Hornby britannia with DCC sound, CV alteration advice from howes

[big jim]

had an email from bryan regarding the standard Hornby DCC sound fitted and how to get the standard sounds working better out of the box....

 

 

Having just had my first Hornby Sound fitted Britannia to reblow for a Howes customer I thought as I had an hour, to spare I would do some tests to see how it performed straight from the box. As seems to be the norm with RTR sound locos there were several settings that needed to be altered to optimise its performance, especially to get the 4 chuffs to one wheel revolution as per prototype, a very important feature on steam sound models.

 

As a result I have compiled a table of CVs with before and after values that I would use if it were my model, I recommend the mods to any owner with a new sound Britannia so as to get the best out of it. There are certain settings on the loco that cannot be altered, these affect the coasting capabilities, its a bit early for Christmas but its the same old chestnut!!, eg, when coasting into a station the loco starts to chuff again when it reaches a lower throttle speed setting, ( ring any bells !!) this continues to happen however low you set the throttle so you end up effectively chuffing to a halt. this characteristic is particularly annoying but unfortunately cannot be altered by the user as the threshold settings are set within the sound file by the project author.

 

The CV list below shows the before and after values and will allow the loco perform better with the chuff/ wheel rotation pretty much in sync all the way through the speed range, something the Lok4 can do that the Lok 3. 5 couldnt, other settings set brake theshold and random sound settings so they are not so regular that they become annoying. As for sound levels, each Function sound volume level can be individually set by CVs including the Random and Braking sounds, this allows the user to set his or her own personal levels, a feature found in other decoders but one which has only become available on the Loksound decoders with the advent of the Lok4.

 

So here is my preferred list, dont forget if you screw it all up just do a CV8 reset, enter the value 8 into CV 8 and it will rest the decoder to the original Hornby default CV settings, no harm done.

 

 

CV Hornby value New value

 

3 40 60

6 44 64

53 105 120

54 80 12

55 150 12

57 110 60

58 31 21

61 50 72

62 63 128

64 254 70

65 53 20

249 60 20

 

If, as I did, you find the Random sounds too loud 2 CV changes are required, firstly CV31 needs to be set to 1, this is one of the CVs that are used to extend the CV range from 255 up to 512,

CV 451 then sets the volume level on a scale of 0 min to 128 max sound. I would try 50 as a starting point, to change it to another value you MUST set CV31 to 1 again first, or you could change another setting in the decoder.

I felt the Brake squeal was a tad loud too, to alter that set CV31 to 1, CV459 sets the volume on a scale of 0 to 128 as above, I put 50 in which sounded much better. on Brake and random sounds.

again if all goes skywards CV 8 reset is there if you need it. If you have a controller that cannot read CVs, not a problem you dont really need to read them just input the values as per the list.

 

I hope this posting is of some help to RM Web readers who have purchased a sound Brit especially those just getting into DCC sound, to be able to optimise your loco to what you want is all part of the experience.

 

Good luck and Rule Britannia!!.

 

 

Bryan

Howes Sounds