Thank you so much for getting in touch to say you found the video useful. I looked for a video on this but there was nothing, so I decided to do one to share with everyone :-). Cheers. Dave
Great upload, those look a big improvement over the original larger Hornby stay alive’s. Enjoyed the pushing running shots, looking forward to the Accurascale coach reviews. You mentioned spending time in the garden, I think I’ve figured the secret project you teased at the end of your last upload. It’s a garden railway. Looking forward to seeing it developing!
Hello Dave, a couple of points worth noting. If the HM7000 decoders get a power dropout whilst running with the sound on, the loco obviously stalls, but also then the decoder cuts out the sound and it has to go through its entire sound start up procedure again, which can take 10 or 15 seconds! What a pain! This delay happens every single time the loco loses pickup power, because of a bit of dirty track etc. I'd say that the HM7000s, when using the sound function, are almost unusable without the power bank/stay-alive fitted. Also, if you are operating it via bluetooth, of course that drops out too! Secondly, yes, if you hit the controller's emergency stop, a loco with a stay-alive carries on going. However, If you hit the emergency stop twice in quick succession the loco will stop! This is because on the first push of the emergency stop it cuts the track power, but the stay-alive carries on powering the loco and decoder along with all of the the pre-existing settings, so it carries on rolling. On the second push of the emergency stop, track power is restored, but with the controller set at zero speed for all locos. This zero speed instruction is instantly received by every train's decoder and so they all immediately go to speed step zero and therefore stop! This is what happens with my Hornby Elite anyway. Give it a go with other makes of controller and see if it does the same! Kind regards, Julian, at Valebridge Model Railway.
I tried HM7000 on my Hornby Q1 and it was nothing but trouble, even after return to Hornby. I scrapped it and went back to conventional decoders on all my stock with additional stay-alives and the performance was fine after that. Hornby can keep their HM7000👎👎
@@MervynPartin I find the bluetooth phone app rather glitchy and very troublesome to connect and reprogram the HM7000 with. It always takes dozens of attempts and a couple of hours to get a new decoder to program. It's not very intuitive to use either, with too many screens and hard to find functions, features and some confusing terminology. I find myself searching back and forward for particular features. It's not great in practice! I program the decoders and then only use the train controller to operate them now. The bluetooth is too much of a pain!
Exellent, le son est doublé en Francais, je peux enfin regarder vos vidéos entierement. (C'est assez dur voire impossible pour un francais qui connais la langue Anglaise etudiée à l' école, de comprendre toute ces explications). merci l' IA. Gérard Excellent, the sound is dubbed in French, I can finally watch your videos in full. (It's quite hard or even impossible for a French person who knows the English language studied at school, to understand all these explanations). Thank you AI. Gérard
@@DeanPark I've been following your videos for years (since my adventure with the Euro Alliance Video with Andy, Sam and the late Stevie), and the AI translation is excellent. A real plus!! Too bad, for the moment it's not available for my videos produced in France. See you soon, Gérard.
This is definitely a worthwhile upgrade for shorter wheelbase locomotives and those older generation tooling locomotives that don’t have as many pickups.
Great video overall here Dave, need to get myself some of these stay alive at some point, one of my locos that I have fitted recently is my Bachmann A1 Tornado and sometimes that just cuts out on things like point or diamond crossings so need to get that one fitted with a stay alive at some point, great video overall, keep up the great work.
Worth saying that AE Model from DCC concepts make a HM7000 compatible stay alive - with the correct plug. The Hornby ones are often out of stock. The AE Model one is also a different shape so can help fitting in tight bodies. I've got a mixture of the Hornby and AE Model versions and they work equally well.
Another great video david going back to your class 26 video I have recently purchased one from rails of Sheffield did the class 26 railfreight colour era haul passenger or freight during is era of time
Hi. The Railfreight ones were seen on passenger and freight work. Hauling local services to fife and Dundee from Edinburgh. With mk1 and mk2’s. Lots of videos showing them. Search for “Scotrail in the 1980’s” and there will be footage of them somewhere. Cheers Dave
A very neat and tidy fit, well done. I'd just be a bit cautious about wrapping the whole decoder in tape as the Hornby TXS HM7000s run slightly warm (as did TTS). I just put tape underneath my decoders to prevent them from touching the locos circuitry/chassis. They need to breathe!
I operate a very small 1x6 foot layout based on the Inglenook Sidings Puzzle. Needless to say, very slow speeds are a must. After changing over to DCC I found that a stay=alive was unnecssary in my flywheel equipped B-B EMD SW1200 (approximately the size of a UK Class 20). But for my smaller B-B locos (Bachmann GE 44 and 70 Tonners) and my Walthers 4 wheel Plymouth they were absolutely necessary for smooth operation. Cheers from Wisconsin!
In my experience stay-alives are essential if you have fewer than eight wheels picking up power, particularly if you have some dead frogs on the layout. My first DCC experience was very disappointing; I had fitted a decoder to an 0-4-0 and even on clean plain track it just kept cutting out - and then restarting without human interference. On DC the loco's inertia will carry it over minute power interruptions so that you don't notice it, but on DCC even the tiniest interruption causes the decoder to shut down and then spend a couple of seconds rebooting before the loco will start running again - without human interference. Once I had realised this, and discovered stay-alives, the problem disappeared, albeit at extra cost. Even 0-6-0s can suffer this problem, but I've never needed a stay-alive on anything with eight or more wheels collecting power. Ironically, Accurascale fit stay-alives as standard to all their diesels, but I'm reasonably sure they really don't need to because of the number of wheels collecting power. One point I would make is that claims to provide several seconds of power are irrelevant since most power interruptions only last for a fraction of a second.
Got to love a little 08. Wait until it derails and starts chewing up your ballast, then you'll know panic! I have a few DMUs that need stay alives fitted to their trailing cars as the lights constantly flicker due to Bachmann's annoying contact setup. Great for light-fitted coaches, too. How about a power test, Dave? Let's see what that little 08 can do! Cheers. Mike.
I recently picked up my two MK2c coaches from Scoonie Hobbies, in Trans pennine livery, for the Clydebridge - Liverpool/Manchester service, and they have stay alives fitted. It'll be interesting to hear your thoughts on the Mk2cs, compared to mine, though I think both of us will agree, they're awesome!
I’ve been using stay alives (mostly ESU power packs) for over a decade. I’d never fit a sound chip without one. They make such a difference both to smooth slow speed running and the sound chip rebooting.
I've found the Keep-Alives are especially good for club layouts and show layouts where you can't be as fastidious with cleaning, so dead spots crop up more often. That and older layouts where the trackwork has settled over the last 20 years and has some gaps and continuity errors.
An interesting and informative video, thank you. From what I can see of your track (and I am new to your channel), I am a bit surprised that you needed a stay-alive. That shunter has a flywheel. Not disagreeing with your choice, just curious because I use DC but sometimes consider going for DCC.
Hi Richard. Firstly thanks for watching and taking the time to get in touch. The 08 ran fine on my tracks without it. But I ran it over some track that hadn’t been cleaned and it did stall! It’s very short wheel base isn’t great for keeping connection in these situations. I’m a belt and braces kind of modeller lol, so I thought I’d make sure of trouble free running and add this in. cheers Dave
Hi. They are scalescenes kits. The one on the left is the kit pretty much as is. The small building on the right is designed by me using the kit, adapting it for my own needs. They look really lifelike. One of scalescenes best kit, in my opinion.
Wonderful video as always. Have often wondered, with your skill at being able to detail/repaint, have you ever wanted to pick up a rake of Bachmann mk2f in Intercity livery and tweak them into Scotrail Executive to match the Bachmann DBSO. Similar project as you did with the Oxford mk3’s. Doesn’t look like Bachmann will ever release mk2 air conditioned in this livery
Hi, that’s an idea. I could do that. But most of the scotrail ones were mk2D coaches. I’m sure they will be done. I just hope they match the livery of the dbso when they do arrive :-)
@ you would make a splendid job. As for the rivet counters who will always complain about something, I guarantee that when running on your fabulous layout the difference between mk2d or mk2f will be so minute, but will give a realistic representation. Such a completed rake would look super and be a perfect match to your DBSO. Go on sir😉
Glad you survived the storm. I was expecting more damage than the was in my area but it seemed to at it's worst around 5am and not a bad as I have known before. The stay alive works well. Can they be fitted in any loco or is it just made for the Hornby 7000 chips. I have a sound Bachmann 03 and tried a stay alive in that but it made no difference it still stalled. I got better results adding a runner wagon with extra pickups
Hiya pal! Out of curiosity, what make are those ScotRail coaches that you use with the class 47 Lady Diana? They’re very hard to come by. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Hi, they are Oxford rail. I airbrush repainted the lower colour as Oxford made it completely the wrong colour. I didn’t the same to the INTERCITY too. Made such a difference. They are no longer on the market, but you might find them coming up on eBay etc?!
Yeah! With larger locos it will be easy to find the room inside for it. It can’t do any harm and gives that extra reliability over dirty tracks, dodgey connections if you might have them. For the sake of £14ish it’s a no brainer.
Sorry to go off-topic, Dave, but can you remind me where you got your Great Wall from, please? The time’s approaching when I’ll need something similar! Cheers Rich
Hi, it’s a scale model scenery product. You get laser cut ones like mine or you get the same ones but with paper brick wraps if you don’t want to have to paint them. Great product.
I can answer this on spec, as the Yankeedoodles say (😀😀) if it’s Hornby of the last 3 months, yes! If it’s Hornby from the last 3 years, NO!! :) :) Cracking video as ever.
Excellent example of the benefits of the stay alive David, you done a great job fitting it all in, sounds and runs really well 😃👍
I’m really glad I did it. Makes a difference and yeah it sounds good too.
Awesome channel great video keep them up make sure you like and subscribe thank you for your support I need all feedback on my train videos thank you
Great video, nice to see these sorts of how 2 videos
Perfect job, thanks for completing the Hornby Hm7000 decode/stay alive puzzle. information like this is worth it's weight in gold!
Thank you so much for getting in touch to say you found the video useful. I looked for a video on this but there was nothing, so I decided to do one to share with everyone :-). Cheers. Dave
Great upload, those look a big improvement over the original larger Hornby stay alive’s. Enjoyed the pushing running shots, looking forward to the Accurascale coach reviews. You mentioned spending time in the garden, I think I’ve figured the secret project you teased at the end of your last upload. It’s a garden railway. Looking forward to seeing it developing!
Haha. 🤫 Don’t tell anyone!
Great video. I picked up a Hornby 08 at GETS so fitting one of the HM7000 decoders will be the next step, and maybe a crew too.
Thanks. Yeah crew is something I might consider too.
I think the HM7000 and the stay alive is a great bit of kit. Be nice to see some smaller boards
Hello Dave, a couple of points worth noting. If the HM7000 decoders get a power dropout whilst running with the sound on, the loco obviously stalls, but also then the decoder cuts out the sound and it has to go through its entire sound start up procedure again, which can take 10 or 15 seconds! What a pain! This delay happens every single time the loco loses pickup power, because of a bit of dirty track etc. I'd say that the HM7000s, when using the sound function, are almost unusable without the power bank/stay-alive fitted. Also, if you are operating it via bluetooth, of course that drops out too!
Secondly, yes, if you hit the controller's emergency stop, a loco with a stay-alive carries on going. However, If you hit the emergency stop twice in quick succession the loco will stop! This is because on the first push of the emergency stop it cuts the track power, but the stay-alive carries on powering the loco and decoder along with all of the the pre-existing settings, so it carries on rolling. On the second push of the emergency stop, track power is restored, but with the controller set at zero speed for all locos. This zero speed instruction is instantly received by every train's decoder and so they all immediately go to speed step zero and therefore stop! This is what happens with my Hornby Elite anyway. Give it a go with other makes of controller and see if it does the same!
Kind regards, Julian, at Valebridge Model Railway.
I tried HM7000 on my Hornby Q1 and it was nothing but trouble, even after return to Hornby. I scrapped it and went back to conventional decoders on all my stock with additional stay-alives and the performance was fine after that. Hornby can keep their HM7000👎👎
@@MervynPartin I find the bluetooth phone app rather glitchy and very troublesome to connect and reprogram the HM7000 with. It always takes dozens of attempts and a couple of hours to get a new decoder to program. It's not very intuitive to use either, with too many screens and hard to find functions, features and some confusing terminology. I find myself searching back and forward for particular features. It's not great in practice! I program the decoders and then only use the train controller to operate them now. The bluetooth is too much of a pain!
What a fantastic layout and you have really great diesels. Keep more coming.
From Colin
Thanks Colin 🙏
Exellent, le son est doublé en Francais, je peux enfin regarder vos vidéos entierement. (C'est assez dur voire impossible pour un francais qui connais la langue Anglaise etudiée à l' école, de comprendre toute ces explications). merci l' IA. Gérard
Excellent, the sound is dubbed in French, I can finally watch your videos in full. (It's quite hard or even impossible for a French person who knows the English language studied at school, to understand all these explanations). Thank you AI. Gérard
Hello, and thank you for watching. I’m so glad you can get translation and watch it. I hope you enjoyed it and any of my other videos. 🙏 Dave
@@DeanPark I've been following your videos for years (since my adventure with the Euro Alliance Video with Andy, Sam and the late Stevie), and the AI translation is excellent. A real plus!! Too bad, for the moment it's not available for my videos produced in France. See you soon, Gérard.
@@BB67407Dommage, j’espère pour vous que l’AI sera dispo rapidement en France pour que tout le monde puisse en profiter 😊
Thanks for sharing. Stay safe.
This is definitely a worthwhile upgrade for shorter wheelbase locomotives and those older generation tooling locomotives that don’t have as many pickups.
I thought so too. Without a stay alive it ran well at dean park, but I was wait in for the first stall to occur. So just fitted it. Glad I did.
Awesome channel great video keep them up make sure you like and subscribe thank you for your support
I've been looking for a solution for my 08s and I surpised how good this appears to be . I may have to go down this avenue !
I’d recommend it. :-) the Hm7000 decoders are good. They have an HST Valenta sound file too. It’s good! 😊
@ the HM7000 valenta sound (in my opinion) sounds less like an HST than my wife's hairdryer .
Great video overall here Dave, need to get myself some of these stay alive at some point, one of my locos that I have fitted recently is my Bachmann A1 Tornado and sometimes that just cuts out on things like point or diamond crossings so need to get that one fitted with a stay alive at some point, great video overall, keep up the great work.
They make all the difference in short wheels based locos.
Thanks for the tips and tricks.
My pleasure. 😊
Worth saying that AE Model from DCC concepts make a HM7000 compatible stay alive - with the correct plug. The Hornby ones are often out of stock. The AE Model one is also a different shape so can help fitting in tight bodies. I've got a mixture of the Hornby and AE Model versions and they work equally well.
Another great video david going back to your class 26 video I have recently purchased one from rails of Sheffield did the class 26 railfreight colour era haul passenger or freight during is era of time
Hi. The Railfreight ones were seen on passenger and freight work. Hauling local services to fife and Dundee from Edinburgh. With mk1 and mk2’s. Lots of videos showing them. Search for “Scotrail in the 1980’s” and there will be footage of them somewhere. Cheers
Dave
A very neat and tidy fit, well done. I'd just be a bit cautious about wrapping the whole decoder in tape as the Hornby TXS HM7000s run slightly warm (as did TTS). I just put tape underneath my decoders to prevent them from touching the locos circuitry/chassis. They need to breathe!
Hi thanks for the advice. I’ll check it.
Of course it is it’s HORNBY!
I operate a very small 1x6 foot layout based on the Inglenook Sidings Puzzle. Needless to say, very slow speeds are a must. After changing over to DCC I found that a stay=alive was unnecssary in my flywheel equipped B-B EMD SW1200 (approximately the size of a UK Class 20). But for my smaller B-B locos (Bachmann GE 44 and 70 Tonners) and my Walthers 4 wheel Plymouth they were absolutely necessary for smooth operation. Cheers from Wisconsin!
Hi, yeah, small short wheel based locos perform better with stay alive but larger locos don’t.
In my experience stay-alives are essential if you have fewer than eight wheels picking up power, particularly if you have some dead frogs on the layout. My first DCC experience was very disappointing; I had fitted a decoder to an 0-4-0 and even on clean plain track it just kept cutting out - and then restarting without human interference. On DC the loco's inertia will carry it over minute power interruptions so that you don't notice it, but on DCC even the tiniest interruption causes the decoder to shut down and then spend a couple of seconds rebooting before the loco will start running again - without human interference. Once I had realised this, and discovered stay-alives, the problem disappeared, albeit at extra cost. Even 0-6-0s can suffer this problem, but I've never needed a stay-alive on anything with eight or more wheels collecting power. Ironically, Accurascale fit stay-alives as standard to all their diesels, but I'm reasonably sure they really don't need to because of the number of wheels collecting power. One point I would make is that claims to provide several seconds of power are irrelevant since most power interruptions only last for a fraction of a second.
Aye, that storm was quite something! Brutal here in Glasgow, hope you didn't have too much damage.
Garden took a battering! Bit that can be repaired :-)
I feel for you guys up North, here in Yorkshire we got off lightly but I still had to replace 30 Metres of roofing felt on the workshop roof.
Got to love a little 08. Wait until it derails and starts chewing up your ballast, then you'll know panic!
I have a few DMUs that need stay alives fitted to their trailing cars as the lights constantly flicker due to Bachmann's annoying contact setup. Great for light-fitted coaches, too.
How about a power test, Dave? Let's see what that little 08 can do!
Cheers.
Mike.
I wonder what it could pull! 🤔
I recently picked up my two MK2c coaches from Scoonie Hobbies, in Trans pennine livery, for the Clydebridge - Liverpool/Manchester service, and they have stay alives fitted. It'll be interesting to hear your thoughts on the Mk2cs, compared to mine, though I think both of us will agree, they're awesome!
I’ve been using stay alives (mostly ESU power packs) for over a decade. I’d never fit a sound chip without one. They make such a difference both to smooth slow speed running and the sound chip rebooting.
They certainly make sound locos more reliable, no cutting out of the sound.
I couldn't understand a word the commentator was saying. I like the feature.
Sorry I’m Scottish. 🏴 lol I will speak clearer in future. Thanks. ☺️
You can pick up abot 20 of those capacitors online and make your own for the same price as hornby's offering
I’m sure it would be cheaper , but some people ain’t confident with electrics etc. but the ready to plug ones have their place.
@@DeanPark No more confidence needed than supplying power to a layout surly ? capacitors are very straight forward no ??
I've found the Keep-Alives are especially good for club layouts and show layouts where you can't be as fastidious with cleaning, so dead spots crop up more often. That and older layouts where the trackwork has settled over the last 20 years and has some gaps and continuity errors.
Ah that’s interesting. Never even thought about that aspect of it. Cheers
Do the stay alive capacitors come with a Bee Gees CD
😂 Only on a Saturday night, if you’ve got a fever!
Hi love this video on stay alive. Do you think will any of the manufacturers sell models with stay alive fitted
Hi, Bachmann new class 08 is going to be fitted with a stay alive and all accurascale models have stay alive fitted in their models.
An interesting and informative video, thank you. From what I can see of your track (and I am new to your channel), I am a bit surprised that you needed a stay-alive. That shunter has a flywheel. Not disagreeing with your choice, just curious because I use DC but sometimes consider going for DCC.
Hi Richard. Firstly thanks for watching and taking the time to get in touch.
The 08 ran fine on my tracks without it. But I ran it over some track that hadn’t been cleaned and it did stall! It’s very short wheel base isn’t great for keeping connection in these situations.
I’m a belt and braces kind of modeller lol, so I thought I’d make sure of trouble free running and add this in.
cheers
Dave
Hello Dave. I look forwards to all your blogs. May I ask you a question. You have a couple of CLASP buildings in a corner. How did you make them?
Hi. They are scalescenes kits. The one on the left is the kit pretty much as is. The small building on the right is designed by me using the kit, adapting it for my own needs. They look really lifelike. One of scalescenes best kit, in my opinion.
Wonderful video as always. Have often wondered, with your skill at being able to detail/repaint, have you ever wanted to pick up a rake of Bachmann mk2f in Intercity livery and tweak them into Scotrail Executive to match the Bachmann DBSO. Similar project as you did with the Oxford mk3’s. Doesn’t look like Bachmann will ever release mk2 air conditioned in this livery
Hi, that’s an idea. I could do that. But most of the scotrail ones were mk2D coaches. I’m sure they will be done. I just hope they match the livery of the dbso when they do arrive :-)
@ you would make a splendid job. As for the rivet counters who will always complain about something, I guarantee that when running on your fabulous layout the difference between mk2d or mk2f will be so minute, but will give a realistic representation. Such a completed rake would look super and be a perfect match to your DBSO. Go on sir😉
Glad you survived the storm. I was expecting more damage than the was in my area but it seemed to at it's worst around 5am and not a bad as I have known before. The stay alive works well. Can they be fitted in any loco or is it just made for the Hornby 7000 chips. I have a sound Bachmann 03 and tried a stay alive in that but it made no difference it still stalled. I got better results adding a runner wagon with extra pickups
Oh they look interesting, do you know if you can fit them to TTS sound decoders? My 08 could do with one :)
I’m not sure they have the socket to fit them. You’d have to look at the chip and instructions to see. Would be good to know. :-)
Hiya pal! Out of curiosity, what make are those ScotRail coaches that you use with the class 47 Lady Diana? They’re very hard to come by. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Hi, they are Oxford rail. I airbrush repainted the lower colour as Oxford made it completely the wrong colour. I didn’t the same to the INTERCITY too. Made such a difference. They are no longer on the market, but you might find them coming up on eBay etc?!
A lot of stuff to cram into a small loco, but miniaturisation is a wonderful thing. Hate to nit pick, but driver? ;-) Cheers
One thing at a time :-)
Would you recommend the stay alives for ALL HM 7000 decoder equipped locos or just short wheelbases?
Yeah! With larger locos it will be easy to find the room inside for it. It can’t do any harm and gives that extra reliability over dirty tracks, dodgey connections if you might have them. For the sake of £14ish it’s a no brainer.
@ thanks for that I have 7 locos on Hm7000 so will do that
Sorry to go off-topic, Dave, but can you remind me where you got your Great Wall from, please? The time’s approaching when I’ll need something similar!
Cheers
Rich
Hi, it’s a scale model scenery product. You get laser cut ones like mine or you get the same ones but with paper brick wraps if you don’t want to have to paint them.
Great product.
@@DeanPark Cheers, I'll take a look 👍
Steampunk will save Hornby.
Of course it will hehe
I can answer this on spec, as the Yankeedoodles say (😀😀) if it’s Hornby of the last 3 months, yes! If it’s Hornby from the last 3 years, NO!! :) :) Cracking video as ever.
Awesome channel great video keep them up make sure you like and subscribe thank you for your support