Hornby encoder into Bachmann lococ's ?

lococ's ????????

loco's :-)

It's been claimed here that Hornby's DCC is not NMRA compliant, in which case I wouldn't install them in a Bachmann DCC-ready loco, even if it does plug in. The wires may not match up properly. Then the loco will not run and/or you will burn out the decoder.

However, if you know which wires on the Hornby decoder do what, you should be able to wire it into the Bachmann loco (or any brand, for that matter). You will probably have to remove any existing PC card first, though.

If Hornby DCC is NMRA compliant, there will be no electrical problem.

In either case, you may have to file or machine the weight(s) to make space so that the decoder will fit.

For NMRA standards and RPs, go to

Decoders not being DCC compliant may well mean that they have not yet received a compliance test and or certification by the NMRA compliance committee, not that they do not comply with the DCC standard. It seems unlikely to me that Hornby would make DCC decoders and then spoil them by applying incorrectly colour coded wires! (admittedly I've never yet seen a Hornby DCC decoder so they might well use rainbow coloured wires for all I know ;-)

The NMRA is a voluntary body, not a commercial enterprise, so they do such testing in their own time.

Regards, Greg.P.

yes in my expirence they fit straight in and will work but systems other that Hornby may not reporgram them, I left the hornby system after several non hornby chips stopped working including a Class 37 sound chip, hope this helps Phil

In Hornbys defence their decoders have worked but some of the features people have expected as standard have not been included in the cheaper ones.

Chris

Could you qualify this by saying which system you left ?

Cheers, Simon

First check havent got a fancy motor (coreless) and its current draw doesnt exceed the rating for the decoder. I'm happy putting Hornby decoders in any recent Bachmann or Hornby OO loco.

So tis just a case of if the decoder is compatible with your controller.

Cheers, Simon

Points of clarification...

Every coreless motor I've seen has very low current requirements (the ones I make models with are way below 0.05A maximum). But, they need high frequency decoders suited to coreless motors. Not all decoders are suited to this, on the whole, one needs to purchase premium priced decoders to find the correct control for these motors. However, because of the low current requirements, usually one can use physically tiny decoders, such as the CT-Electronic DCX74's.

Some other motors have very high current demands (eg. ancient X04's). Those require decoders with adequately high current ratings. In general, high current decoders tend to be a bit physically larger than average.

Any decoder which meets the DCC specification should be compatible with any controller which meets the DCC specification.

- Nigel

had the Hornby select, now have a roco multimaus