Ighten

Shunting today's vans...

3 hours ago, Barclay said:

Magnificent loco. Is it me though or is the tender a different colour ?

I do know Didcot at one time displayed the restored tender on its own for a while after it's painting and lining. It's possible the engine went to a different company or so long had passed a total match wasn't possible.. the video shows it up more as I think HDR was on.

Well I decided to ask the local council if we could qualify for solar panel grants as the barn has an F rating and apparently this area falls into an income and savings are irrelevant as it's rural. They basically said surveyors on his way you can have them for free...

I sense a catch but this is directly through the local council.

My limas are all 8 pin fitted with sockets and work fine.. though the auto profile produces the usual Lima 0 to 60 in .5 seconds result so I re programmed the curve manually for slow running.

My only issue is that this seems to remove some auto functions on f28 from working correctly like break squeal. I need to relook at that. I also have a mix of hm7000 and zimo etc so the app as a controller is pretty pointless, it is however excellent for programming the hm7000 chips and fine tuning on the fly.

Well you can squeeze an Hm7000 into the  EFE Hymek with no issues others than the usual elephant in the room. Lack of a class 35 profile.

Take your old unused track rubber, wrap a piece of lint free cloth around it ( the type used to clean spectacle lenses) tightly. And soak the flat bottom in electrical contact cleaner.. You will never look back.

Ps doesn't have to be a track rubber just something easy to handle when you have tightly wrapped the cloth around and are holding the knot.

It sort of works for what it's meant to do, but it's not very good at realistic notch control, inertia and speed matching. 

You need to delve into the curves to get those working. TBF it's not Hornbys fault, it just would have been nice to be able to use the auto functions, though I wish they would fix that auto horn before a movement to have a longer delay before the movement. 

Looking good so far.. I would agree with James though and go with the picture frame effect for a layout of this size.. Such as shown here, forcing a viewpoint and adding lighting makes a huge difference. Also make sure your landscape isnt all flat.. As you have already laid the track on the base you could take the other route and build up a little land at the front.

Finally located the class 47 sound test in the Lima using HM7000 8 pin and a rather "long" acceleration curve so that you can pretty much notch the engine up a step or two without the ringfield actually running away at 30mph from 5mph.

Only issue now though this seems to have effected some of the auto functions like brake squeal.

A rather unlikely dirty "Prince William" with an even more unlikely payload. 🫣

I had a break for a while from the railway as I've been working abroad a while..

When I came back I placed a loco on the cleaned track and got no response from my DCC controller.. yet every other loco non hm7000 was fine

After several hours of fruitless headscratching and jet lag sleep it dawned on me that my phone had Bluetooth off . Turning it on immediately sprung life into everything.

But my point and query is, shouldn't it be irrelevant as once I put my profiles on,  these are all run in DCC mode through my controller, not Bluetooth through the phone app. Or am I misunderstanding here.

Could a secondPower Hornby power bank be added to those then RAF

14 minutes ago, RAF96 said:

Some decoder boards do have C+/- solder pads but the manual says these are for development purpose 

 

Some of these exorbitant fees from the US are simply because the seller forgot to turn off international and eBay went to default..

You can walk into any towns FedEx store and buy a shipping box with air for a fraction of these costs fully insured.

Is there a reason you need to know the exact voltage.....cheaper to Just get a simple proses voltage checker.. doesn't tell u the exact DCC voltage but does indicate if it's a bit low.

9.99 from your model shop

21 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Presumably all 8 pin decoders are fairly function shy as there's only 8 pins.

Hm7000 has no function mapping or for really complex lighting no swiss mapping

My Personal experience was that I started last spring (I think) using Hornby hm7000 system.. for a good price it introduced me to the benefits of DCC and also how sound made such a difference.

Now several months later and things have changed. Pretty much the first thing I fell out with was the fact (quite a major one) it won't fit most of my smaller stock or indeed mid and larger locos from other manufacturers. Indeed there are Hornby models I either can't fit it into too or there is no intention of making 6 pin sound variants. There's also the issue that 8 pin variants are quite function shy.

Profile releases also seem slow; I expect slow now because it does seem Hornby have a small team and want to keep everything in house. But sorry I'm not that patient, especially when you consider they will likely concentrate on there own catalogue first.

But it was cheap and a great introduction. 

Moving on to a show in autumn I came across the bargain DMG DC/DCC controller which I still use on a test layout and this immediately convinced me a physical controller is way better than having to keep looking down at a phone screen. It works perfectly has a walk around  style  control but it does have limitations. Hence the now installed powercab. 

My surmise with regard to that original question then is No, traditional DCC is not being replaced yet, certainly not by Hornby s offering which I think should be considered as a fantastic cheap introduction, if somewhat limited. It's big big advantage though is the ability to see and change the CVS on the fly on a screen.

Tried every f Raf with no change/success.. I have similar locos to the electrotren and this is when it is helpful to use some remapping so 1 key will do multiple commands.

Zimo 8 pin plopped in and worked first time as usual..ie switches itself logically with rev and fwd.. so I'm slightly baffled.. 

I just tried the hm7000 in a 59 and that works perfectly so I'm still confused.

Don't really mind the low key off it all, didn't really expect much more .My biggest disappointment I suppose is the lack of a BR blue bo bo and zero news about HM7000 sound projects other than finishing the list we have which is already too limited to make the system of any interest to most people. 

Powercab..  have not tried taking the stay alive off.. it was a pain to find space to fit lol. But at least it's just an unplug so I'll try.. 

I have someone bringing a zimo non sound  8 pin over  tomorrow so we'll see what that shows.

Tbh at the rate Hornby release profiles I can't see them getting to a 35 anytime in the near future unless they open up to third party's so if the zimo works fine I may just order a sound version from you choos 

#1 west.. forward(up line).. headcode lights working(only).. on further inspection no tail lights.

#1 west... Reverse(down) .

 No lights at all.

#2 west.. forward(up).. headcode lights working(only). no tail lights.

#2 west .. reverse(down).

No lights at all.

In other words we are sending the loco off to do the same movement regardless of which cab is forward. But we only get a headcode light on for forward movement. I haven't tested yet what would happen if I was to change CV 29 to reverse the directions.

I'm wondering Does the EFE have some mapping the hm7000 can't handle.

1970s BR on Tunstead today.

On 24/09/2023 at 00:27, andyman7 said:

Yes, the EFE one is effectively a Heljan first generation one, an excellent model, no issues with build quality and the headcodes are pre-fitted (unlike the first Heljan issue) and have the correct spacing (unlike the 2nd Heljan issues!). I have no problem with the incandescent bulbs, that's how the real thing was lit and it means a realistic glow rather than Blackpool illuminations 🙂

This does depend how your running it. I actually have to turn the brightness CV setting down by half on DCC it's way to bright..

This one's baffling me. EFE class 35 lights fine when running forward. No flickering and I haven't touched cv29. I'm on128 speed steps

Reverse direction rear lights out but no front lights come on. 

Reverse again back to the orig direction and front lights come back on.

Pick up loco and spin it 180 degrees and put back on track.. exactly same happens .. so it's not the (bulb in this case not led)

Hm7000 tsx decoder 8 pin speaker and stay alive fitted