Hornby locos and Decoders

[xdford]

I am helping an elderly gentleman here in Australia getting started in the hobby. He has made a commitment to DCC (I have little exposure to it) and he was told that some decoders are not recommended for Hornby Engines. He has a Hornby Select power unit and one of his engines has an apparently dud decoder. It was sent out as a gift from England so not covered by warranty as such.

Is there a set of "no no's" with Hornby and say Bachmann decoders or NCE ones? 

TIA

Trevor   www.xdford.digitalzones.com  FYI 

 

 

 

 

[cacole]

I have no experience with the Hornby Select Power system, but their web site indicates that it complies with the NMRA DCC standards. so any brand of decoder should work with it. 

Here's a link to the Hornby web site:  http://www.hornby.com/digital/

 

[locoworks]

I have no experience with the Hornby Select Power system, but their web site indicates that it complies with the NMRA DCC standards. so any brand of decoder should work with it. 

Here's a link to the Hornby web site:  http://www.hornby.com/digital/

 

actually the select has had lots of problems, there were some images of the waveform the unit puts out and it was spiking at over 20 volts. ( check out the 'newrailwaymodellers.co.uk' ) there is a link somewhere that you should find with a search,  it looked horrible. it turned out that although it was close, it was not truly NMRA compliant as the wording suggested. if you get the elite unit ( the twin throttle version ) then this is absolutely fine as it was released after all the returns on the select. the other issue is the standard hornby decoder only has 0.5 amp output so some models cook it.  because of the selects voltage and waveform issues it has been known to fry decoders from many other manufacturers.  basically, avoid if possible.  the idea was good, in that it was better than the bachmann option in sets, but it failed to meet the claims.  it may be that new selects are ok, but lots have returned and switched manufacturers or upgraded to the elite.  the other thing with the select ( i think?? ) is that it can only change certain CV's and not all like the digitrax zephyr.

[xdford]

Thanks ofr our replies so far... I have not been able to find the sample waveform at all depite launching the search for it. The page in newrailwaymodellers seems to have Hornby's own press release and they aren't going to show a negative blurb are they?

If you could point me in the direction of the correct link please I would be appreciative of it!

 

TIA

 

Trevor 

[locoworks]

i looked for the post and posted the question of where was it?  the first poster stated it was removed after about a week but thought it linked to the TCS website. i've been there and found nothing myself. sorry about the lack of information, but the select was something to avoid.

[xdford]

HI there Locoworks,

Thank you for your trouble... oft times negative corporate stuff does disappear quickly. I did that 10 years ago when a site was pulled for a lesson I had prepared so my students could not get to it. He does have a newer Select Unit, the other stuff I have found on the net suggests that the newer ones start up and go "11...30...03" when starting while older ones go "10...30...03" on their LCD displays. I have solved his problem except that the select unit he had cannot seem to program NCE Chips and it is on a default "3" so he will redo his others to other numbers/channels etc until we can get it onto another system!

Regards

Trevor