Model Railway Forum

Good afternoon one and all.
Just joined the Forum so I will introduce myself and seek a solution to a problem. I had a layout, in the 50's that was built by my uncle and Dad. It was a Hornby OO with three rails, great fun for all three of us, more Dad and Uncle as they built the buildings and track from scratch, apart from the metal track, with painted sleepers, that came with the original "train set". I got to thinking I would like to get back into model railways and commandeered the loft, bought a Hornby Mixed set with DCC controller. Laid out the track on a board and all went well, with engines working, and even managed to have two trains running at the same time!! My wife made a monetary contribution, in lieu of birthday and Christmas, so off I went to the local model shop and bought a 4-6-2 loco and a decoder (I think that's right phrase!). The assistant asked if needed to decoder fitted and after reading Brian Lambert's book it did not seem too difficult, so I would give it a go. No problem until I put the loco on the track, programmed it and it, it did not work. Thought I did something wrong, so retraced my steps and as far I could see had done it correctly and thought the engine was at fault. Back to the shop where the loco was put on a "test track" where it worked!! They programmed it into a Select controller. Back home, put one of my original loco's on the track, all run smoothly, put the new loco on selected the correct code number, but no go. Re-programmed with a different code, no other engines on the track, still no go. Because I did not reassemble the tender I did notice the decoder (a Zen black) was getting a little warm, I'm sure this should not happen.
If you can understand my explanation and can help I would be most grateful.
John

Welcome to the forum. I am no expert and very much a newbie to DCC myself. However, I have heard that some decoders do not work well with Hornby controllers. Whether that is the case with Zen I don't know.

Of course the other option is that Brian Lambert's book was wrong?

Hi guys
Joined today and going to have a mooch around before I start contributing. Modelled in OO gauge most of my life. Current layout is a modern landscape in OO. Pride of place is a Dapol class 68 but I still love my class 37 from the 1970s that still goes like a bunny.

Look forward to sharing some knowledge
Cheers
Peter

Hi Guys and a warm welcome to you both.

@Nine Elms... You may find the non working loco needs its tender connected to the loco as the loco usually provides power from its wheels to the decoder in the tender. I assume the DCC system isn't showing a short circuit? Is this a Tender drive loco? If so, did you check that the left-hand motor brush strip is isolated from the wheels of the tender and all metal of the motors chassis before fitting the decoder?

@darkscot..... What!!!!! Really!!!! Never!

Brian

The tender was connected both at the shop and at home. There is a wire and plug which runs from the tender to the engine and is connected. The controller is not showing a short circuit.

John

Hi John,

Are you sure you have the correct address number for the loco? To be 100% sure put the loco and its tender on the programming track and set its address number to whatever is requires e.g. 77 etc.
If you're unsure of what has been set previously, you can, system allowing, reset the decoder to its default settings by entering CV 8 and entering a value of 8 (CV8-8) This will normally restore a decoder to it as new default settings, including address number to 03.
From here you can then set a new address number and other CVs such as acceleration and de acceleration rates via CVs 3 & 4.

@Nine Elms.......What version firmware is your Select running.......the latest version is 1.6 (or 2.0 if it's brand new).......when you start the Select what are the first two numbers to be displayed on the screen.......if less than 1.5 it would really benefit from an upgrade to 1.6........HB

Welcome John and Peter. You have joined a first class forum - lots of help, information and fun. Barry (aka BB)

Thank you for your replies. I have now discovered where I went wrong. I assumed "put it on the track and away you go" but this is not the case. Further reading has now shown me that "bus" wiring and drop downs play an important role in running a layout. With only a single short oval loop my loco run without problems, so it is now down to planning a simple two loop layout and drop connections and learning how it all works before expanding.

Thanks again

John

This is very interesting. I am still in the process of laying track and it is taking longer than I expected. However, so far I have a quite large double loop with a crossover so I can actually run test trains around it. I have fitted drop wires to the rail sections but not got around to wiring them up the DCC bus yet as the track plan is not 100% finalised. So at the moment the only power/signal is through the rail connections. Mostly the test train runs fine but occasionally it just stops and refuses to move. The only solution is to power off and move the engine closer to the power connections. Then it starts off again quite happily and runs around the track for several loops.