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Hornby APT (2020 tooling)


PaulRhB
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2 minutes ago, Wolf27 said:

Think it may have been mentioned here but the motors are fine, it’s the suppressor thats failing. If you run on DCC, these can be removed anyway.

If that's the case then it's even worse than a poorly specified &/or matched motor.

 

Surely, the penny pinching is not that desparate to the level of iterally pennies on a very minor componant...........

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19 hours ago, scumcat said:

So I emailed west hill wagon works last weekend to tell them I felt the APT hunts couplings are unusable and got no answer. So I politely asked again on Wednesday still no reply. Has anyone else had difficulty with email replies from this company before?

Hey try giving them i call, they answered promptly and were helpful when i called recently, i think they are just a small outfit and can get swamped.

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31 minutes ago, scumcat said:

But surely you can buy the best components and still have failures. 

My comment was in reply to Wolf27's post.

 

Still no excuse - the whole model seems to have been spoilt (IMHO) by rushing it into production.

Just a shame that a name quite dear to many of us seems to be loosing the plot. As it happens I do have a soft spot for Hornby (the Margate Company, not the name).

 

No matter what happens the raft of brands will survive in one form or another.

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2 hours ago, Wolf27 said:

Think it may have been mentioned here but the motors are fine, it’s the suppressor thats failing. If you run on DCC, these can be removed anyway.

Good news, suppressor removed and is back up and running. Drive shafts are a bit out of balance I've noticed. It's possibly the reason why some of the NDMs are noisey and some aren't.

Neil.

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17 minutes ago, zoomer1979 said:

Good news, suppressor removed and is back up and running. Drive shafts are a bit out of balance I've noticed. It's possibly the reason why some of the NDMs are noisey and some aren't.

Neil.

That's good to hear and saved you the faff of having to return it to Hornby. Hopefully others who experience similar problems are able to do the same fix. 

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Hi All,

So today I collected my Hornby class 370 APT 7 car set & I have to say my initial impressions were very good.

I set up a basic train set oval to test this & all was well.

I then added the Hunt couplings & run this again with no problems.

Once the 3 units are ‘chipped up’ it will be on the layout for more testing.

In the meantime, here Is a short video showing my APT set complete with an additional 2 car pack.

Not very prototypical but a real tail chaser in every sense of the word….

Enjoy.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Wolf27 said:

Think it may have been mentioned here but the motors are fine, it’s the suppressor thats failing. If you run on DCC, these can be removed anyway.

 

In that case could this be replaced simply by soldering in a more suitable one and does anyone have a specification?

 

Paul R

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8 hours ago, scumcat said:

In your video the first time the train goes around a curve it is obvious it is forced from the track by two cars touching. This is what was happening with mine with the hunt’s couplings.


Yes, that doesn’t look great. It would seem to be the connection between the development coach and the TBF. The corridor connections are obviously touching. When you turn the lights off, it’s also these two vehicles whose lights flicker on and off due to the bogies lifting. Maybe a fourth type of Hunts/Hunt/Hurst (what are they called again? :D) coupling is needed?

 

Shane, your capacitor comment is useful and will save Hornby returns department some faff. Well done #1 fanboy! 

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8 minutes ago, lyneux said:


Yes, that doesn’t look great. It would seem to be the connection between the development coach and the TBF. The corridor connections are obviously touching. When you turn the lights off, it’s also these two vehicles whose lights flicker on and off due to the bogies lifting. Maybe a fourth type of Hunts/Hunt/Hurst (what are they called again? :D) coupling is needed?

 

Shane, your capacitor comment is useful and will save Hornby returns department some faff. Well done #1 fanboy! 

How very dare you Mr Molyneux. I resemble that comment!

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1 hour ago, pwr said:

 

 

Thats impressive for one power car.

 

Paul R

Helped by my isolation of the lights I guess as I bent the contacts off the wheels on all but the two driving trailers. 
I need to turn the chassis round on the second one. 

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15 hours ago, scumcat said:

But surely you can buy the best components and still have failures. 

Of course they can, but it appears to be becoming quite a common occurrence, which would indicate either poor quality components or a bad batch of good quality components, in which case Hornby should acknowledge the fact and be issuing a recall and repair/replacement.

 

Only time will tell.

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21 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Of course they can, but it appears to be becoming quite a common occurrence, which would indicate either poor quality components or a bad batch of good quality components, in which case Hornby should acknowledge the fact and be issuing a recall and repair/replacement.

 

Only time will tell.


it is a lottery buying components direct from china from the likes of Ali express, maybe the Hornby factory has been cutting corners and buying up cheap batches that are somewhat sub standard. Complete speculation of course.

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18 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:


it is a lottery buying components direct from china from the likes of Ali express, maybe the Hornby factory has been cutting corners and buying up cheap batches that are somewhat sub standard. Complete speculation of course.

Indeed, not disputing that can happen at all (years  ago we had prototype leaf springs delivered from a supplier in India once which when the vehicle was loaded and unloaded for test the back end stayed low, the springs weren’t in fact tempered but just basically wrought iron :wacko:) but it does not take the responsibility away from Hornby to react.

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57 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

Agreed, a recall on the power cars at least is in order, there is a small fire risk

No need for a recall - just take the power car to your nearist Hornby Service Dealer.

 

Oh, sorry. I forgot, they died (were killed) off some time ago.

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My LMS sorted out my NDM and its now running again.  When coupled up, it persistently derails on a point.  It did this before.  I set up a slow motion video that seemed to show the coaches were hitting one another.  I notice there is a similar video above.  I recalled that in the box there were some spare couplings.  When i got them out, i see that there are three different sizes.  No mention of this in the instruction manual.

 

I replaced the coupling in the NDM with one of the longer ones and no more derailing.

 

Part of me feels a bit thick for not spotting this, but to be fair, you only notice they're different sizes when placed side be side.  And a few lines of text would not have gone amiss

IMG_20220206_154537440.jpg

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44 minutes ago, Ouroborus said:

My LMS sorted out my NDM and its now running again.  When coupled up, it persistently derails on a point.  It did this before.  I set up a slow motion video that seemed to show the coaches were hitting one another.  I notice there is a similar video above.  I recalled that in the box there were some spare couplings.  When i got them out, i see that there are three different sizes.  No mention of this in the instruction manual.

 

I replaced the coupling in the NDM with one of the longer ones and no more derailing.

 

Part of me feels a bit thick for not spotting this, but to be fair, you only notice they're different sizes when placed side be side.  And a few lines of text would not have gone amiss

IMG_20220206_154537440.jpg

So they do in fact give you alternative couplings like a thinking company should……then fail to highlight the fact , you couldn’t make it up :lol:

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2 minutes ago, rembrow said:

They are spare couplings as there are 3 sizes used in the set. The Development coach has the shortest, the ndm has the mid size and the long ones are for the tbf.

My bad….is that in the instructions?

 

I’ll have to check my NDM, I am not buying a full set just the NDM, and I am sure it has a bundle of couplings like that bag with it.

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2 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

My bad….is that in the instructions?

 

I’ll have to check my NDM, I am not buying a full set just the NDM, and I am sure it has a bundle of couplings like that bag with it.

No instructions but they are placed in the boxes in separate clear plastic bags, near to the relevant coaches. The ndm spares are inside their clam shell boxes and the other two are in the egg box style trays.

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6 hours ago, rembrow said:

No instructions but they are placed in the boxes in separate clear plastic bags, near to the relevant coaches. The ndm spares are inside their clam shell boxes and the other two are in the egg box style trays.

Be interesting to see if the hunt couplings are each the equivalent dimensions to the Hornby counterpart.

 

it is a bit weird that Hornby fail to mention the different coupling sizes, given it is not obvious until you look for it, how many frustrated owners who aren’t on this forum will there be? And how many unnecessary returns will that generate, all they needed to do was mention it on the service sheet

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