Hornby BR 4-6-0 King Arthur Class N15 'Sir Gawain'

I've had the tender apart, it's a nice piece of engineering. I'll have to do a bit of relocation of weights to contemplate getting sound in this tender. One thing I would like to see Hornby drop all together (general suggestion) is the loco to tender coupling, it's very weak and flimsy. I thought the plug on the Britannia a much better idea. Like most others I like the appearance of this loco. When I'm less busy I'll test the DCC plug on mine, I haven't even bothered to take the loco out of the packaging, just the tender !

QUOTE (Doug @ 10 Apr 2007, 23:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I'm hoping that the mixed up wheel wires is a one-off and not an attempt to remedy the faults of the R8215 decoder (remember ashleyh's M7 problems with loco going backwards).

Sadly, this does not seem to be an isolated incident. My dealer has reported a number of recent Hornby's with the DCC socket wired backwards. Couple this with the fact that the Elite seems to have it's running direction arrows reversed, and you begin to wonder if this is a deliberate non-standard move by Hornby Remember, that with my 'DCC Fitted' M7, backwards would have been forwards on the Elite.

The other alternative is that Hornby are just being incredibly inept with DCC in general

As an aside, I've just opened up my Hornby A4 Silver Fox, which is one of the loco driven variety, expecting to find a DCC socket, but no, the mounting point is on the chassis, but the pickups just go directly to the motor. Maybe this is a good thing after all, as at least I can get the wiring right!

AshleyH

Dear All,

My first DCC decoder was fitted to a Hornby Q1 (with socket) in December 2004. This was the easiest fitting ever and it's been downhill ever since! I was sucked into the idea that decoder fitting was a 10 minute job for each loco.

The 2nd decoder was fitted to a Hornby MN (with socket) in January 2005. The first attempt produced a beep on the programming track which indicated a problem. After a bit of testing, I found out the socket was physically the wrong way round with pin 1 towards the back of the loco, when I had assumed it was at the front. In those days the board was not marked, so you had no idea where pin 1 was. This must have caused huge problems for the D+E guys, but for an old steam man like myself , the front of the loco is obvious. Anway, I reversed the plug in the socket and then it worked, but now backwards! So I added 1 to CV29 and all was well again. I wonder how many ways you can get it wrong?

I have always assumed that pin 1 should be at the front of the loco, but is this really a standard? Of course, pin 1 should really be marked, but will this marking be in correct place, when you are not sure about the way it has been wired anyway? It's a good job that I am using Zimo decoders that have built-in protection, otherwise I would have blown the decoder.

So this is not a new problem for Hornby.

I have updated the review with some more photos. Check it out here.

Good job Doug! Doesn't real sunshine enhance photos! The weathering certainly highlights the sub-footplate detail and I think the level of fine detail is spot on.

"You can see the cab is very well made. The designer who produced that must be very happy with the level of detail in a Slartibartfast kind of way"

Personally I preferred his fjords and has no idea he'd helped Urie and Maunsell.... Douglas Adams, what a loss to literature and the Apple community, sigh..... I assume you have read "The Salmon of Doubt"?

The thing that impresses me most about the loco is the solid, weighty feel it conveys - getting things in proportion is so key to the overall impression and Hornby are to be congratulated on that (even if the wiring was fubar).

60134

QUOTE (Doug @ 12 Apr 2007, 04:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have updated the review with some more photos. Check it out here.
Doug are those all model trees in your photos? There are some of them whose foliage looks a bit too real. If they are models who makes them?

These Hornby reviews are appreciated. I have been tempted to buy a few of these but when I see the DCC antics in some of these along with my Hornby DCC Pendelino experience I do think it is worth hanging off for a bit until they get things under control. It seems that you can't win either way, if you get a Hornby decoder the performance sucks and if you get DCC ready you have problems installing it. It's such a shame as they are making such good looking models.

I will be putting a Lenz Gold into a Trix Croc this afternoon and I am fairly confident that I wont have any of these problems.

my approach Doug is to whip out the DCC plug and fittings, remove any threaded sections using a dremel with a cut off wheel is always leaves enough space for a decoder, and I can depend on my own wiring. I've seen a lot of faulty decoder plugs. My approach is if I ever sell the loco it will be sold with it's decoder. Prices have dropped considerably and there will be an even larger swing to DCC in the next few years.

Here is another shot that was not used in the review. May as well profit from the good weather that we're having right now.



And another showing detail of the loco. I don't think that photos of just the loco do the machine justice. It needs the tender in the shot to show the engine as it is.