At last some new 33s

[Lyddrail]

There are a lot of extra pieces on the new version, etched grilles, etched cab front steps, moulded brake cylinders on the bogies, sand boxes on the bogies, several pipe runs under the battery box and the diesel tank, and the roof insert over the old style exhaust. All of these items will be hand fitted in the factory.

Cheers.

[Roy Langridge]

3 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

Both the latest 33/0 with headlight and previous version without have etched grills. From an assembly point of view there is utterly no difference. On the other hand, using 2 different sets of tools for the body will increase production time. Unless Heljan gave Gaugemaster their very old first run 33/0 which has a few less parts and etches, but who in 2020 wants a special edition old tooling with the flattened roof that can be picked up cheaply off a certain auction site? It would be like doing a special edition using Hornby's old Lima tools.... 

 

I wonder if Heljan had a load of unpainted old body shells?

 

Roy

[JSpencer]

14 hours ago, Lyddrail said:

There are a lot of extra pieces on the new version, etched grilles, etched cab front steps, moulded brake cylinders on the bogies, sand boxes on the bogies, several pipe runs under the battery box and the diesel tank, and the roof insert over the old style exhaust. All of these items will be hand fitted in the factory.

Cheers.

 

Compare to their original release yes. Knowing that Heljan have now tooled up the 33/0 three times, the last two sets of tools have exactly the same number of pieces. 

In the photo below:

Top - Heljans first attempt at the 33/0 with no etches

Middle - Heljans second attempt at a 33/0 with etches, this tooling is now more than  5 years old

bottom - Heljans third attempt and latest tooling which came out this year

 

 Both Middle and bottom use the exact same numbers of parts. Now if Gaugemaster (of which I have not seen an image yet and their website in its new version is awful to explore) used the Top/oldest tooling to save costs, then they chose the crudest version. Middle uses as many parts and etchings as the bottom latest one, and be a bargain! 

 

 

This photo shows a close up of the etches from the middle (2nd 33/0) and bottom (latest 33/0) showing both have as many parts:

 

 

 

[Lyddrail]

My comments relate to the new model and the newer model, Gaugemaster used the old body & model which has much fewer detail parts and no etches, that is why it was cheaper and not as fine. 

Cheers

[JSpencer]

1 hour ago, Lyddrail said:

My comments relate to the new model and the newer model, Gaugemaster used the old body & model which has much fewer detail parts and no etches, that is why it was cheaper and not as fine. 

Cheers

 

Ah, finally found photos of the Gaugemaster ones. Indeed they have gone and dug out the very first tooling Heljan did. How weird.

[dj_crisp]

1 hour ago, JSpencer said:

 

Ah, finally found photos of the Gaugemaster ones. Indeed they have gone and dug out the very first tooling Heljan did. How weird.

 

It is rather bizarre. Not sure I'd have gone for it if I was GM but then again they seemed to sell OK. Thing is now I'll just expect old stuff if they release more and won't look.

 

At least the side grille is improving with each version released! Still rather liked the moulded one tbh as I feel I just want to replace the new one with an shawplan etch.. same goes for the roof fan.

[JSpencer]

7 minutes ago, dj_crisp said:

 

At least the side grille is improving with each version released! Still rather liked the moulded one tbh as I feel I just want to replace the new one with an shawplan etch.. same goes for the roof fan.

 

Indeed I quite liked the molded side grills on the old one, over the etches of the Mk II 33/0. But the latest etches of the mk III 33/0 are far better overall.

As for the roof fan (unchanged over the mkII vs Mk III as far as I can tell), I prefer these over the molded roof fan grill (where you cannot see a fan neither) of the Mk I.  The fans were I feature I remember of these locos when I was young.

 

The Mk I 33s used to come with two sets of snow ploughs, one covering all 3 sections (left, right and middle) and one with the middle left off so you can fit a coupling. I wonder if the gaugemaster ones have these? (the new 33/1s which did have them, don't now).

 

 

Edited July 3, 2020 by JSpencer

[dj_crisp]

2 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

Indeed I quite liked the molded side grills on the old one, over the etches of the Mk II 33/0. But the latest etches of the mk III 33/0 are far better overall.

As for the roof fan (unchanged over the mkII vs Mk III as far as I can tell), I prefer these over the molded roof fan grill (where you cannot see a fan neither) of the Mk I.  The fans were I feature I remember of these locos when I was young.

 

The Mk I 33s used to come with two sets of snow ploughs, one covering all 3 sections (left, right and middle) and one with the middle left off so you can fit a coupling. I wonder if the gaugemaster ones have these? (the new 33/1s which did have them, don't now).

 

 

 

Very interesting that there were two types of snowploughs. I've only seen the one (full)

 

Not related to this topic Im just about to attempt to fit some ploughs but I mount kadees on the buffer beams so have run out of space.

[Matabiau]

Has anyone else suffered from short circuits between left and right wheels on their new class 33? I have just received 33021 and there appears to be a short somewhere on the PCB as the pickups are cleary independent, but a mulitmeter shows a short between opposite wheels.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Matabiau
punctuation

[JSpencer]

14 hours ago, Matabiau said:

Has anyone else suffered from short circuits between left and right wheels on their new class 33? I have just received 33021 and there appears to be a short somewhere on the PCB as the pickups are cleary independent, but a mulitmeter shows a short between opposite wheels.

 

I had the pins going through the plug into the chassis block on a class 23 once!

[adb968008]

11 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

I had the pins going through the plug into the chassis block on a class 23 once!

Class 26’s once had a batch like this.

 

The chassis block used on the 26/27/33 sits high in the body, and a chip / blanking plate can be pushed into contact with the block causing a short.

 

Way to mitigate (*if*) this is the case, is to lift out the pcb from the rubber lugs holding it, and add electrical tape on the top of the block running under the Pcb).

 

 

[Eden Road TMD]

Bought another 33 at the weekend. One of the Gaugemaster limited editions, 33025 in BR blue.

[Mark201]

I have been running my two new 33/0 this week (33 021 and 33 026). I noticed that after some time the lights were dimming as well as the headcode light. The roofs felt warm to the touch and i had noticed a a faint burning smell. I took the bodies off to investigate. What I found was that the bulb had got so hot that it had started to melt the clear plastic bar that transmits the light from the bulb. The bulb was also quite black. I had a couple of spare bulbs in the spares box and fitted them and all is now well. I wonder what might have caused this? The only thing I can think of is that the track voltage is too high. I run Lenz set 100 which comes factory set to 16V. This seems a little high to me and a bit of research revealed that the 'ideal' voltage for OO DCC is 14.5V. I have lowered the voltage on the Lenz DCC system to 14.5V to see if it makes a difference. Has anybody else had this issue? Could there be a different reason for the bulbs overheating and melting the clear plastic light bar? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Mark

[TomScrut]

6 hours ago, Mark201 said:

I have been running my two new 33/0 this week (33 021 and 33 026). I noticed that after some time the lights were dimming as well as the headcode light. The roofs felt warm to the touch and i had noticed a a faint burning smell. I took the bodies off to investigate. What I found was that the bulb had got so hot that it had started to melt the clear plastic bar that transmits the light from the bulb. The bulb was also quite black. I had a couple of spare bulbs in the spares box and fitted them and all is now well. I wonder what might have caused this? The only thing I can think of is that the track voltage is too high. I run Lenz set 100 which comes factory set to 16V. This seems a little high to me and a bit of research revealed that the 'ideal' voltage for OO DCC is 14.5V. I have lowered the voltage on the Lenz DCC system to 14.5V to see if it makes a difference. Has anybody else had this issue? Could there be a different reason for the bulbs overheating and melting the clear plastic light bar? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Mark

 

Hmm I may reduce the brightness on my decoder just to be on the safe side. I have a white Z21 so I can't adjust voltage.

[Marcoblanco]

Anybody had problems with new 33 lights? Can't get mine to work on a new weathered blue 012.. Is there something I'm missing, do I need a special decoder? 

 

Mark

[meatloaf]

On 10/07/2020 at 23:59, Mark201 said:

I have been running my two new 33/0 this week (33 021 and 33 026). I noticed that after some time the lights were dimming as well as the headcode light. The roofs felt warm to the touch and i had noticed a a faint burning smell. I took the bodies off to investigate. What I found was that the bulb had got so hot that it had started to melt the clear plastic bar that transmits the light from the bulb. The bulb was also quite black. I had a couple of spare bulbs in the spares box and fitted them and all is now well. I wonder what might have caused this? The only thing I can think of is that the track voltage is too high. I run Lenz set 100 which comes factory set to 16V. This seems a little high to me and a bit of research revealed that the 'ideal' voltage for OO DCC is 14.5V. I have lowered the voltage on the Lenz DCC system to 14.5V to see if it makes a difference. Has anybody else had this issue? Could there be a different reason for the bulbs overheating and melting the clear plastic light bar? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Mark

My 33 got very warm after extended use

[Kaput]

1 hour ago, Marcoblanco said:

Anybody had problems with new 33 lights? Can't get mine to work on a new weathered blue 012.. Is there something I'm missing, do I need a special decoder? 

 

Mark

 

Decoder the right way round? Its 8pin so wrong way can still work the motor but not lights.

[Marcoblanco]

Fitted right way round, tried the wrong way round aswell, just in case..! Can only think all my spare decoders have something wrong with their lighting circuits.. One decoder the lights went on /off and flickered.. 

 

And shouldnt this model have red tail lights as well?  As there's only one bulb there.. 

[TomScrut]

26 minutes ago, Kaput said:

 

Decoder the right way round? Its 8pin so wrong way can still work the motor but not lights.

 

I fell foul of that first time I ran mine!

[Kaput]

Done it on mine as well (theres even a post in here somewhere from me querying if it had lights).

 

 

Theres no red lights fitted to them sadly, PCB has plugs for the red lights to go into and they'd work perfectly fine directionally if you get them but theres pretty much no space for the wiring and the bulb.

 

 

Bit sad in a way that even after 3 retools or so they've not touched the lights and at least made them LED's

[Marcoblanco]

Oh wow no red lights!!  Cricky Heljan!!  Well, there's something wrong with my  decoders or the model! 

[dogbox321]

40 minutes ago, Marcoblanco said:

Oh wow no red lights!!  Cricky Heljan!!  Well, there's something wrong with my  decoders or the model! 

Yeah, never really worked out why people think Heljan are so fantastic.  There always seems to be an achillies heel to everything they do!

 

Regards,

 

C.

[NickL2008]

20 minutes ago, dogbox321 said:

Yeah, never really worked out why people think Heljan are so fantastic.  There always seems to be an achillies heel to everything they do!

 

Regards,

 

C.

 

When you compare what their models are going up against, namely the older Lima or Hornby models, you can't really blame people for thinking that Heljan produce good models, and they do, but at times with silly errors or just backwards thinking at times

 

NL

['CHARD]

10 hours ago, meatloaf said:

My 33 got very warm after extended use

 

I know the feeling 

[Marcoblanco]

For 100 quid plus model in 2020" all lights shouldve been done.