Flunter

Well, I'm clearly doing something wrong, but I'm blowed if I know what! Apologies for the following essay. The first loco I bought was the Hornby Railroad Dean Single, I fit an 8 pin decoder myself and away we went, even after running-in it ran very jerky. Given the Z21 unit was secondhand I didn't want to assume it was faulty so I bought the Hornby Railroad Mallard with TTS sound and gave it a go. I setup all the sounds, changed the decoder address to 68 and it ran a treat.. for 45 minutes anyway. It stopped running and the Z21 was showing a short circuit, this was traced to the Mallard's tender so I'm assuming it was the decoder. I then bought the Hornby Ruston & Hornsby R&H 48DS 0-4-0 and fitted a 6 pin decoder myself. Before replacing the body I placed the motor on the track and almost instantly the decoder flashed and popped. I then bought the Class E1 No. 2173 in NER Lined Green livery 0-6-0 Tank Locomotive from Rails of Sheffield, this came DCC fitted. It appeared to setup correctly but didn't run well, the body was warm to the touch so I removed it straight away. Please remember that I'm still waiting for track to arrive, so all the above was done on a small oval of Hornby set track. I've just connected the Z21 to the Maintenance Tool, everything looks normal and the firmware up to date v1.33. Did a reset of the unit, still everything was normal. I've just fitted a new TTS sound decoder to the Mallard and given it a try. It sort-of ran but even after reducing the speed to zero the loco kept going, again, the decoder was very warm to the touch. Do I bite the bullet and fork out for a new Z21 unit, or has anyone any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Phil.

I have already downloaded the Maintenance tool, completely forgot I'd got it, will give it a go. Appreciated. I updated the firmware as soon as I received the unit, did a check yesterday and it still has the most current version installed. Thanks for the advise.

Sorry, should have said, it's the Z21 black.

Hi all, first post here. I'm building my first layout (placed my order for track on the 17th July, still waiting for points, but that's a different story) and bought a second-hand Z21 unit from a well-known online auction site. While waiting for track to be delivered I've bought a couple of locos and attempted to get them setup on the Z21 on a small loop of Hornby set track I bought for the purpose. What I'm finding is that the unit seems to be blowing my decoders, I've popped 2 already and the 2 that haven't popped are performing really poorly and unpredictably, so much so that I daren't put the locos on the track again. Putting a multi-meter across the track the reading I'm getting is 25.1v, switching rails it shows 10.5v, is this normal, is the Z21 faulty? Yeah, I know, serves me right for buying second hand, lesson learned Thanks in advance. Phil.