Crosland

So what does this mean https://us13.campaign-archive.com/?u=9687385558a1289cf97083ac7&id=5cedcc1305 ? It would seem Hornby have decided to go against established standards, no surprise there, then.

It's the rubber breaking down. An old fashioned pencil eraser is good for cleaning the PCB, but, as you say, the problem will recur in time.

Pedantically, functions are selected on a cab and are internal to a decoder. A decoder can support many more functions than it has outputs (i.e. wire connections), that's what function mapping is for. You could, if you wanted, map F28 on your cab to some lighting effect. It doesn't mean the decoder has to have 28 physical outputs. Having said that, it would be unusual for a decoder to only support four functions, so I think Dapol (or whoever) are just mislabelling the number of wires as well as calling them functions. "function outputs" would be better.

I refuse to buy anything that is GSP. I once let GSP be set as default for sales and buyers complained about the cost of shipping. I cancelled the sales and re-listed without the GSP option.

Ahh, that makes sense. I did wonder if it was "print on demand" as I ordered a US published book at the same time which came in exactly the same format and "printed by Amazon". I had expected it to be US stock but they both took a couple of days, rather than the usual next day prime delivery.

Any decent e-commerce system will keep track of stock for you, once you set it up, and show stock levels and allow pre-orders or give an indication of lead times. OpenCart is free and does this (although there can be niggles).

As I understand there will be small UPS available for vulnerable people but they do not have a very long run time.

Interestingly, it's printed by Amazon, at least if you order from Amazon.

Not sure if this should be in Computer Control or DCC forum but, question as per the title, or thinking of using?

A lot of Squires electronic stuff is sourced from Rapid, or used to be. You could tell by the fact that the order codes were identical.

Switch mode supplies that do not have an earth connection (e.g. a two pin mains connector or a 13A plug with plastic earth pin) can also be treated as floating, but DO NOT simply use a plastic earth pin with a PSU that is designed to be earthed.

If you are just referring to the wiring to the buttons then it should be fine. I don't know the design, but there should be no appreciable current through them.

The SPROG has a very fast cutout, so you need a DCO with an even faster trip. Reports from other users say that Tam Valley products will work, if you can get them. The breaker doesn't have to be sub 1 Amp since a short will always be higher than this.

If the capacitors are rated high enough then you get more bang for your buck by increasing the voltage.

If VAT was paid at time of purchase, there is no liability for UK VAT. It sounds like the sender, or UPS, have screwed up the paperwork.

A thread for small traders to recount how some customers can be "different" or "difficult" would probably run to a few pages. Happily, I've not had too many. I remember one who described JMRI (open source software for DCC systems) as "hippy groupware" and tried to complain to one of the MR magazines. This is NOT a dig at anyone posting in this thread.

First point of call in situations like this should always be the Wayback Machine, or Internet Archive. Try here https://web.archive.org/web/20210618002929/http://www.bromsgrovemodels.co.uk/ at least some of the links work.

This may be a good thing (see below) The issue is that every phone in the building that has WiFi turned on (how may people turn it off when they leave the house?) will be trying to connect to the internet through the router. Yes, but it's the WiFi connection that is the issue, and it is an issue. Having a stand-alone router of a good pedigree (I've no idea what is supplied with the Z21, hence my "may be" comment) might help in that it will cope better with all the connection requests. An MR company's own designed WiFi access point may not be quite so robust and could suffer badly. Agreed.

Can't help, other than to say https://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/ doesn't know about them.

It would take some doing to exceed 5 A with a few stationary (when powering up) locos and lit carriages. I am guessing the lit carriages have capacitors to prevent them flickering, but don't have current limit resistors to prevent a large inrush current when power is applied. I seem to recall the Hornby Pullmans were notorious for this when they were first released.

Judging by the #photo, I think that has alrteady been tried. Any Roco dealer should be able to supply https://www.roco.cc/ren/products/accessories/electrical-accessories/cables-and-plugs/10619-connecting-cable.html Or, how about https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/magento/catalogsearch/result/?manufacturer=303&q=track+feed

There is at least one UK sound project that, by default, uses functions higher than 28. There was a thread about it not too long ago.

And even higher.

There a number of schemes such as Taxamo that enable shipping DDP (Delivery and Duty Paid) where the VAT for the destination country is paid by the sender and charged to the buyer at checkout.

According to our local Evri agent, they have taken on a contract from RM to deliver parcels and he now gets 500/day when he can only cope with 250.