Moaning about new models.

strange to see a "boil-down" like this... what do you do?

I was making the point that doing this kind of thing costs this much in the UK, perhaps less so in China. Nevertheless it is an expensive undertaking, especially if you are starting from the ground upward. Chris is correct in saying that removing material from the moulding tooling is cheaper than adding. It does take a couple of iterations or so to get things 'right', but please also remember that tooling has a finite life, and does require replacment with a new tooling nnormally at a cost of £10k's.

At least my thread got some people involved in some healthy debate, which is after all what this NG is about, is it not?

No John, I never said it (class 50) is, or at least never meant you to interperate it in that way. What I am saying is comparing today's models to what I used to have in the 1980's, todays are superb. Compare the Hornby 50 with the lima 50. We should be grateful that manufactures are improving quality in all ways. Look how many Hymeks you have sold in the last 2 weeks, probably more than the last 5 years!?!? My theory is that if manufacture "A" makes model 1 (lets stick with the 50) perfect now, then in say 5 years time when all liveries have been done then model 1 will be hardly sellable as every one will have a 100% perfect model. However, if Hornby re-vamp this window issue in say two years time and do another batch of large logo 50`s, "Modellers" will dump the current "new" class 50 (Ark Royal?) and buy again. Better Business! Or then again it could be that Modellers (must have every thing 100% right =Rivet counters!) are in the vast minority and modellers (like myself who are fairly happy with the looks of most models which can be improved with a minimal amount of work as long as it runs ok and I can play trains) are in the vast majority? I got banned from the DEMU group for saying that, but that is the way it is and the way it is going to stay, rivet counters= 0 manufactuers making money = £62!

Simon, Happy to have a bit of Modelling to do, if only I had the time!

But my 50 does run like my US models. In fact, better than some.

If yours doesn't, take it back.

Yes, they have faults and we should make constructive critisims to the manufactures and vote with our wallets.

I am personally prepared to buy the current new models with their mistakes but press for corrections to be make in the future.

I guess the biggest complainers just wont buy the product. That is, of course, their choice and the manufacturers loss.

"D A Smith" wrote

Mine runs superbly once it gets going, but it is a little hesitant and erratic at *very* slow speed, and this can only be caused by poor current collection caused by the provision of unnecessary traction tyres - a problem which doesn't arise with *any* of my sizeable stud of USA HO-scale models, some of which were produced in the same Chinese factory as the Hornby 50.

John.

It does not run anything like a top end athearn genesis, or a current intermountain, which can both run at scale speeds of 1 or 2 mph. Try either of these ranges, youll be surprised at the difference. I think Hornby are still around five ti ten years behind current state of the art, and as for the dcc situation, the 50 has a plug, but it is wired in reverse.Fitting a decoder as stated simply does not work. Product evaluation? Prototype testing? Seems not to be in this massive budget

Mark Bishop

I for one love my 50 and Q1, yes I have both! Yes there are imprefections and errors, but these models are still miles ahead of: A- previous RTR items in the case of the Lima 50 of which I have one, and; B- My own attempts at kitbuidling a Q1 which looks extremely crude against Hornby's

To be honest I find it a little annoying when people are so critical, OK they have valid points which I take note of before considering buying, but unless these errors are really really huge I'd still buy. After all I couldn't do a half as good a job as Hornby and Bachmann do, and I for one acknowledge the excellent models they produce - and at the risk of repeating other people's arguments look back 5 or 10 years and see what the best models we were getting were like.

As Robert Wilson says below, making these models 100% prefect costs time and therefore money. Yes American models are superb, but for any given model, they have a market several orders of magnitude greater, so these greater costs can be spread thinly over a larger amount of models sold.

In the UK there is a population of approximately 60 million, in the USA there is approximately 300 million. That is about 20 times greater population in the USA, assuming the same percentage of the population are railway modellers each side of the atlantic, for any given model loco the USA manufacturers have 20 times the UK market size. Is it really that fair to compare the quality of UK and US models? I concede I have simplfied and dicounted US and UK modellers elsewhere in the world.

I await being shot down in flames!

Djo

Perhaps is about time the mags did what PCPlus etc do and started awarding marks out of 10 for various aspects of a model - eg accuracy, detail, mechanism, DCC, Coupling fitment, livery. Maybe an etiquette could be adopted for the newsgroup on those lines.

Judging by recent years happenings the amount of modifications that have occurred to new models shortly after they have been released ( eg Heljan 47 bogie frame, Hornby Rebuilt MN smokebox door, Bachmann A1 motor) maybe the answer is not to buy a model until around its third production run.

Mike Parkes snipped-for-privacy@mphgate.removetoreply demon.co.uk

"valetman" wrote

It's not quite as simple as having been wired in reverse - the following is from a posting by Simon Ansley on

propensity to exercise the Lenz warranty. I finally picked mine up today, and out came the PCB straight away for a bit of investigation. I've now traced the board thorugh to get a circuit diagram.

It would appear that the board has been well designed by somebody who was given the wrong spec. The error is that the DCC function common (pin 7), which is a Positive voltage on all decoders I've come across (and I think also in the NMRA standards), is connected to 0V on the Hornby board (derived from the same bridge rectifier circuit as will be present on the decoder).

As stated, this can be sorted by turning the plug round so that the decoder pin

7 connscts to the PCB pin 3, which is open circuit. The only problem here will be if somewhere out there a decoder uses an 'active' rather than 'open collector' output stage for function C - in this case turning the plug round will destroy that function.

For the adventurous, the solution is probably to cut the track to the decoder socket pin 7 from the edge connector (on the rear of the Hornby PCB). Obviously at your own risk!!! >>

John.

Possibly not but what for example is the population of Switzerland or Austria or Denmark or Norway. RTR models of a quality above even the best for the UK are available for all of these countries.

Nigel

About the only thing I take issue with is your math. If the UK population is

???

I never said it was, but its a dam sight better than the crap people have been buying from lima for the last 10 years!

.....in 5-10 years from now there shouldn't be any poor models of

Exactly, the 100% models should be on sale by then, so we all dump the current models and buy new again!

"DJO" wrote

But he still hasn't explained why it's cheaper to make them wrong rather than right. Would you like to make some suggestions?

John.

"John Turner"

Traction tyres? Why oh why do they still use traction tyres? There's really no need for them.

The only recent fairly decent (I'm a poet) North American model to come out with a traction tire (tyre) is a Riverossii ???????. A retooled kettle. I'm not buying one as it doesn't suit my needs. Anyway, I was reading the review in the latest MR and it seems to get high marks. They did mention the traction tire (tyre), which is definitely NOT a selling point in North America. However, every loco comes with a replacement wheel set that can easily be substituted for the one with the traction tire (tyre).

Why don't UK manufacturers do the same?

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

Norway has a population of 4 million. As stated correctly, models of these prototypes are far superior to ANYTHING produced in UK outline RTR. Including the much vaunted hornby new releases. A lot of this stuff is produced in the same factory, so the question should be, why? Why can all these do what hornby fails to? The easiest comparison is with bachmann UK and Bachmann US (or any other outline they produce).Compare current UK outline RTR to the recent Shay, you would not beleive its the same company.

In message , DJO writes

When I did maths, 300 divided by 60 was 5 not 20.

been buying from lima for the last 10 years!

What was?

You have been for the last 18 years! But at least they are better today.