metadyneman

Rails have taken my payment too and they have advised it will be posted out to me this week. Glad I preordered it too as the price is significantly higher now!

Having consulted with Richard Croft regarding this, there appears to be a general shortage of ESU decoders at the moment so in a very swift moment of decision whilst conversing with him, I persuaded myself to purchase the Loksound V5 decoder from Roads & Rails and installed it yesterday. All the functions now work and i can now annoy my neighbours with some lovely railbus sounds going round the garden . On another point though.. it does seem a little bit naughty that the model is only geared up to work with one manufacturers decoder without modifying and re-mapping the functions. Not all of us are DCC experts and re-mapping isn't something I have ever attempted and quite honestly I don't really want to when buying decoders for a new model!

Mine arrived today. Its a lovely model and I note in the instructions, the DCC functions have been geared up to use an ESU loksound V5 decoder. It also advises if a different decoder is used then the functions may have to be re mapped to make them work. What is really irritating is the fact there is nothing in the instructions telling you which function switches which light on even for the ESU decoder. I want to fit a standard (non sound) decoder in it but I also want to know that all the functions will work. I have temporarily fitted a cheapo Laisdcc decoder with a stay alive capacitor in it as that is all I have spare at the moment but as I don't know which function does what with the ESU decoder I've no idea if can re map any on the temporary laisdcc one.

Just as a point of note, even though it may not be relevant to someone using DC, the Theatre box (head code) lights are individually switchable on DCC which means you can switch off the light on the rearmost box when hauling stock. Dapol have also modified the pcb to enable the rear cab light to be left on or the front cab light, both or none at all. I have left mine so that the rear cab is on and is directional in accordance with travel. The lighting seems to have been geared up better for DCC operation it would seem

Many thanks for this. It is more or less the answer I was expecting but didn't know the CV number to turn it off. I'll have a play later and see how I get on.

Hi, I'm sorry if someone has asked this before but I cannot find any reference to it on here, so someone may be able to point me in the right direction. I've just purchased a Bachmann class 117 DMU and with it the recommended Bachmann (Zimo) decoder. My question is straightforward really. Is there a simple way to disable the brake button function so that I can use the master control on my Dynamis to start & stop the train? I'm not a great lover of using separate bits of my controller to control a train and remembering to dab f2 every time I want to stop the train is not really my bag. Any assistance with this without getting too technical would be gratefully received. Ta

Had a play with the CVs yesterday, and thank you for your assistance Pheaton. It worked but I fear the speakers do not do the sounds justice. I may have to have a little word with a certain Mr Croft at Roads & Rails to source some better speakers that will fit the 159

Thank you, I will have a play and see what happens (noting what the original value was before I change it just in case I balls it up!)

In a morning of "lockdown" boredom (because it's raining and i can't run my garden railway) I have been looking through this topic for an answer to something regarding the sound on the 159 but haven't as yet found anything. Having diligently done my duty and had a look first I will ask it now:- The main sound volume can be adjusted up and down by adjusting CV 266 but I was wondering if there is a way of adjusting the individual sound volumes on the decoder such as the horn and the doors closing alarm and such like. I know it is possible to do this on ESU decoders and I have had a look at the Zimo decoder manual and feel sure it is possible to do it with their decoders too. Unfortunately the Zimo manual is a bit like wading through treacle and not that easy to follow for an ageing old git like me so i was wondering if anyone out there might know what the individual CVs are, whether they can be adjusted and what the value ranges are. In particular I find the horn very weak and wishy washy and would like to increase the volume without increasing the overall sound volume. Any advice or assistance would be gratefully received.

As it seems to have been confirmed above that by removing and bridging the polyswitch one is not invalidating the guarantee, are we now to interpret that this is acceptable and official guidance from Kernow on how to alleviate the problem? I haven't heard anything other than what Paul has advised above. Mind you in the greater scheme of things I'm not that bothered as mine is running as sweet as a nut and performed well again yesterday afternoon in the warm sunshine with 8 up round the garden.

With respect, I don't think anyone has "slagged" Kernow Models off on this thread or seems likely to in the future, in fact they (Kernow) have been most helpful with trying to understand the fault and work out a solution which for them (and ultimately us) won't invalidate the guarantee. The fact that they have gone back to the factory over this, just shows their commitment to resolving the situation as quickly as possible. I suspect that hundreds of models are not suffering the same problem because they aren't run as I do mine with 8 or 9 Bachmann coaches round a garden railway with a constant running session sometimes lasting over an hour. I will say that I am delighted with my D600 now that it works properly and would bet on the vast majority of others being just as satisfied.

I and a number of others discovered the problem last week and found that the only way at present to stop the loco from grinding to a halt after about 10 or so minutes was to bridge the re-settable fuse and take it out of the equation altogether. I have been in contact with Kernow over this via several lengthy e-mails and their response so far is non-committal ( mainly because the boss was in Guildford for the opening of their new shop) other than at present they are in dialogue with the factory regarding the issue. It is clear that there is a problem here which needs to be rectified and in the meantime the only way to stop these locos from dying after a few minutes is to bridge the fuse. The only other question over doing this is that it would probably invalidate the guarantee and that is something else which Kernow have said to me that they are investigating. My D600 has been running faultlessly ever since I bridged the fuse. I cannot really envisage anything is likely to overload either the motor or the decoder with the fuse bridged if it is run normally and at a realistic speed.

Well mine has been running for over 30 minutes now with the same load as yesterday and it has performed brilliantly! Email sent to Kernow to alert them of a possible problem with the polyswitch!

Thank you both for this, I am now about to test D600 round the garden (with bridged polyswitch) and hope there are no blue puffs of smoke! This forum is excellent at times and this has proved to be the case this afternoon. Thank you gentlemen

Good stuff.. I might just do this with mine and see what happens with yours and abandon my plans to return it to Kernow

Looking at the description of what a polyswitch does on the interweb, the symptoms of what is happening when the loco comes to a halt would seem to replicate what the polyswitch does. In other words it restricts the current when it gets too hot to just a bare "leakage" until it has cooled down sufficiently then it restores the current back when it cools down. Maybe the polyswitch isn't up to the job!

Oooh! Maybe it's that which is causing the problem then, maybe the motor is sending messages to the resettable fuse to re-set when it gets too hot!

I'm just wondering if it's worth soldering a wired decoder into it just connecting the red/black orange/Grey wires to the track/motor would replicate the problem.

Yes

Probably best not to try then. I still think it is the coreless motor causing the problem to be honest. The loco does get very warm when running and it is known that coreless motors do run hotter than conventional ones. I think this is causing the loco to shut down.

I think we need to get Kernow models involved in this as it is clearly a problem. As I'm about to send mine back I will wait patiently to see what they come up with. I'm enclosing a letter explaining everything I have tried. (apart from launching it at great velocity over next doors fence!)

I'm no electronics wizard but how about removing the capacitor and bridging the gap with wire?

The plot thickens! I have now managed to replicate the problem running my D600 on DC without a decoder (using a Gaugemaster model D power controller) so the problem is definitely with the loco not the decoders I am using. I had the loco running round the layout with the same rake of 8 Bachmann blue grey mark1 coaches as yesterday and although it took a little longer, the loco eventually ground to a halt and behaved exactly the same way as it did with the decoder. I have resorted to calling Kernow models and I'm now returning my loco to them for either replacement or diagnosis and repair. They still maintain that they have only had a small number of people with problems only relating to sound decoders and it would therefore seem that my problem hasn't really surfaced in any great numbers with them so it is very important if anyone else is experiencing problems that they make Kernow models aware of it so that this matter can be resolved once and for all. Suffice to say after the huge success of the Bulleid diesel, this one is very disappointing so far. Once I have received the loco back from Kernow I will report back with my findings. They seem a little shy on admitting that there is a problem and one clearly seems to be emerging.

Just as a matter of interest has anyone on here actually taken the plunge and removed the capacitor like component from the circuit board?

I agree, this needs to be brought to Kernow Model's attention because it seems there is a common theme running though the problem.. i.e the loco just limps to a stop after a period of running,