[John 370 001]

I bought am old Hornby R352 Western Courier yesterday along with the usual Hornby DCC chip. On testing in DC the loco ran rought so I gave it a thorough cleaning and service. Testing again in DC it ran much smoother.

I then fitted the Hornby DCC chip in the usual way and removed the DC capacitor or resistor. Running in DCC with a Hornby Select controller the loco ran smooth in both directions (but quite slow).

The problem I have is that it is very slow, the top speed peaking after around only 1/3 of the speed dial rotation. I looked at the loco again but can't find anything wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas? as I have chipped 9 other old Lima / Hornby locos in the same way and have not had this problem before.

 

[stmartins]

Hi John
snap, I have raised the same issue today lets hope there are some clever DCC experts in circulation today.

Tony

 

[Ozzie21]

Most model locos on DC are way to fast with scale speeds well in excess of the magic ton. A good decoder, which the Hornby one isn't, can set the top speed in a variety of ways. Setting CV5 top speed and CV6 mid range speed is a good start. if the decoder supports it then using a speed table can also help. If the decoder uses BEMF that can have an effect on top speed. Some decoders like Lenz Gold/Silver have a shunting speed CV if this is enabled then top speed is severly curtailed. If you have acess to a decoder setting program like Decoder Pro it can be a great help in setting CV's consistently. With Hornby and Bachamnn locos it's a good idea to remove the RF supression capacitors as these can have a dramatic effect on a loco after it has been DCC fitted, see Doug's report on the Bachmann Super D. With some of the Bachmann diesels I have found up to 3 RF suppression caps and these played merry hell with the running qualities.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

QUOTE (John 370 001 @ 30 Nov 2008, 20:23) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I bought am old Hornby R352 Western Courier yesterday along with the usual Hornby DCC chip. On testing in DC the loco ran rought so I gave it a thorough cleaning and service. Testing again in DC it ran much smoother.

I then fitted the Hornby DCC chip in the usual way and removed the DC capacitor or resistor. Running in DCC with a Hornby Select controller the loco ran smooth in both directions (but quite slow).

The problem I have is that it is very slow, the top speed peaking after around only 1/3 of the speed dial rotation. I looked at the loco again but can't find anything wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas? as I have chipped 9 other old Lima / Hornby locos in the same way and have not had this problem before.

 

[upnick]

Hi John 370 001

Welcome to the forum

As has been said the capacitors will not help in your conversion i do know they can be in the most unlikley places from a friend who does OO looking at the serivce sheets can be helpful in finding the capacitors as here but i cannot see where they are in this case.

A consideration you could make is to use TCS M1 decoders a little more expensive than Hornby but will give a better performance and all the peramators you should need including BEMF and of course they are smaller, along with TCS's ''goof proof '' no questions asked warrenty ........one retailer in the U.K i know of will replace them free of charge the customer to pay postage (usually cost of a first class stamp) saving them going back to the states a lot quicker.

 

[Richard Johnson]

The Loco's are OO - Nothing wrong with the excellent M1, but its not necessary to use a micro in the cans, so use the TCS T-1 which is the same software and performance as the M1 with higher power handling - and much lower price as well!

Richard