Crosland

Like these https://uk.farnell.com/w/c/connectors/power-entry-connectors/dc-power-connectors-barrel-plugs-jacks/prl/results?gender=plug&sort=P_PRICE DC barrel connectors?

You need to know the size, 2.1mm and 2.5mm being common, referring to the pin on the jack (socket on the equipment) and the hole in the plug (on the end of the power lead). If your connector is loose then you may be using a 2.5mm plug (larger hole) in a 2.1mm jack (smaller pin).

Cut off the old plug and fit the new one, ensuring you connect the positive to the inner part (the hole). Or, try an adapter. This one has a socket (jack) for a 2.5mm plug and a 2.1mm plug https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/ps11472/adaptor-2-1mm-socket-to-2-50mm/dp/CN22418

Or the problem is something completely different ...😀

PS Please open help>system console in JMRI and log the activity during a running session.

Is there much else happening on the laptop at the same time as running trains?

12 hours ago, RobertPotts said:

8. The only other thing i have noticed yesterday evening is in the JMRI window (running on Ubuntu) there is a constant Warning message for the delay time to communicate with the Sprog 3.  this is slightly strange as the device is connected with less that .5m of USB cable direct to the laptop, running JMRI 5.2 and the latest install of Java.

What sort of laptop? I've only ever seen this on Raspberry Pis. It's not related to the cable. It happens when the machine is too busy to keep the packets flowing to the SPROG, e.g., moving windows around on screen with a Pi. It's really just a warning.

What firmware version is the SPROG? You can see this in the console window.

Do you mean EZ Command https://www.Bachmann.co.uk/product/category/282/e-z-command-control-centre/36-501 ? The one that I have requires an AC supply. It doesn't work on DC.

On 16/10/2023 at 17:44, Nigelcliffe said:

Have you asked the makers of Sprog about it ?  They are usually extremely helpful.  

I try to be :)

Lots of questions, here's a selection...

What's the layout wiring like? Do you have decent size bus wiring and frequent droppers to the track?

Do the problems occur on particular sections of track, or when a particular loco (e.g., one that draws more current) is on a particular track section?

Does it happen if only one loco is moving? If you add one loco at a time is there a limit, or is the behaviour more random?

When things stop dead does the SPROG track power LED flash faster than normal? That would indicate some kind of overload. The SPROG is very sensitive. E.g., shorting on point frogs that are not "wired for DCC".

You need at least a 2.5 Amp supply for the SPROG 3 and I would recommend 15V if it's OO. The Prodigy Advance seems to be 3.5 Amp, so maybe you are at the limit of the SPROG (although I doubt it). How many locos in total? What scale? Any known current hogs?

You could wire a multimeter in series with the power input to the SPROG, set for DC current. It will not show any fast peaks but may give an indication of what is going on. The SPROG itself takes very little current.

PS Help will come quicker if you put SPROG in the thread title. I only came across this by accident.

There's a 15 year old phone number on their blog page https://branchlines.blogspot.com/

7 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Is the problem with coreless motors that they cannot dissipate the extra heat compared to motion that a square wave gives because there is no core in which to dissipate it? If so, does a higher frequency help that much?  

Yes. At low speed there's very little back-EMF being generated and the motor will draw close to it's stall current. PWM tends to use pulses of full voltage which exacerbates things. The more delicate brushes do not like the higher peak current at the start of each pulse, or so I have read, I believe, from one of the 4mm fine scale societies findings.

At higher frequencies, the motor inductance makes the supply look more like DC at a lower average voltage (same holds for core motors too).

On 14/10/2023 at 14:45, WIMorrison said:

This same shortage of components is what is affecting all suppliers in the model railway community (Zimo, ESU, Uhlenbrock, Roco, Tams, etc)

Definitely not ALL :)

15 hours ago, ikcdab said:

This looks like a great piece of development.  Well done.

Did I read somewhere that PWM controllers dont work with coreless motors? Or did I imagine it? Certainly I think that PWM work best with certain types of motor. Can you elaborate?

Every DCC decoder is a PWM controller, so PWM and coreless do mix, but...

You need a much higher frequency PWM than the typical old-school PWM controller which may have derived the frequency from the 50Hz mains supply. Modern DCC decoders can be 10s of kHz. How that would work on an analogue layout with a central controller, I can't answer.

5 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Although I ticked ‘agree’ above, I’m not sure it’s absolute.  Stalling a motor is probably unusual

It's not really about actual stalling which, as you say, is unusual. A loco being driven hard, that is heavily loaded, will slow down. The Back EMF will decrease and the motor current will increase. The "stall current" is the absolute worst case limit of this process (maximum voltage applied, very low speed). Unless the loco itself is very heavy and has very good grip, the wheels are more likely to slip before you reach the stall current.

3 hours ago, young37215 said:

I recently spent £80 on a DCC Concepts Alpha Meter which showed that I did not need the booster I thought I needed which in turn saved me the £200 that a typical ESU booster costs. 

You could have used a £5 multimeter to measure the current from the power supply to the system.

Not directly answering your questions, but

9 hours ago, Damo666 said:

 

IMy head is full of data relating to self-levelling beds, better bearings (which makes me thing it was a FDM printer) but also 8K resolution (then a resin printer).

Remember 8k is not double the resolution of 4k.

9 hours ago, Damo666 said:

simple to use without having to spend days running test prints to calibrate it.

Test prints are as much about calibrating your use of the printer, e.g., supports, position relative to the bed, ...

There's a supplementary fee of 16p for PO drop off on some services, see https://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?t=110728

13 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

I didn't think it had any capability to program CV's other than changing a loco address to one in the 1 - 9 range and changing the orientation, or direction of a loco.

The supplied transformer (it requires AC to work, a Switch mode PSU is no use) results in a stupidly high track voltage.

I would avoid it and spend more money on something better, like the various Roco items you often see (or used to, at least) split from sets.

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

 

My argument is that by taking a percentage of what a buyer has paid for postage, they are in fact taking money owed to the Royal Mail that is not theirs to take.  

It's a percentage of the total sale price (inc. delivery) owed to the seller. Royal Mail do not have any special claim to it. What the seller charges, and who they engage to deliver (doesn't have to be RM), are entirely the sellers business.

We do generally recommend the SPROG II for programming and running in the smaller scales, and the SPROG 3 for larger scales, but the SPROG II can be used with a 15V supply. There could still be an issue, however, if the current draw is too high.

The problem I referred to was actually with a 15V supply.

Andrew

I have had a customer report the same issue with the DCC fitted version of the 92, 37 and the Deltic. No resolution as yet.

Andrew Crosland

sprog-dcc.co.uk

54 minutes ago, cessna152towser said:

Not worth the hassle by the time eBay, couriers and customs have taken their share of the proceeds.

Don't use the GSP!

Discrete component package types refer to the length and width. You need an accurate measurement, but I would suggest something like EIA code 2824 or 7260 metric. The 2824 is in thou of an inch and designates 0.82 x 0.24. The metric size is mm and designates 7.2 x 6.0 mm. 

That leads you to https://uk.farnell.com/avx/f751a477mrc/cap-470-f-10v-20-2824/dp/2408402 which is 1.2 mm high. The height can vary with value, voltage rating, etc, ...

Filing destroys any coating and just leads to the bits corroding away. You end up re-filing until there's nothing left.

17 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

I’d be concerned that they might not be around in 10 years time as it’s a one man band.

I'm still here almost 20 years on :) I do (kind of) have a succession plan should it come to that.

Still (occasionally) supporting original products.

Andrew Crosland

sprog-dcc.co.uk

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

In respect of my original point that the preferences have changed, found the page now and they have taken away the option to block people with less than 5 feedback - top option here is the watered down equivalent.

It's called "enshittification"

First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Wiktionary defines it as "The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits"

Take pictures of the package as you package it.

2 hours ago, St. Simon said:

 

I think this is a limitation with any controller which has a throttle like the Zephyr i.e. has a start and end point and marked graduations. If you have a throttle with continually turn-able knobs, like the Digitrax handheld (this can be used with the Zephyr, although it is expensive!) or Gaugemaster Prodigy, then you don't have the same issue.

Potentiometer v. rotary encoder. You (or manufacturers if they wanted to) can get around it by not allowing the throttle to fully take over the new loco until the pot has been adjusted to match the current speed (which the command station will need to have stored). Maybe the EZ command does that.

The term "DC" covers a multitude of sins. Is it really pure DC or some form of pulsed supply or half-wave rectified + DC, or, ...?

I would thoroughly test a module on the "DC" supply before committing to anything.