Hornby walkabout problems

3642 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by cookiechem, Nov 21, 2008

cookiechem

Discussion Starter · Nov 20, 2008

Hi All,

In the hope of getting some Father and son action on my son's DCC model railway, I bought a Hornby walkabout controller to couple with our current Hornby select. . Unfortunately this has given us no end of problems.

Firstly we get a CE (Communication) error. Lots of restarting and we will sometimes be able to get the walkabout working. This gives rise to another problem. The walkabout can't stop the trains! Even when the controller is turned to zero the train controlled by the walkabout just keeps on going.

You can check a video of the problems at:

Any help is much appreciated.

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upnick

· #2 · Nov 20, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

Hi Cookiechem,
Welcome to the forum

I cant help you with your problems but a good idea to video it to show us, no doubt someone here will be able to help soon.

Good luck.

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cookiechem

Discussion Starter · #3 · Nov 20, 2008

It looks like the problem may have been with different firmware versions in the Select and the Walkabout. A dialogue will ensue with Hornby since the Select is not user-upgradable, so there will always be this mismatch between the firmware versions.

Why is nothing ever easy?

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iansa

· #4 · Nov 21, 2008

Why is nothing ever easy?
[/quote]

Actually DCC is easy. It was only Hornby that confused things with their early efforts with Select and their early Decoders.

Iansa

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zmil

· #5 · Nov 21, 2008

Hi All

it will be interesting to see what Hornby Charge for a firmware update on the Select

Regards Zmil

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Richard Johnson

· #6 · Nov 21, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

*** The Select is basically not even close to DCC in relation to its waveform and software. The walkaround was primarily designed for the Elite which has had several software changes since inception. It is most likely a software issue but not necessarily so. It may relate to the basic design of Select which was finalised pre handset.

Certainly Hornby DCC is better than it was a year ago but based on constant problems seen directly and on E lists where I provide help it is still not a sound basis for a stable and reliable system.

There are two practical solutions.

(1) Return BOTH to Hornby, describe the problems in careful polite detail and ask them to return them only when they can work together reliably. Do not accept compromise... In effect the Select is still rife with issues and not in my personal opinion "fit to be sold".

(2) Put them both on Ebay and put the funds towards replacement with a much better yet still reasonable cost alternative such as the NCE PowerCab plus an NCE Cab 04 as a second throttle. This will be problem free and will give better control, easier function acces and it is overall a better system to use.

regards

Richard

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cookiechem

Discussion Starter · #7 · Nov 21, 2008

Thanks a lot for your help. Depending on how things work out with Hornby, I may go with the PowerCab option.

Thanks again for all your help.

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