Les1952 Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Just for the record I categorise success as follows- 1. Bought new (secondhand purchases not included in the totals as I could be buying someone else's problem) 2. No blemishes or missing/misapplied bits ("Not Quite Perfects" and Factory returns are not included in totals as I know I'm buying a problem) 3. Runs well and quietly straight out of the box. 4. After running in is fully controllable down to a creep - i.e. one can only just tell it is moving- I'm not one who expects a loco to be able to cover its own length in a week, a few seconds will do. 5. Continues to run to this standard for at least two years, including exhibition running. So 11 out of 12 Dapol and 12 out of 14 Farish diesels pass this test. The three failures were a Dapol Class 26 that burst into smoke in front of punters at Wigan show, a Farish new Deltic dead out of the box and a Farish new 37 which developed split gears after three months. Other failures in this time have been a dead Fleischmann Bo-Bo electric, a Hobbytrain railcar that can't pull itself and two Modemo trams with motor failure within two years. I have a few Arnold, Fleischmann and Minitrix locos that have only just got past two years before total failure- indeed a far worse record than my UK-outline models. The grass isn't greener on the other side of the street, just a different shade. All the very best Les Both my Hymeks continue to perform impeccably. edited for typo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oreamnos Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 Almost 5 years after I started this thread, I am happy to report I finally have received a Dapol Hymek with no problems! D7061 in BR blue, cat. no. 2D-018-001 was received from Hattons today and my God, there is nothing notable wrong with it! (For those who don't want read from the beginning, this was my 6th or 7th attempt over various releases of this model over the years to get one that hasn't been faulty.) I haven't yet taken off the body shell - I confess I'm afraid I'll find chewing gum holding it all together if I do that. It's running-in as I type this. If it goes up in a puff of smoke I'll report, but at least on first detailed examination, this one is assembled much better than all the rest I've tried. Hey - the bogies didn't drop out of the chassis the instant I took it out of the box, so that was a good start! This is actually the first one of these I've been able to run long enough to see how much it will pull. First impressions are that it seems a bit weak in hauling capabilty compared to, say, a Dapol 26. Is that what others have found? In any case I'm thrilled to have finally gotten a "keeper" and I was also impressed that at 79 quid, the price of this model has not gone up nearly as much over the past 5 years since introduction compared to some others. Matt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Hi Matt, congratulations! I have one if the early Hymeks from the weathered milk tanker set. The loco looks great but mechanically it is noisy although Bob at BR Lines was able to fix the bogies and drive on it. Paddy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benn Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 I finally have received a Dapol Hymek with no problems! This is good news, I'm still yet to get my hands on one of the latest batch, but when I spoke to Andy Forte at TINGS this year, he said Dapol had addressed some of the problems plaguing earlier batches, such as the quality of the plastic used in the bearings which used to wear quite quickly, and the quality of the circuit board, which was more often than not, shall we say, "Rubbish"... I may pay a visit to Hattons over the next few weeks and investigate. Anyone run one on DCC yet? Cheers, Benn. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oreamnos Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 One thing I wanted to add which I noticed with my new Hymek is that the bogies don't have what seemed to be a centimeter of loose play fore and aft which all the previous examples of this loco I tried had. There was so much play in those that when you changed the direction of the loco, the bogies would travel by themselves a noticeable distance in the new direction before the body on top followed along! This new one from the latest batch has maybe a millimeter of bogie play - enough to cope with track irregularities and such and nothing more. This is as it should be. The bogie gears also seem to be meshing with the worms much better as they should instead of buzzing past them. There is a noticable lack of slop in the gear train now when compared to the earlier releases of this loco which I had tried and returned. Maybe I just got lucky this time but if Dapol have said (as reported in this thread) they have made improvements to this batch, based on the one I received I am inclined to believe them. Matt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benn Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 One thing I wanted to add which I noticed with my new Hymek is that the bogies don't have what seemed to be a centimeter of loose play fore and aft which all the previous examples of this loco I tried had. There was so much play in those that when you changed the direction of the loco, the bogies would travel by themselves a noticeable distance in the new direction before the body on top followed along! This new one from the latest batch has maybe a millimeter of bogie play - enough to cope with track irregularities and such and nothing more. This is as it should be. The bogie gears also seem to be meshing with the worms much better as they should instead of buzzing past them. There is a noticable lack of slop in the gear train now when compared to the earlier releases of this loco which I had tried and returned. I hope you're right Matt, that slack in the bogies was the main cause of complete implosion when operating on DCC as the chip couldn't work out what was going on, so it simply did nothing a lot of the time, really great news! Barton Road is desperately in need of some Hymeks, we were even considering cutting and shutting a Farish class 24 chassis and installing some Warship bogies to get a Hymek chassis that worked okay, I'm hoping now that that won't be necessary... Thank you for reporting your findings Matt, nice to see some positive news on here for once, people only ever seem to post sometimes when they've got a whinge on the brew! Benn. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Crepello Posted August 26, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 26, 2017 My new D7003 (plain green) is very noisy in one direction. It will run at a good speed but there's clearly gear noise from one of the bogies on both straight and curved track. Removing the bogie and examining the chassis hasn't highlighted the problem. Any suggestions please? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Robert Shrives Posted August 26, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 26, 2017 Hi swap bogies over and see what happens . What sort of gear nosies- banging, grinding, squeaking?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Crepello Posted August 28, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 28, 2017 Hi swap bogies over and see what happens . What sort of gear nosies- banging, grinding, squeaking?? I've had a helpful reply from Nemo on the N-Gauge Forum; he's suggested pulling off the bogie tower and replacing the top gear with a replacement from BR Lines. Hopefully it'll be easier and slightly cheaper than re-packing it and taking it to the Post Office. I might also learn the technique in case of future problems. I haven't tried swapping the bogies yet, but may do if needed. It's a grinding noise. Cheers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfaZagato Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 From whom can I source replacement bogies? I picked up secondhand a factory weathered set with a Hymek in green, small panels & double arrows, with five NCB hoppers, and she growls much like described here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Crepello Posted October 31, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 31, 2017 From whom can I source replacement bogies? I picked up secondhand a factory weathered set with a Hymek in green, small panels & double arrows, with five NCB hoppers, and she growls much like described here. BR Lines do the Hymek top gears; it's a dead easy job to replace them. Doubt if you'll need to get new bogies to fix this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluebell Model Railway Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 Hello, I've just been given a Dapol n gauge hymek to repair... I have to say I'm not impressed withe drive train of this model... The one I have again lost drive motor turns bogies again not turning. Taken it apart to find the top gear has lost most of its teeth... On both towers. On most models with bogies they have a universal joint Dapol's doesn't so the top gear will be chewed up as the bogie tries to turn across the worm... In my view that's quite a big design flaw.. Just a very strange design... Even if I replace the bogie tower the problem will return at some point. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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