angle rather than parallel to the chassis. Edited January 7 by SteveM666 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 If you chop off the Ae the decoder will not be able to talk to the app, hence no updates of firmware or sound profiles. If you want to bin the OTA bit then you may as well go with a different make sound decoder loaded with your preferred profile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) Hornby Power bank has 3 x 1F super caps in series, a transistor, a diode, three resistors in parallel, a zener diode and another resistor on its pcb. Charging is also controlled by further components on the decoder and is triggered from the decoder MCU after a time lag. Edited January 7 by RAF96 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold RedgateModels Posted January 7 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 7 1 minute ago, RAF96 said: Hornby Power bank has 3 x 1F super caps in series, a transistor, a diode, three resistors in parallel, a zener diode and another resistor. Charging is also controlled by further components on the decoder and is triggered from the decoder MCU after a time lag. 3 resistors in parallel? Assume for power handling, otherwise one of the right value would do the trick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted January 7 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 7 (edited) 19 minutes ago, RedgateModels said: 3 resistors in parallel? Assume for power handling, otherwise one of the right value would do the trick There are a few reasons to use 3 in parallel:- 3 smaller resistors might fit the physical space better than one bigger one. The PCB production line might be optimised for the smaller package size of the 3 off. Unlikely in this instance, but I have occasionally used multiple resistor combinations to achieve a specific overall resistance value. The smaller resistors might be easier to buy than the bigger one. Edited January 7 by spamcan61 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 52 minutes ago, spamcan61 said: There are a few reasons to use 3 in parallel:- 3 smaller resistors might fit the physical space better than one bigger one. The PCB production line might be optimised for the smaller package size of the 3 off. Unlikely in this instance, but I have occasionally used multiple resistor combinations to achieve a specific overall resistance value. The smaller resistors might be easier to buy than the bigger one. I imagine smaller footprint for the 3 parallel resistors, mainly height. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Richy59 Posted January 7 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 7 5 hours ago, SteveM666 said: No, that will completely knacker the decoder. Better to wait until the 2nd generation decoders come along. No idea of timescales but they have been designed and signed off but component availability is an issue. As to the V1 - I fitted mine by removing the screws from the mounting socket, clipping in the decoder then a wrap of Kapton tape and leaving the whole lot free to float inside the body at an angle rather than parallel to the chassis. To be honest I never thought or noticed screws holding the socket in place, so I’ll have a look at that first. i wasn’t planning totally removing the antenna, just cutting it down slightly so the body fit over. Would maybe only be taking half of the board off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM666 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 The antenna zigzags across the whole end of the board as it allows a longer length to fit a smaller space. Any ‘trimming’ will render the whole thing inoperative. More importantly it will also ruin any warranty and support from Hornby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF96 Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Customer support - what seems to be wrong with your decoder sir. Punter - it doesn't work since I cut it in half. CS - I am afraid that is outwith the warranty sir. 1 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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