DYNAMIS

QUOTE (Makemineadouble @ 5 Dec 2006, 22:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Before commenting on the above. As a general statement of intent, I genuinely sorry that Hornby have missed their initial target of launching a product with which consumers can have confidence in. I feel this is a great opportunity lost. Pity, because expectation bred desire, impetus had created a market which now needs to be filled. That market will partially filled by other products.
Totally agree.

QUOTE Oakydoke with respect I have no intention in getting into yet another war of speculation on specifications
Not speculation. this is what Hornby have said all weekend at Warley! As reported by others.
Hornby may be back peddling/firefighting or simply clarifying matters.
I don't care because I'm thinking about moving up to an ECoS.

QUOTE Anyone else for On30 or am I alone.

I'm sorely tempted having seen some fantastic On30 models at Warley. They were something else.
Backwoods Minitures stand in particular.

To be honest , I suspect I'll probably end up with a PowerCab. But I'm not taking that decision until we've seen what the similarly priced competition actually does . And from my perspective the trouble with Dynamis is that as MMAD puts it "it's a flyer and a picture"

I'm not in the market for a flash rail system. I'm arguing that there's a place for something between a Rolls Royce and a second hand Morris Minor - that's the gap Hornby and Bachmann are trying to plug, and I hope they succeed, because that's the product that interests me.

Bachmann's Warley flyer for Dynamis says :

- Control of up to 20 functions
- Control of up to 40 locos at any one time

But I'm curious why Neil dismisses the NCE Power Cab and the Roco Multimaus - both under £100 on his own showing - thus:

" don't come back bleating when you find out you paid peanuts and got a s** t system. You were warned. ..and we'll laugh at you. "

I've said the contenders were 3 - Elite, Powercab and Multimaus , though the lack of consisting with the latter debars it for my particular project.

What is precisely is wrong with these 3 systems that only systems £150 more should be considered for a modest home layout??

QUOTE (Oakydoke @ 6 Dec 2006, 10:09) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I got the 13 functions from Lisa's comparison table, however the Hornby web site says "9 functions per locomotive"

The 40 for Bachmann? Please read the post again. Its 40 locos in the roster and 20 functions.

The point of that post was to demonstrate that the new "mid-priced" systems are not far behind some more expensive products.
ah ha

You may want to look at DWB's post to see what the more expensive products offer.
QUOTE For completeness:-
ESU Ecos - store details on up to 16,384 locomotives; access 20 functions
Viessmann Commander store details on up to 4,000 locomotives. I would still regard Hornbys elite as a budget system, anything under a ton is. Mid priced is 100 to 200quid

QUOTE A bit late for Bachmann to change things now, I would think? At least they have the opportunity should they desire.

QUOTE But I'm curious why Neil dismisses the NCE Power Cab and the Roco Multimaus - both under £100 on his own showing - thus: In what way did I dismiss them? These would be very good budget systems. However I have gone beyond a starter system and have other requirements.

QUOTE What is precisely is wrong with these 3 systems that only systems £150 more should be considered for a modest home layout??
There is nothing wrong with the latter two, they are good systems and reputable. The other one we've already covered in detail elsewhere.

It really depends on your individual requirements as has previously been said. If you just want to run trains then get a cheap system that only does that. What I want is a degree of automated control without having to involve a computer and Ecos and the Viessmann Commander offer this. One of the features which appeals to me is the shuttle feature which, in conjunction with S88 occupancy detectors will automatically shuttle trains back and forth between two terminii. Also, in conjunction with S88's, automatic switching. This is what I want and am prepared to pay for. If I was to buy a Multi Maus and all the additional components neccessary to facilitate this I would pay about the same money but have loads of separate components. I would also have to have a pc on site and the Rocomotion package so in some ways this option would be more expensive.

Just found this on Hornby's new web site under Customer Support - FAQ:

Q. What is the maximum number of functions that the controllers have?
A. The Select controller supports 9 functional outputs, and the Elite controller supports 13.

Q. What addressing format does the Hornby DCC system use?
A. The Select unit uses two digit addressing, whereas the Elite unit uses four digit addressing.

This was also on the old web site, that's why Lisa's table entry looked familiar.

I had a good look at the ECoS at Warley. The number of locos quoted is for the database. I think the actual roster is much smaller, but adding another loco downloads all the parameters from that database.
Selecting a loco from the roster is easy; select roster and it pops up instantly on the big screen. Scroll if necessary (very quick), and touch the one you want. 1 or 2 seconds if that!
The alpha-numeric name can be up to err ?? I think it was 12 characters? (not sure) and you can have an icon of the exact loco as well.
The display is not in colour though.
It's also quite big, not something you would want to pick up to use.

QUOTE I would still regard Hornbys elite as a budget system, anything under a ton is. Mid priced is 100 to 200quid
That's where we'll agree to differ.
I think the whole market is about to change /is changing, and our concept of price points and system capabilities is being challenged by these new products.
Anyway are we talking about price or capability/specification?

I'm playing devils advocate here, for instance; last year I would have called the Digitrax Zephyr an entry level or budget system. Well it still is the entry point for Digitrax if that's the way you wish to go, but at the current price it couldn't be classed as budget. The Zephyr on it's own doesn't seen to stack up well against a couple of the £100 units although it's still very good (my opinion anyway).
Is it now mid-priced with an entry level spec? or an overpriced entry entry level system?

Similarly the Lenz Compact; in terms of value for money pitched against similarly priced new products, it now looks very poor. Now if they sold it for under £50 against the E-Z Command or Select ? It won't happen and I think it may be replaced soon anyway.
The Compact is definately "basic" or sub-entry level, but is priced against much better spec'd systems.
Basic/Sub-entry at entry level price ?

What is available between £120/150 and £220 ?
Gaugemaster/MRC prodigy Advance
ZTC 505
Digitrax Zephyr
Lenz Set 90

The more I think about it, the choice is between £100- and £240+, the systems in the middle don't have enough going for them. Just my view, you don't have to agree with it .

Cheers everyone.

QUOTE (Oakydoke @ 6 Dec 2006, 11:56) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>That's where we'll agree to differ.
I think the whole market is about to change /is changing, and our concept of price points and system capabilities is being challenged by these new products.
Anyway are we talking about price or capability/specification?

I'm playing devils advocate here, for instance; last year I would have called the Digitrax Zephyr an entry level or budget system. Well it still is the entry point for Digitrax if that's the way you wish to go, but at the current price it couldn't be classed as budget. The Zephyr on it's own doesn't seen to stack up well against a couple of the £100 units although it's still very good (my opinion anyway).
Is it now mid-priced with an entry level spec? or an overpriced entry entry level system?

Similarly the Lenz Compact; in terms of value for money pitched against similarly priced new products, it now looks very poor. Now if they sold it for under £50 against the E-Z Command or Select ? It won't happen and I think it may be replaced soon anyway.
The Compact is definately "basic" or sub-entry level, but is priced against much better spec'd systems.
Basic/Sub-entry at entry level price ?

What is available between £120/150 and £220 ?
Gaugemaster/MRC prodigy Advance
ZTC 505
Digitrax Zephyr
Lenz Set 90

The more I think about it, the choice is between £100- and £240+, the systems in the middle don't have enough going for them. Just my view, you don't have to agree with it .

Cheers everyone.
I'd agree with a lot of what you say there. Your choices are really below 100 quid for a budget system or over 200 for a fully spec'ed. The Lenz and Digitrax systems that you mention are old and outdated. While they are still ok systems they were designed to standards which were current five years ago. Only one company is buildings systems to that standard today. Maybe they will be replaced. But certainly any DCC system under 100 quid is a budget system. All the mid price systems you mention are a bit dated now. Technology becomes dated quite quickly nowadays.

I really don't think the new cheapies from Bachmann and Hornby will change things in anything other than a local level.

First, Germany and the USA are far larger model rail markets and have had several budget systems for a while and the top end systems there haven't come down in price, if anything they have been getting bigger, better and higher spec'ed. There are budget systems made by Roco, Fleishmann, Lenz which have been around for at least three years. There are new budget systems by Roco and Trix/Maerklin which have come out recently but it remains to be seen what the overall impact is.

Secondly the Bachmann bottom end system has been around for a while and nothing changed so I would be surprised if these new systems changed anything.

Maybe this year will be different, who knows? It is all speculative... and thats where the forum comes in.

From the Hornby faq:-

QUOTE Q. Will the Hornby DCC system be available outside the UK?

A. Both the 'Select' and 'Elite' units will be available to purchase in Mainland Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand - the 'Elite' unit will support five languages - English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Thats new information. It does look as if Hornby have identified the requirements for global markets and decided to tweek the specification of the Elite. Clearly Hornby have had expressions of interest from outside the UK.

Chatting to the guys at Warley MRC who are thinking of moving to DCC there does seem a concensus that a traditional knob that you turn is prefered to any other form of control among those who are looking to move. It could be that Dynamis has a look that may not appeal to the newcomer however there may be a knob control yet to be revealed on a hand held unit so who knows.

If you are looking to sell a system to newcomers it could be a mistake to offer something that looks too futuristic. There seems to be a comfort factor for newcomers in having something that looks like a traditional controller even if it isn't. This chit chat was among a small sample group so it may not be representative.

Happy modelling
Gary

QUOTE Clearly Hornby have had expressions of interest from outside the UK.

Hornby stuff is on sale in most model rail shops here. The exceptions being ones which only sell US or German stuff.

QUOTE Chatting to the guys at Warley MRC who are thinking of moving to DCC there does seem a concensus that a traditional knob that you turn is prefered to any other form of control among those who are looking to move. It could be that Dynamis has a look that may not appeal to the newcomer however there may be a knob control yet to be revealed on a hand held unit so who knows. A few years back there was a bit of discussion about this as regards the Lenz 90 and 100, one of which has knobs and the other has a push button, and it was reckoned that knobs were the way to go. Most of the systems have knobs. The toggle thing on the Bachmann Dynamis may be a way of navigating menus as is used on the Ecos and Viessmann systems.

Dear All,

The assessment of the Roco Mulitmaus earlier in this thread seems a bit low. Personally I think it can beat many systems which cost a lot more :-

▶ Managing 9,999 locomotive addresses & Deciding between locomotive library or locomotive address
▶ Alphanumerical locomotive name display with locomotive database for 64 entries, i.e. locomotives
▶ Locomotive control with 14, 28 and 128 speed steps which can be set for each locomotive individually
▶ Control of light and 20 additional functions for locomotives
▶ Control up to 1,024 turnout addresses
▶ Writing configuration variables (DCC-CVs)

Regards
John Russell
Vienna, Austria

QUOTE (Gary @ 6 Dec 2006, 07:13) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>From the Hornby faq:-

Q. Will the Hornby DCC system be available outside the UK?

A. Both the 'Select' and 'Elite' units will be available to purchase in Mainland Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand - the 'Elite' unit will support five languages - English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Thats new information. It does look as if Hornby have identified the requirements for global markets and decided to tweek the specification of the Elite. Clearly Hornby have had expressions of interest from outside the UK.
....Happy modelling
Gary
Gary, that isn't new information. Right from the beginning, they have said these products will be sold under several of their brand names (eg. Lima, Joeuff, Electrotren, Hornby).

Hornby have gone international in order to not only grow but to safeguard the companies future. The UK market is seen as stagnent with little growth potential (even a slow demise) and this is why their main thrust is now into different markets and also different products (Airfix).

In order to compete in markets like Germany, you have to have DCC, especially if you are re-launching brands with a new image.
Possibly the economics of a UK only system wouldn't work either?
For these reasons I'm sure the DCC project was conceived with a larger target audience in mind than just the UK.