I have a Prodigy Advance 2 that I purchased from America 9 months ago.
Previous attempts to get a Hornby R8215 decoder to work failed miserably, and the tendancy has been to blame the Prodigy.
Yesterday I tried one of the 'red dot' decoders in a Hornby steamer from the 'Bournemouth Belle' set, and although it was better than the previous issue, it still gave problems in its operation. When fitted into a Vi-Train class 37, it was even worse. (perhaps because of the electronic board.)
So, when my purchase of the new R8249 arrived this morning, I was not too hopefull.
I have to report that whatever I threw at it, it passed with flying colours in both the Steamer, and the 37.
I normally use Lenz decoders, as I have installed BM1's for use with the ABC function. I found that the 'creep' speed was identical to the Lenz silver, and extremely smooth.
On 28 speed steps, the engines crept forward on number 1. - selecting reverse on the move, it stopped and crept back perfectly.
On 128 speed steps, the engines started to creep forward on 6/7.
The other major thing that I noticed was that the normal top speed of the engines were not affected at all. On the R8215 versions, the top speed was reduced by up to a third (which has been reported a large number of times.) This particularly affected the Vi-Train, as its top speed is not that good anyway.
The decoder is identical in size and chip layout to the R8215's except that it has a blue dot on the large chip.
It can be programmed on the main, and the eight CV's can be read on the programme track. A word of warning though - select only the CV's that are listed. If you try to read other numbers, it will error and not read anything, so you have to reset and start again. But that is not a fault, just me trying things out.
So, well done to Hornby - a decoder that does the job.
AlanB
Previous attempts to get a Hornby R8215 decoder to work failed miserably, and the tendancy has been to blame the Prodigy.
Yesterday I tried one of the 'red dot' decoders in a Hornby steamer from the 'Bournemouth Belle' set, and although it was better than the previous issue, it still gave problems in its operation. When fitted into a Vi-Train class 37, it was even worse. (perhaps because of the electronic board.)
So, when my purchase of the new R8249 arrived this morning, I was not too hopefull.
I have to report that whatever I threw at it, it passed with flying colours in both the Steamer, and the 37.
I normally use Lenz decoders, as I have installed BM1's for use with the ABC function. I found that the 'creep' speed was identical to the Lenz silver, and extremely smooth.
On 28 speed steps, the engines crept forward on number 1. - selecting reverse on the move, it stopped and crept back perfectly.
On 128 speed steps, the engines started to creep forward on 6/7.
The other major thing that I noticed was that the normal top speed of the engines were not affected at all. On the R8215 versions, the top speed was reduced by up to a third (which has been reported a large number of times.) This particularly affected the Vi-Train, as its top speed is not that good anyway.
The decoder is identical in size and chip layout to the R8215's except that it has a blue dot on the large chip.
It can be programmed on the main, and the eight CV's can be read on the programme track. A word of warning though - select only the CV's that are listed. If you try to read other numbers, it will error and not read anything, so you have to reset and start again. But that is not a fault, just me trying things out.
So, well done to Hornby - a decoder that does the job.
AlanB
