RFS

OK at last a bit of progress. Found this problem and it's recent and seems to describe the problem. I've found that if I change the Edge zoom level to other than 100% the problem goes away. Both 90% and 125% give no problems at all. I assume it will eventually be fixed. Just surpised no one else seems to suffer the problem. Will stick with 90% for now which Edge allows me to do just for the Readly link.

Still having trouble with this. Now BRM doesn't work properly any more, but Heritage Railway is fine. Both magazines are from the same stable, and BRM used to work fine. Perplexed!

Well finally got things sorted. Having complained to EON about why they'd reversed the day/night readings and got stupid replies ("I understand you have stated the difficulties in relation to gathering meter photos, so please be sure to gain some assistance where required if you are able to, as they will help in justifying the changes to readings where necessary.") I forwarded this answer to their complaints department and quickly got a reply from "Susan" in perfect English and everything was instantly sorted. More of a hassle with EDF who initially insisted the bounced cheque had been cashed, but finally got a replacement that took two full weeks to come from Sunderland. It would seem the initial rejection was because I paid it online with my phone using the Santander app. This takes a photo of the cheque itself (ie you have no control over it) and the photo it took appears to have very slighlty cropped a large QR code on the left-hand side. I only found this out a week later when Santander sent me a letter explaining why the cheque was returned ("Cheque Incomplete"). Seems the QR code on the cheque is some form of enhanced security. So lesson learnt. The replacement was posted to Santander's central cheque paying-in centre, and it's now cleared.

Insulating joiners help to keep the rails aligned - not as well as metal ones but good enough. Also they have a plastic wedge in the centre to prevent the rails coming together and defeating the insulating gap. I use them for all my Electrofrog points and crossings (70+), and also to provide gaps for detection sections with Traincontroller automation. I estimate I have 150+ in use and none of them have caused a problem. However, do take care using them on curved, flexible track, especially the inside rail.

It was the first demonstration run and everyone had turned out to see it.

Apologies - early morning brain fog again!

What you need is a 21pin breakout board such as this - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362980115653 Or this - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32833121536.html

Ray H is not the OP. The OP is Torper and he says in his initial post he has a Zimo decoder with 11 pins.

Then it would seem the OP doesn't have a sound decoder if he's counted his pins correctly. Just need him to come back and tell us what he's got ...

The Zimo MX623P12 has 11 pins - http://www.zimo.at/web2010/HD-Fotos-zum-Download/MX623P12.jpg

Another serously optimistic seller - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325808545741. "For parts or not working" it says. Well it's clearly not working, but most of the parts are broken too! But £100?

I class attempting to run trains with the lift-up flap raised as an emergency and hence justifies this kind of emergency stop button. Likewise the 3 big red buttons down the length of the layout are also for emergency use only. All of these are rarely used. I have 4 independent lines crossing the flap, and the flap is also the boundary between two power districts so this solution is very simple. I get far more short circuits caused by derailments, or by me forgetting to change turnouts if I'm running trains manually. I use only Lenz and Zimo decoders and have never had a problem with short circuits causing them an issue. Wasn't the case many years ago when I had some cheaper decoders ....

My Z21 is configured to cut power if there's a short so this achieves the same result. Previously with my Lenz LZV100, the wires were instead across the E and M terminals, as connecting these together was an official emergency stop procedure, but the Z21 does not have this so a cruder method was needed. I have already had one incident where a loco attempted flight and failed, so I take no chances now. The switch protects a lift-up flap which I use to gain entry to layout without having to crawl underneath, so if the flap is up nothing should be running. Best not to try and overthink the solution. This is my installation, plus these wires are also connected to 3 large push-to-make emergency stop buttons down the layout to provide further protection.

I use one of these push-to-break switches underneath my lift-up flap. The wires are simply connected to the DCC bus, so if I lift the flap with DCC switched on it immediately trips the command station out. Simple but effective.

It was first listed on 9th September 2021 so yesterday was its second anniversary.

Sadly it seems there are lunatics who will pay these prices, like this one. And this one is even sillier - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145220302860 Presumably will not be bought for kids to play with!

And the saga continues. Paid in the EDF cheque on Thursday and saw it was logged into my account a couple of hours later. Now today it's showing as "returned cheque" so it appears to have bounced! No explanation anywhere as to why. Tried paying it in again, but the app won't let me as it says it's a duplicate cheque. Looks like a new battle with EDF when their callcentre opens on Monday ....

Just had a slight hiccup with this service. Not an Ebay sale but the return of a class 71 loco to Hornby under warranty as a running issue has arisen due to a faulty PCB. Booked it online using Tracked24 last Friday (as that provides £150 insurance) and postie collected it on Saturday morning. Got an email on Sunday from RM saying "we have your item" and that it was due to be delivered today. Sunday? No, surely not. Looked at the tracking and it said it was still at Nottingham Mail Centre. Didn't hear anything on Monday that it had been delivered (you get one when it has), so checked the tracking and found it had been successfully received at Carlisle MC. What? That's a long way from Kent. Later on Tuesday the message had been updated to say "sorry, it's been misdirected" and late on Wednesday night it was at Medway MC having been there since 4.50am on Tuesday. Same status Thursday morning, but when I checked later it said it has been delivered at 10.15am on Tuesday. Never had any messages since Sunday, nor was there the usual proof of delivery on the tracking page. Called Hornby and they confirmed it arrived Tuesday morning. Looks like a one-off glitch - glad it wasn't an Ebay sale to a picky buyer though!

Is it a dual-rate one with Economy 7?

We have a 3-phase power supply and keep being told smart meters are yet available for this. I've been asking for ages....

And talking of mutton dressed as lamb, here's a prime example from an auction I was browsing yesterday. Decent box (for its age) filled with random junk. Not surpised the auction house says "not tested for working order". Or that it got no bids, especially as it had a reserve sale price!

Well as one door closes, another opens! EDF finally settled the account yesterday and the refund cheque arrived this morning much to my suprise. Being less than £500 I was able to pay it in via my smartphone and it was credited to the account a couple of hours later. Our house is all-electric with a Nightstor electric boiler that heats up overnight on Economy 7. Water is heated through this boiler and pumped round the radiators during the day. As a result, our electricity consumption is 25% day and 75% night. Handover figures were 3459 day 12970 night - low because the meter failed last October and was replaced. Having agreed these figures with EDF, which were confirmed in writing, some admin person in EON has decided that they're the wrong way round because "normally day figures are higher than night". So I'm being asked for photographic evidence before they will change them back. I'm 78 and need to stand on a stepladder to read the meter, let alone try and take a picture. My first complaint is on its way less than 6 weeks into my stay with EON!

I've only used 3rd party ink cartridges once. Big mistake! Within a couple of days one of them started leaking and spilt ink everywhere resulting in the printer being a write-off. The new printer didn't cost much more than a full set of genuine cartridges though. These days I only need to print in black and white (ie letters, documents etc.). So when each colour runs out I select the option to disable it. The only cartridge still working now is the large greyscale one which suits me fine.

I've switched suppliers several times over the years and usually it's gone without a hitch. This time I'm leaving EDF and switching to EON.Next. OK, so I've done well with EDF over the last couple of years, having taken out a 2-year fix in July 2021 that's only just ended, so I've been insulated from the large fluctuations during that time. But EDF are difficult to deal with: my meter (electronic not smart) failed recently and was replaced, but their admin seemed incapable of dealing with the fact the readings from the new meter were lower than the old one. Plus EON.Next were cheaper. Our house is all-electric so we're a big user. Switching to EON is going to save £350 per annum. At the brginning of July I started the process. On July 7th I got an email from EDF saying they were sorry I was leaving, so I knew the switch had been registered with the contract end date being July 31st. EON told me they would debit my account with £302 in the 1st August, which was fine. Except that on the same day EDF also debited my account with the August payment of £320. Their excuse was that the bank was notified on July 27th before the contract end so I would now have to wait till the final bill was sorted to get that money back. On August 11th EON told me final meter readings had been agreed, and my EDF account confirmed that saying the final bill could take up to 5 working days. That's nearly 3 weeks ago now and it's still pending. Called EDF yesterday who insisted it can take up to 6 weeks, and any refund would be sent by cheque and not by refund to the direct debit account, and the cheque would take 7-14 days to arrive. Apparently it's EDF policy to always issue cheques to refund customers who leave. The indifference of the EDF agent was palpable. So I cancelled the direct debit yesterday. Seems I did it just in time as there's now a message from today on my account saying - "We've been unable to collect your latest payment on two attempts, so we've cancelled your Direct Debit. This means you'll get a bill to pay by cash/cheque every month, and the unit price you pay for your energy will go up. You can set up a new Direct Debit to go back to a cheaper unit price." So they would have taken another £320 on September 1st if I hadn't cancelled it myself! So the lesson learnt is to cancel your direct debit before you leave which is what I should have done. I estimate my account was £100 or so in credit at the time. If it had been in debit according to my calculations, I would have first paid a lump sum in to put it in credit.

When I started work the company had just installed three of these "high capacity" devices - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2321_Data_Cell Each of these devices could hold up to 400 Mb of data - ie two-thirds of a CD no less. Needless to say, they were very error prone....