Hornby R378 - 4-4-0 DCC install

[aleopardstail]

Hi, anyone installed a DCC decoder into a R378 Hornby loco?

had the tender off, isolating the motor brushes looks a doddle, to spade connectors and done, ditto getting at the track feed - same two connectors, cut the wires and strip both ends then insert the decoder.

only issue I see is there is sod all space in the tender to actually fit the decoder, plenty in the loco but obviously not ideal

anyone done this?

[Mountain]

Hi, anyone installed a DCC decoder into a R378 Hornby loco?

had the tender off, isolating the motor brushes looks a doddle, to spade connectors and done, ditto getting at the track feed - same two connectors, cut the wires and strip both ends then insert the decoder.

only issue I see is there is sod all space in the tender to actually fit the decoder, plenty in the loco but obviously not ideal

anyone done this?

Please see reply I just made in the tender drive thread as there is a concern about isolating the motor to the wheels on a few of those motor designs. Usually one can extend the wires to mount the decoders on the loco, but please check the wheel to motor connections as some have a hidden additional connection via a screw, where the screw itself is also visually present on other similar motors that don't have this hidden electrical connection. They use external wires AS WELL on some of them so make sure via a test meter that the wheel to motor connections have been isolated.

[aleopardstail]

Hi, anyone installed a DCC decoder into a R378 Hornby loco?

had the tender off, isolating the motor brushes looks a doddle, to spade connectors and done, ditto getting at the track feed - same two connectors, cut the wires and strip both ends then insert the decoder.

only issue I see is there is sod all space in the tender to actually fit the decoder, plenty in the loco but obviously not ideal

anyone done this?

Please see reply I just made in the tender drive thread as there is a concern about isolating the motor to the wheels on a few of those motor designs. Usually one can extend the wires to mount the decoders on the loco, but please check the wheel to motor connections as some have a hidden additional connection via a screw, where the screw itself is also visually present on other similar motors that don't have this hidden electrical connection. They use external wires AS WELL on some of them so make sure via a test meter that the wheel to motor connections have been isolated.

ohhh thats evil, thanks for the heads up. was pondering a CD motor replacement as well which will be fully isolated, will have to dig up the meter & have a play

[Bigmet]

...only issue I see is there is sod all space in the tender to actually fit the decoder...anyone done this?...

Yes, and there was no problem, it took a Lenz Standard easily; and that's a full size HO decoder, plenty of smaller options available. Bear in mind this was a long while ago, and Hornby do sometimes alter construction, but the general method description should be good.

Tender body off, look at the front of the interior and theres's a screwed on ballast weight with a small upstand at one side. A decoder will lie neatly on the flat top of that ballast weight, secured with double sided tape for insulation over the whole area. Try the decoder loseand if any of the components are taller than the upstand of the ballast weight, take a little out of the underside of the tender body for clearance, or alternatively remove the ballast weight and file down the top sufficiently to create clearance. (If you prefer, the rear ballast weight top is equally useable, that will have to be filed down for clearance however.)

The more delicate piece is assessing where the wiring runs and connections are made. I always remove all the wires other than black and red, grey and orange where it's motor control only required and space is tight, and cut the required connections to length; makes tidy wire dressing easier. HTH

[aleopardstail]

checked that, honking weight at both ends of the tender with what appears to be no clearance to speak of above them. probably not hard to shave one of the weights.

have ordered one of the CD motor replacements, this looks thinner on the wiring side (as well as making damned sure its fully isolated from any nefarious connection screws lurking), this appears to be thinner.

worst case it goes in the loco, bags of space there, though in that case I'll be making more drastic changes to add more pickups since if wires go back and forth may as well do it right.

will take a few pics when its all sorted

[Bigmet]

Forgot to mention that the traction tyred wheels can be replaced with the metal wheels 'floating' on the stub axles, and then you have four wheel pick up on the tender. Leaving the centre 'wheelset' absent is the best plan...

[aleopardstail]

yes the floppy central wheels do seem a liability, why they didn't just make them part of the tender frame I'm not sure.

will see how she runs first but if it looks like adhesion is up to it stripping traction tyres out may happen. guess the easy way is to find some utter wreak of a loco driven tender loco on the bay of Eeee and swap the axles

[Bufferstop]

A solid centre axle would have required a hole through the bottom of the magnet. and a non magnetic axle. Airfix (I think) did it successfully but Hornby at the time fought shy of it. I think this may have been at the time when the ringfield magnet was a cloth tube stuffed (like a sausage) with magnetic granules. This was during Hornby's scraping the barrel period as far as engineering went.

[aleopardstail]

Managed to get a MX600R (with the plug removed) fitted, nicely in alongside the back of the CD motor and when she runs she runs well, issue with iffy track pick ups so occasional stalling - only having two tender wheels for one side likely not helping here. may look to either get a few more pickups in there (as in add the other rail to the locomotive) or find a different decoder that can take a stay alive, likely only needs a very small one.

that said when shes moving, smooth as glass

[Mountain]

For now, try turning the inertia off on the decoder. Set it to zero or the lowest figure. If that doesn't work, try also turning the back EMF off as well.

[aleopardstail]

For now, try turning the inertia off on the decoder. Set it to zero or the lowest figure. If that doesn't work, try also turning the back EMF off as well.

will give these a try, have had issues in N gauge with locos losing power and the decoder rebooting. inertia off doesn't prevent it but can mask the symptoms. not sure if back EMF is on or off

likely can get a small stay alive in there, the MX600 can have one added.

will give this a whirl next time shes out of the box though

[Mountain]

If you can fit a stay alive it will do it. It is actually dissapointing that a very basic decoder that just has very simple address settings and nothing else (Something like the old Hornby Zero 1 but DCC compatable) is not available, as even "Budget" decoders have extra features as the manufacturers do not understand why anyone would want one. I would want one for the sheer simplicity of it and knowing that there is nothing else to fiddle with when things act up.

If I had to have settings, only a start voltage and a max speed setting I would bother about. And the only feature needed is the ability to switcha single light on. Everything else with DCC is overkill.
Don't get me wrong. I have been there and done that with DCC sound and it is excellent. I only later sold it (Apart from needing the money) because I spent so much time getting settings just right (Because they were there! If there were no settings I would not spend ages adjusting things) and the sheer cost of the things... I had around 100 locos to chip so this DCC sound decoder fitted loco which really upped the game, meant that all my other locos looked basic in comparisson.

Eventually I thought back to why I was happy and satisfied with DC and it was a few things.

[aleopardstail]

I know what you mean on "just give me a basic decoder!"

the MX600 is four function, though outputs 0 & 1 are lights, 2 & 3 come out as "functions 1 & 2" (and can all be remapped anyway)

for these locos I only need motor control, none have lights (I did fit a red tail lamp to a flying scotsman years back, don't still have it and basically never used it)

guessing the thing wouldn't be that much cheaper without the function outputs

I can sort of see why stuff like directional lighting is nice for diesels, and can lighting maybe, independent tail light control etc but unless you apply a level of automation to it I suspect much of it remains unused after the initial fiddling

with automation I could see stuff like coaches with lights, a brake coach with switchable tail lights, more modern ones with side dependent orange door lights etc (heck opening doors with memory wire etc) but its all a gimmick without a lot of time to set it up

will order a few cheap stay alives next time I'm ordering anything, the scotsman has enough pick ups not to really need it but why not, the D49 could do with it and I dare say whichever locomotive is done next (probably the J52 or J73) will benefit as well

and all get the function wires cut short and taped

[Mountain]

I ammended as I got carried away writing!

I will say there is one DCC feature that I really missed about DCC and I do not know if this feature was specific to Lenz or not.

I could set a loco going down the track and simply unplug the handset, walk down the other end of the layout, plug it back in andI was instantly in control again without the loco having stopped. Lenz and others later came out wih wireless handsets but there realy was no need, as for me the simplicity of this feature covered all! It just worked. (Still have my Lenz system packed away somewhere!)

If money was no object and I only had a few locos (And I was more confident in knowing the ins and outs of it) I would go for radio control as one has no track power issues to worry about. (One has other issues instead! ).

[aleopardstail]

depends on the base station, in effect the system sends out a data packet to the track every "x" time period - new instructions go out in the next packet. IIRC not every decoder instruction is in each packet but a new instruction will be.

decoders usually stop if they don't see stuff for them after a while

some base stations will send the same out constantly until told otherwise, some register a loco to a handset, and when that handset goes dark will stop that locomotive.

its actually something I'm fiddling with currently, because what my end goal is to have a train that I can be driving, and when it reaches a specific point an automated system captures it and takes over. likewise a train driven by hand can be handed over to a manual controller to have a layout part automated, but to integrate with manual control.

the ability to go walk about with a controller without stuff grinding to a halt is very useful, systems that have stuff stop should really have it configurable as both behaviours are useful