sirandy

Melmerby, cheers, I will try that. I can read CV's with the Elite, but tend to use a calculator rather than spin head with bits....I do notice with the calculator, the relative changes that occur when changing factors and its probably experience that will help there...I will give it a go, thanks

Thanks Iain, I understand your suggestion, I think I might have mis-worded...let me clarify... The take-off from standing is fine, what I meant was I want it to 'ramp-up' from its slow start, to its maximum speed. Because the voltage an gearing are not conducive to good acceleration. In a curve environment, start is fine, top speed fine, I just want it to get up to speed a bit quicker thorugh the mid range. I have not adjusted the accel/decel rates just yet, as those will probably exascerbate the problem. Can I adjust CV6 and just leave CV 5 and get better speed build up through the mid point? I dont want to go into complex speed curves just yet.

Gents, Yes this topic has been derailed (are puns like this allowed on a train forum? lol) but there is a lot of valuable information which has been useful to me. So as an update, I sent the Lais controllers (one that went dodgy and the other that did nothing) and the guys there were very helpful in testing them out. The one on the 8F had some burn marks on it which suggested that there was a short on the motor side, the other one that didnt work out the box, they replaced without a qualm so hats off to good support from their side. At the same time, I bought a Zimo MX600R and after double checking all the continuity on the loco, chassis and the pin on the drawbar connection, wired it up (this time with a harness as recommended by smudge) and it works a lot better and is still running. I adjusted the CV57 to 100 and it gives a lot better top speed although from whats been mentioned above, I am still sitting on 10v so as per the advice above, will set it to 60 to ensure the motor is not getting over 6V, I suspect though, that I will find that the speed is too low as the gearing is designed for a 12V motor, so may play around until I get a decent top speed, I hope at 8V it will be good and wont burn the motor out as quickly. Now I have found that because the voltage is so low, and I need to adjust CV6 to a lot higher so that it will 'take off' a little quicker. Assuming I have all the speed step resolution available, can I leave CV5 as is, and just adjust CV6 to around 60 or 80 given there are 128 steps? Another question I have, a bit off this topic, but hoping I can get an answer... I now have an Elite Controller, I found one for e very good price, and have utilised the 4 digit naming scheme but have noticed that when I did that, the Elite obvioulsy changes CV29 config to allow for longer addresses, and now the trains that I changed to 4 digit numbering, go backwards. Do I need to change the config of CV29? Given that the elite allows actual naming of the loco's, I might put them back to 2 digit naming, and then give them loco names rather, I just dont know if it will automatically change CV29 AGAIN to allow for 2 digit address and restore the NDOT (normal direction of travel). I have used the digitrax CV29 calculator to good effect previously and may just reset ALL the decoders and start fresh. The Elite is pretty good, and my son will be familiar with the layout but I dont like the fact that you need to keep turning the dial, and the actual speed steps are on the screen, I think it might confuse him a little, so will try set the CV6 values a little higher so he doesnt have to keep spinning the dial to speed up/slow down. The Zimo decoders are great value for money, and spending that little extra is probably worth it, the Lais ones are nice and compact so have a good purpose in the small 0-4-0 loco's where there is very little room. One of mine has NO cab, so no space at all to put a harness, they will have to be hardwired, so I will cut the wires (reluctantly) and install a Lais rather than a Zimo. On all the others, it will be Zimo all the way. Thanks chaps and chapette's (if any exist on a model train forum)... Andy

Smudge, one went into a Class 8F that had the ringfield conversion to cd-can, the other went into the DC based 0-4-0. The cd-can conversion went well for a while and was working fine after I had made the adjustments to the CV's. I left it overnight, on the track, switched off at the mains. The next morning, I switched on the track, and was using a dcc flying scotsman that had a derailment and short circuited. Do you think its possible a short from another train would make another decoder fail? I would expect the Scotsman or the other 0-6-0 that was also on the track to also fail, but they are running fine. The 0-4-0 went from its packet, got hard wired, straight to the track and was dead as a dodo from the get go. I bought them from Digitrains, so I will send them both back and see if there is anything that can be done to test them. On the 8F, I dont really like how the tender drive gets its power through that single drawbar pin, the chassis frame of the tender is VERY close to that pin and when putting the train on the track, its easy to short circuit. Is it possible that a short circuit like that would blow the decoder, and if so, I would have thought it would blow straight away. This train was running fine until it just started to act erratically and came to a stop....done. I am hunting a different controller now, as being able to read as well as write cv's would be most useful. I may get a SPROG and use that to program the decoders and then give the pre-programmed loco's to my son to play with. I was hoping to get everything done by the time he gets back from half-term... I prefer the select for him as it is very simple for a 6 year old to operate.

Yeah, so the word on Laisdcc being rubbish, seems to ring true... one decoder has died, while on the track...was going well, was finally at a speed that was close to what I wanted and then on a circuit, it just started slowing down to a crawl, kept getting slower and slower, zero response to throttle inputs....stopped dead. I tried resetting the decoder, tried renaming it and it was taking the inputs from the select....and then....nothing. So, since I had two, I decided to wire it up to a 0-4-0 loco, probably one of the simplest to hardwire....zilch, dead, wont even accept a write from the controller. Rubbish I suppose....

Thanks all, I am still confused a bit but I am going to try and slowly get it sorted. I have reset CV2 to 0, CV3 & 4 are the accel/decel rates so will leave those for now. Will set CV5 at 150 and CV6 at 75 and see if that helps. The loco I am running is a Hornby 8F with tender drive that I have converted to a CD Can motor and being 6V its lightning fast. I am assuming that if the actual voltage doesn't change, I at least need to get the speed to half, as a start point, will see how that goes. I looked at the Lais CV list and CV57 is "Dither Amplitude" and is set at 10, so its probably not the same functionality as the Zimo decoders, so I will leave that as is for now. Great help, thanks lads.

Really appreciate all the feedback, I am slowly starting to learn this stuff. I managed to get the decoder connected up, and I have activity. As expected, the top speed was 'warp' speed, so I needed to dial that down.... I started by using CV5 and set that at 64 (I assumed that if its a total of 128 steps, 64 would be half) and set CV6 at 32 (assumed to be half of the 64 I set in CV5). Its working but the loco moves off OK, but then gets to about 1/3 throttle, and starts to back off on the speed, and you have to move it past halfway to get it to get up to speed again. I think I am getting slightly mixed up between the 0-255 steps of the decoder and apparently 128 steps of the controller...getting confuzzed now. Obviously I cannot 'read' the values of the CV's with the Select, so I am now not sure how to get the positions I want.

Thanks for the response, I stand corrected, I believe the correct CV numbers are CV5-Vhigh and CV6 - Vmid, adjusting these will be the way to limit top and mid voltage. I will look into whether they can be programmed or not. Will also look into the Zimo units. Laisdcc say on their site the 860021 has a 2A peak and 1A nominal, and considering I wont be using any functions, this may be able to handle high amps.

Hi All, I am new to this forum, and hope to gain some valuable info, and maybe be able to contribute too! Ok, I have a small DCC setup, with Hornby componenents. I have one loco as aprt of the set that is DCC compatible out the box, and I have a few older loco's that have been tested and are functional in a DC environment. I have converted the Ringfield motors to CD Can motors with 3D printed adaptors. As expected, the loco's run way to fast as the motors are 6V and are this not well equiped to run and last in a DC environment (especially as the user is my son who is 6) he will destroy them by trying to run at top speed. I am going to DCC them, and am looking at the cheapest option as a startpoint, until I gain more experience in installing and setting up. For now, I have a Hornby Select controller that has been upgraded to the lastest FW which includes the ability to adjust CV values (or some at least). I need the very basics out of this for now, and this will include being able to limit voltage to the motors, by programming CV29 (I believe) and I will set accel and decel rates.....thats it, No lights, sound or anything else. What I need to know, if people have had experience with this, is whether the Laisdcc 860021 motor + 4Function DCC Decoder can be programmed from the upgraded Select controller, first and foremost to adjust the start, mid and top voltage throughput. If not perhaps someone can advise on a budget decoder where this is possible. I really do appreciate the feedback. Regards, Andy