Hornby 2023 - Bluetooth decoders and control system

[RedgateModels]

8 minutes ago, NXEA! said:

• That the HM DCC app can control existing DCC locomotives - I have a few locos with either Zimo sound, Hornby TTS, or Lenz Silver decoders, and would like to be able to operate them using the app, including the sound functions. Presumably it would be a case of purchasing a legacy dongle and plugging in, in my case the NCE mini-panel.

 

 Not with NCE equipment, you need an XpressNet compliant system such as Hornby Elite/Select. There may or may not be a project starting with MERG to produce an NCE version of the Legacy Dongle once the dongles are available.

 

EDIT

But in any case I would not expect any dongle to work stand alone, it would still need a command station to connect to

Edited April 17, 2023 by RedgateModels

[Buhar]

13 minutes ago, NXEA! said:

I’m seriously considering in cashing in my NCE Powercab and going for the Hornby system, but wanted to double check the following: 

My two penn'orth is that would be a hasty move at present.  The system has only had a few weeks in the wild and there is much to be learned and tweaked and there do appear to be stability issues.  Unless and until there are reliable connections that allow bluetooth/app control via a connection with existing systems and if the HM7000 then recognises individual decoders within its app architecture allowing CV alteration your other questions are unknowns.

 

Other stay alive units are available and maybe could be hardwired directly to the chip with dexterity and a tiny tip or the wires on a Hornby unit could be snipped and the plug soldered to the wires from another brand.  Does the B12 have tender pick-ups?  If so, I doubt whether you need stay alive, if it doesn't fitting some would be a cheaper option.

 

Alan

[NXEA!]

20 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

 

 Not with NCE equipment, you need an XpressNet compliant system such as Hornby Elite/Select. There may or may not be a project starting with MERG to produce an NCE version of the Legacy Dongle once the dongles are available.

 

EDIT

But in any case I would not expect any dongle to work stand alone, it would still need a command station to connect to

Thanks - so if my understanding is correct I’d still need to keep my NCE Powercab or another controller to be able to use the legacy dongle to power my existing DCC fleet. Which negates the point for me, was hoping to cash in and use a cheaper system. 
 

I will still give it a go as a way of getting a cheap B12 sound decoder when the file is available. 

[WIMorrison]

2 hours ago, NXEA! said:

…Which negates the point for me, was hoping to cash in and use a cheaper system…

A NCE system isn’t exactly an expensive system and you would be pushed to find a DCC command station and throttle that provides the functionality for DCC at a lower price.

[spamcan61]

OK had chance to run my dc controller fight club today, to see if any of my motley selection would be likely to be suitable for powering an HM7000 system.

 

round 1: my "trusty" old Duette, now relegated  to station lighting and suchlike, think we can see why. Here's the voltage waveform as displayed on my cheapo oscilloscope with various different resistances meant to emulate a DCC chip when the loco isn't moving (a few mA?) and then something like full load on the controller. Output was set to full wave low resistance.

Given the 25V peaks I'm more convinced than ever this thing has cooked a couple of DCC chips.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

so, basically a slightly squashed 100Hz sawtooth , I'm not an expert on decoder design but I doubt if it'll like that up it, unless the stay alive module is added maybe.

Edited April 17, 2023 by spamcan61

[spamcan61]

round 2: Hornby controller + PSU supplied with my TT:120 set. So: under low load conditions still only 60% ish duty cycle; hey at least it's a nice rectangular waveform under load. Again not at all sure the chip will cope with that without a stay alive. I used 25 ohms as 'full load' this time as I think this controller is only rated to half amp or thereabouts.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

 

[spamcan61]

round 3: Hornby controller and PSU as supplied in the past with OO sets. only bothered testing at full load as I expected it to be quite similar to the TT:120 one, and it is, other than PRF which is surprisingly lower. Still 5ms gaps in the output so again don't think the chip will like that without a stay alive.

 

[Pmorgancym]

4 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

round 3: Hornby controller and PSU as supplied in the past with OO sets. only bothered testing at full load as I expected it to be quite similar to the TT:120 one, and it is, other than PRF which is surprisingly lower. Still 5ms gaps in the output so again don't think the chip will like that without a stay alive.

 

Surely we need to see what the output from a 'recommended Hornby dc source' lookslike

[rmnik]

10 minutes ago, Pmorgancym said:

Surely we need to see what the output from a 'recommended Hornby dc source' lookslike

The 1A and 1.5A wall warts and the 3A PSU would be interesting.

 

[spamcan61]

9 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Surely we need to see what the output from a 'recommended Hornby dc source' lookslike

I would hope that an actual DC source will output the required voltage, with a bit of noise and ripple, no significant glitches in the time domain. I've got all manner of old laptop PSUs and other 'power brick' sources stashed away so I'm not intending to buy Hornby's one.

 

I was primarily trying to establish if the DC controller turned to full whack sales pitch was as bad/optimistic an idea as it sounded.

Edited April 18, 2023 by spamcan61

[PeterStiles]

55 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Primarily trying to establish

 

But if you don't also test the "recommended" approach, then I'm not sure we have anything to compare your results to. Your results shown could be very close to what the Hornby Approved Wall Wart does or could be widely different.

 

Ideally you do the test using a HAWW and then we have a baseline to compare all the non-recommended options to, thereby seeing if any of them are worth persuing.

 

Without the baseline I'm not sure we know more than we would have supposed earlier: a Duette is dangerous and any more modern controller looks suspect too.

[Mike Buckner]

Please forgive my feeble Electronics knowledge.

 

In relation to the Stay-Alive:
I'm not sure that a Stay-Alive is connected in such a way as to smooth the input from the track before it reaches the decoder. If that were the case, then the decoder would not receive a DCC signal, but a fairly uniform voltage.

 

I suspect the Stay-Alive may be connected so as to stabilise just part of the circuitry within the decoder, after the track signal has been processed by other parts of the circuitry, with the objective of providing power to the motor if the track feed is interrupted. If so, it may be over-optimistic to expect a Stay-Alive to protect a decoder from voltage spikes.

 

Again, apologies for my ignorance.

[spamcan61]

1 hour ago, Mike Buckner said:

Please forgive my feeble Electronics knowledge.

 

In relation to the Stay-Alive:
I'm not sure that a Stay-Alive is connected in such a way as to smooth the input from the track before it reaches the decoder. If that were the case, then the decoder would not receive a DCC signal, but a fairly uniform voltage.

 

I suspect the Stay-Alive may be connected so as to stabilise just part of the circuitry within the decoder, after the track signal has been processed by other parts of the circuitry, with the objective of providing power to the motor if the track feed is interrupted. If so, it may be over-optimistic to expect a Stay-Alive to protect a decoder from voltage spikes.

 

Again, apologies for my ignorance.

I was thinking about this whilst doing some weeding this morning, and I suspect you're right in that a stay alive is unlikely to be helpful.

[NIK]

3 hours ago, Mike Buckner said:

Please forgive my feeble Electronics knowledge.

 

In relation to the Stay-Alive:
I'm not sure that a Stay-Alive is connected in such a way as to smooth the input from the track before it reaches the decoder. If that were the case, then the decoder would not receive a DCC signal, but a fairly uniform voltage.

 

I suspect the Stay-Alive may be connected so as to stabilise just part of the circuitry within the decoder, after the track signal has been processed by other parts of the circuitry, with the objective of providing power to the motor if the track feed is interrupted. If so, it may be over-optimistic to expect a Stay-Alive to protect a decoder from voltage spikes.

 

Again, apologies for my ignorance.

Hi,

 

There will probably a small circuit that connects before the rectifier and the stay alive capacitor that takes the DCC signal and converts it to a logic level signal connected to one of the decoders microcontroller input pins.

 

Most stay-alives are sensitive to being overvolted and also normally have a medium resistance path back to the rectifier output so the stay alive will probably not be able to protect the decoder from voltage spikes.

 

Regards

 

Nik

[Jenny Emily]

These decoders also work on ABC shuttles. I explore setting them up and getting them working using DCCconcepts’ ABC modules and a couple of CV changes:

 

 

[Pmorgancym]

11 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

I would hope that an actual DC source will output the required voltage, with a bit of noise and ripple, no significant glitches in the time domain. I've got all manner of old laptop PSUs and other 'power brick' sources stashed away so I'm not intending to buy Hornby's one.

 

I was primarily trying to establish if the DC controller turned to full whack sales pitch was as bad/optimistic an idea as it sounded.

Don't Hornby state that old laptop chargers etc 'spike' and your not to use them 'we don't want any fires...'

[WIMorrison]

2 minutes ago, Pmorgancym said:

Don't Hornby state that old laptop chargers etc 'spike' and your not to use them 'we don't want any fires...'

What do you think that 'spike' would do to a laptop?

 

The only thing that might 'spike' are the sales of laptop SMPS when they are proved to work 😉

[Pmorgancym]

3 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

What do you think that 'spike' would do to a laptop?

 

The only thing that might 'spike' are the sales of laptop SMPS when they are proved to work 😉

You don't think they mean 'this will only work with our own branded cheap Chinese Wall warts and not another cheap.chinese Wall wart that probably come.out of the same factory"

[spamcan61]

2 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Don't Hornby state that old laptop chargers etc 'spike' and your not to use them 'we don't want any fires...'

Given electronics is my day job I'm quite happy to sort out an appropriate PSU for myself, I'll stick a DC/DC and a circuit breaker on the output anyway to give a nice flat 15V at up to 4A.

[rmnik]

52 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Given electronics is my day job I'm quite happy to sort out an appropriate PSU for myself, I'll stick a DC/DC and a circuit breaker on the output anyway to give a nice flat 15V at up to 4A.

What type of circuit breaker would you recommend and where would you source them?

 

[NIK]

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

Given electronics is my day job I'm quite happy to sort out an appropriate PSU for myself, I'll stick a DC/DC and a circuit breaker on the output anyway to give a nice flat 15V at up to 4A.

Hi,

 

What would the circuit breaker do and how long would it take to operate?.

 

Regards

 

Nik

[melmerby]

Most SMPS power supplies cut out in milliseconds when an overload is detected.

 

Laptop PSUs can't be that bad as some model railway electronics is supplied with them.

My DCC booster was supplied with an adjustable 15-19v 120 watt one.

[Legend]

 

[RAF96]

56 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

 

I have amended that advice since to clarify the Tri-Mode thing.

[Legend]

1 minute ago, RAF96 said:

 

I have amended that advice since to clarify the Tri-Mode thing.

 

Disappointing

 

Hopefully Hornby will continue to test to see which analogue controllers this will work with , especially Gaugemaster, and not just ignore the ability to operate on DC.  As he mentions on video , buying the psu allows control of HM DCC7000 locos but not analogue , so is of very limited use .