Problems with Hornby Select

QUOTE One issue with the UK is that no matter what those residing outside may believe we do live in a incredibly space restricted country and big DCC systems just are not going to sell ever in the sort of numbers needed to satisfy importers
This comment seems to be from a sales perspective rather than a modellers. The other thing worth mentioning here is that many of us who are currently resident outside the UK are actually from the UK originally and will be moving back there at some point. We cannot be dismissed as unknowledgable foreigners. I've only been here for six years and have been back home four times since I came here. It doesn't really matter where you source your control unit from. European prices are outrageous, whether it's the UK or Germany.

As I've stated before having a higher spec DCC command stations are not all about having more trains or a bigger layout. They have additional functions such as the shuttle feature and automatic switching which would benefit smaller and terminus to terminus layouts. It's more features not just capacity that it gives you.

QUOTE Live Steam is fantastic in the right environment on a big layout and this is where the Americans, the Germans and the Australians come in as they have the space.
On another thread I mentioned that Hornbys way into Germanys rail market would be budget HO live steam. It is the only area that Hornby lead in Internationally in terms of model rail and it would be appealing to Germans. A live steam BR05 would go down very well. It would bring the Hornby brand name to the German modellers attention in a positive light. This formula would also work very well in the USA. Unfortunately they seem more interested in buying brands than doing anything with them.

Oh and what makes you think Germans have any more space than the UK. From my experience they certainly don't.

As regards the original post we really will have to wait for a while to see what, if any, issues arise with the Select and Hornby digital. This seems to have become another proxy battleground between defensive Hornbyists and DCC enthusiasts. At this point all we have to go on is that initial email. So maybe we should just wait and see.

Reading this comment from Usenet you can perhaps see the comments of potential users who have been put-off by these developments.

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Well, I was thinking about going DCC, but all this talk of low address
> and high address and will it or won't it is putting me off. I thought
> DCC was DCC was DCC. Isn't there supposed to be a standard for all this?

Yes, there is, the NMRA Standards and Recommended Practices for DCC.
Unfortunately, a number of manufacturers have decided they Know Better,
and refuse to play nice. Hornby is one of these; Marklin is another.
Note that both try to lock the buyer into their "systems", which is no
longer a good marketing strategy. You either produce stuff that will
play nice with other mfr's stuff, or you risk going under.

Actually, Hornby did go under, and so did Triang (who bought Hornby),
and so did Lionel, and more recently Marklin did too. Serve them right
IMO. The buyers of the Hornby marque seem poised to make the same
mistakes as the original. Dumb, if you ask me. (Don't mind me, I'm
feeling extra grumpy this morning.)

Stick with Lenz, Digitrax, NCE, Bachmann (limited, but
standards-compatible), MRC, and even Atlas.

QUOTE Unfortunately, a number of manufacturers have decided they Know Better,
and refuse to play nice. Hornby is one of these; Marklin is another.
Note that both try to lock the buyer into their "systems", which is no
longer a good marketing strategy. You either produce stuff that will
play nice with other mfr's stuff, or you risk going under

I actually did wonder if that was Hornbys strategy. They are in a similar position in the UK market to that of Maerklin in Germany e.g. dominant. Maerklin also have the benefit of having a different current (AC) and rail system so you are pretty much locked in with Maerklin which ever way you look at it. Maerklin do make DC stuff which is NRMA compatible so there is compromise.

I notice you didn't mention ESU or Zimo. They are compatible with most other systems too.

Gary,

QUOTE (Gary @ 22 Nov 2006, 05:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Back to our TCS friend who started the ball rolling.

Has Adrian Hall actually programed a TCS decoder with a Select unit?

What he actually says in his email is that a TCS decoder when fitted to a Hornby loco was not read by a Select console. Has he tried to write to it with the Select console or is he attempting to read an address with the Select console that was already programmed into the decoder by another unit?

And in terms of the CV values and the Gaugemastwer unit it is not clear precisely how those values were written onto the Hornby decoder.

His email is not clear on this.

Happy modelling
Gary

In order to be able to write a CV, a 'read' request has to be sent to place the system in 'programming mode' in order to be able to write the CV.
If the basic read fails, you cannot write a CV.

This is how CV programming works on the Lenz 100 and at a computer programming level, it is also the sequence of requests which must be sent in order for a computer to program a CV.

Graham Plowman

QUOTE I actually did wonder if that was Hornbys strategy.
I don't think so. My opinion is that they decided to do it themselves (by proxy) and it's a version 1.0. Anyone coming into an established market with their "version 1.0 take" on a standard is going to take a while to get it right.

It's not an uncommon problem. Sony don't seem to have quite as much backwards compatibility on the PS3 as many users would like.

David

Exactly. Even Microsoft when introducing new operating systems have backward compatibility issues with third parties with what should be a standard for a PC. Given that Hornby have come up with something that you can link to a PC and with a communications protocol it seems unlikely that Hornby have a deliberate strategy of producing a non standard device.

There are a small number of Model Rail Forum members that keep banging the same drum. There is no logic to this.

Have you not considered that the issue might be with the TCS decoder and the Gaugemaster Console?

Or even with Adrian Hall and in his excitement to check out the Hornby product he overlooked something?

How about giving it a break guys as the system literally has just been introduced and Hornby will do the right thing in the event of any matters arrising.

Surely the aim of this forum is to promote digital and DCC. How does this world seem right now to outsiders looking in?

Full of people with a self interest in promoting systems they own without any regard for what modellers actually need!

Is every DCC forum like this?

I honestly don't know but it is dissapointing if they are.

Happy modelling
Gary

QUOTE (Graham Plowman @ 22 Nov 2006, 02:05) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Gary,
In order to be able to write a CV, a 'read' request has to be sent to place the system in 'programming mode' in order to be able to write the CV.
If the basic read fails, you cannot write a CV.

This is how CV programming works on the Lenz 100 and at a computer programming level, it is also the sequence of requests which must be sent in order for a computer to program a CV.

Graham Plowman

Not true. A write to a CV can be performed on it's own with no need for reading. The decoder enters programming mode by recognising two identical service mode packets (with no intervening packets) after a power up. In paged mode, it's the opposite way round. You cannot read a CV without first writing to the page register.

It may be how Lenz do it through their user interface but it is not a DCC requirement.

Andrew

QUOTE (SPROGman @ 22 Nov 2006, 13:19) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Not true. A write to a CV can be performed on it's own with no need for reading. The decoder enters programming mode by recognising two identical service mode packets (with no intervening packets) after a power up. In paged mode, it's the opposite way round. You cannot read a CV without first writing to the page register.

It may be how Lenz do it through their user interface but it is not a DCC requirement.

Andrew
Sorry, not quite correct, a decoder enters programming mode when it receives a valid service mode packet (not two) after a reset. It will not do anything, e.g. write to a CV, unless it receives two identical packets.

For anyone interested, the programming spec is on-line http://www.nmra.org/standards/DCC/standards_rps/rp923.html along with all the other NMRA DCC specs.

Andrew

Just to stir things up a little.

I looked at the Hornby DCC loco service sheets last night in order to to get ideas on wiring up my Hornby decoders - when they get here. It appears that 'Set Locos' are wired in a non-NMRA 8-pin socket standard. I confirmed this by looking at Gary's extremely comprehensive review of the Mixed Goods Set. You can see that the Jinty has four jumper plugs ands sockets rather than an 8-pin pug and socket.

Non-'Set' DCC Ready Locos have 8-pin sockets.

So it seems that anyone with ideas of moving the decoders from 'Set Locos' to locos with NMRA 8-pin sockets can forget it, unless you hard wire them or do some conversions.

It would also suggest that because the 'set loco' decoders only have four wires they may be limited in function or deliberately crippled (Or slugged as we use to say in the old mainframe days.) so as to keep to a price point.

I guess that it is a marketing strategy by Hornby so that they can ring fence the cheap 'Set Locos'.

BTW. PLEASE don't attack me or patronise me or make offensive remarks about me as usually happens when I put a post here that someone disagrees with.