Dapol new N-gauge M7

[Haddocksrock]

On 23/06/2023 at 14:56, AndyB said:

I was asked to post a photo of my new DCC-fitted M7 once it arrived. 

Hopefully both shots below are level and give a reasonably accurate account of the loco. 

 

There is a bit of residual slope on it. I don't know if at some point this was worse and its been corrected before shipping to my retailer. Or if it was OK (ish) to start with. 

 

 

The rear-view image has a bit of a lean. But I note there is some play I how it sits and that is sufficient to make it level. I don't suppose I'll be looking at it in extreme close up like this too often.

 

 

It ran smoothly on the test track in the shop.

 

 

Thanks for posting those. It looks about the same as mine after receiving it back from Dapol the second time. 

I'm still awaiting a reply to my email to Dapol from a week ago. Not holding my breath as I think they hope all this will just go away!

[Haddocksrock]

Just to update this I received an email from Dapol yesterday asking me to return the loco again to them and "we will fix the problem".

 

I will update when I receive the loco back from them.

[Haddocksrock]

Received the replacement M7 back from Dapol yesterday and, ironically, it is probably slightly worse than the example I returned to them! I have posted pics of it below.

 

After some email exchanges the end result is this email:-

 

Thank you for your email and sorry you feel the model still isn’t up to your satisfaction.

However we did check this model over thoroughly and, to be honest, I don’t think we will get any better.

 

It is worth noting that we have not had this ongoing problem with other customers’ locomotives.

 

Sorry but if you can’t accept it then you will need to return the model to Rails for a refund.

 

Your comments have been passed on to our Product Development Team and I am sure due consideration

Will taken of your points  during production of the next batch.

 

I am not sure that the statement about other customers rings true; on the other hand perhaps others have either accepted the apperance or just got a refund?

 

So i am really undecided. I like the loco and it fits in with my layout ethos but does its appearance make it unacceptable to me? I may try the solution suggested elsewhere of raising the front by inserting thin card between the chassis and body and seeing how that looks or return it and hope that a redesigned further batch includes this livery.

[Silly Moo]

Perhaps you could return this example to Rails and try and find another retailer who is prepared to look for a better example amongst their stock? It would probably require a phone call to find out whether this is possible. Hopefully there are some retailers out there with good eyes and good customer service. You might want to hedge your bets by hanging on to this one until the other one arrives. 

[Haddocksrock]

1 hour ago, Silly Moo said:

Perhaps you could return this example to Rails and try and find another retailer who is prepared to look for a better example amongst their stock? It would probably require a phone call to find out whether this is possible. Hopefully there are some retailers out there with good eyes and good customer service. You might want to hedge your bets by hanging on to this one until the other one arrives. 

Thanks for the suggestion. I have rung 3 other retailers none of whom are confident that they have a flat footplate example.

I might bite the bullet and experiment myself with smaller bogie wheels. The existing ones might be to scale but there seems to be a discrepancy between them and the driving wheels. 

Other manufacturers who have made errors in the past have offered FOC replacement parts to customers to rectify situations, I won't hold my breath for a similar outcome here 😔

 

[Gareth Collier]

6 hours ago, Haddocksrock said:

Received the replacement M7 back from Dapol yesterday and, ironically, it is probably slightly worse than the example I returned to them! I have posted pics of it below.

 

After some email exchanges the end result is this email:-

 

Thank you for your email and sorry you feel the model still isn’t up to your satisfaction.

However we did check this model over thoroughly and, to be honest, I don’t think we will get any better.

 

It is worth noting that we have not had this ongoing problem with other customers’ locomotives.

 

Sorry but if you can’t accept it then you will need to return the model to Rails for a refund.

 

Your comments have been passed on to our Product Development Team and I am sure due consideration

Will taken of your points  during production of the next batch.

 

What an appalling reply from Dapol. They couldn't have possibly checked it thoroughly as it clearly slopes forward and I have seen straight ones so saying they don't think they will get any better suggests they can't be bothered to look.

 

As for claiming they have not had this ongoing problem with other customers who are they trying to kid? There are reports of the sloping issue all over the web and their own Digest. They even posted a possible solution to solve it which, unfortunately, doesn't appear to work.

 

The revised M7 falls short in a number of areas, they are fully aware but appear to be trying to sweep them under the carpet and go into denial.

 

It is a pity as an updated version showed so much promise.

[D9020 Nimbus]

Quite a while back I mentioned a while back about my BR example which was sticking on points. I returned it to Rails and it turns out that this was caused by the sandpipes being bent out of position. I spoke to a very helpful member of their technical department on the phone. He reckoned that mine was one of the straighter examples, and indeed it's a lot better than @Haddocksrock's example. I opted to accept it back and not only is it not sticking on the points, it's a much smoother runner than the old example.

 

Highly satisfied with Rail's service, but definitely unhappy with Dapol's QC—even if they have any, considering the obvious errors that keep showing up; it shouldn’t need a livery expert to notice the wrong-way-round arrows on the Strathclyde 156, for example. Will think twice about pre-ordering Dapol in future—I hope they don't mess up the Ivatt 2MT!

[fezza]

I suspect Dapol realise that trying to fix the whole batch in the UK will be incredibly labour intensive so they would prefer people just returned them for refund. Anyone who reads forums (or just has eyes) knows about these problems and how widespread they are.

 

It begs the question why were they ever released for retail sale? The whole lot should have been returned to the factory. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by fezza

[Haddocksrock]

Just to round this sorry saga off from my point of view I have returned the Mk 2 M7 to Rails for a refund.

And done what I thought I would do when the revised M7 was originally announced and take advantage of people upgrading (!) to the newer version. So I have purchased a Mk1 M7 in SR  malachite off of eBay saving half the price and hopefully a lot less trouble!. The BR black Mk 1 that I already have performs quite satisfactorily for my needs.

Before I packed up the Mk 2 version I had a close look at it and I am sure that any lack of haulage power is due to the rear driving wheels being lifted off the rails very very slightly by the height of the bogie lifting the rear of the chassis effectively making it a single wheeler powered only by the front driving wheels.

I could be wrong but it might be worth looking at?

Edited July 7, 2023 by Haddocksrock
Additional info

[bdt0805]

Very interesting thread. I bought a DCC fitted BR early crest 30673. It was a very poor runner. I did some tests and there was no electrical continuity from one side of the rear bogie. I removed the bogie (which is very easy) and one of the fixed contacts inside the loco was "springy", the other totally flat. I'm sure the bogie had been lifted slightly and checking the driving wheels carefully, I reckon the rearmost driving wheels were not quite touching the track. Now.....thinking this was the ride height issue, I did the Dapol "tweak" but of course, too much bending on the electrical prong from the bogie means that they never touch the internal contacts and definitely not the flattened contact. 

 

Anyway, after confirming this was a fault due to the flattened internal contact,  Rails kindly replaced the loco with a new one. The new one runs better and there's no ride height issue. It looks like slightly earlier M7 suffered from a pronounced ride height issue but the Dapol DIY fix seems a bodge to me. The internal contacts need to be springy and the prongs from the bogie need to be just right so once the model is placed on the track, the weight pushes the bogie onto the loco frame / body and the electrical pick up should be OK (allowing the spring of the internal contacts to sit on the prongs). 

 

Based on the experience of the first model, if the prongs from the bogie are straight, its obvious that they are likely to push against the internal contacts and potentially flatten them. Similarly, they might force the bogie way from the loco body and hence push the back of the footplate up causing the ride height issue but I'm not convinced that's the whole story. If the internal contacts do get flattened then they are unlikely to give electrical continuity. There has to be some flexibility here.

Anyway, my replacement loco sits level on the tracks and seem to be OK. The bogie has some "spring" to it due to the fixed contacts inside the model but once on the track with the bogie in touch with the frame it looks fine.

 

The only other "moan" is the factory fitted decoder - its poor and no messing with CVs will help the abrupt starting and stopping so I've actually replaced it with a Zimo MN170F. Very fiddly to solder the smaller diameter decoder wires to the existing wires in the loco but the difference is worth every penny - superb low speed performance. Its transformed the model. Highly recommended.

 

Andy

[bdt0805]

Here's a couple of photos of the bogie, showing the electrical pickups (referred to as "prongs" above for want of a better word). Straight from the factory - not exactly identical but it clearly shows the bend required to get the pickup correct and reliable. 

 

Now........I've just looked at my loco on a flat surface and despite what I said, the footplate is slanted from rear to front by about 0.5mm to 0.75mm. Its just about visible in the photo. The bogie is in close contact with the underside of the loco so that height is fixed. I can actually get a piece of paper under the rear driving wheel so strictly speaking it wouldn't be in good contact with the track. No amount of fiddling with the electrical pickups would solve this. Here's the interesting bit - if I put my finger on the rear of the loco to keep the bogie nice and flat, BOTH driving wheels lift up together and there's definitely daylight under them. Its a fraction of a millimetre but its there! So - one of two things, either the driving wheels are very slightly too small (which is unlikely) or the bogie needs to sit slightly deeper into the underside of the model. I've taken another picture which just about shows this. Dapol need to be challenged on this? As I said, the loco runs OK but unless all of the wheels have good contact with the rails, its not getting electrical pickup as good as it should?

[Ed-farms]

One thought on the subject of wheels, has anyone checked them for accuracy in diameter? All models have to compromise on either the wheel diameter or thickness of the splasher above - if made from scale thickness plastic they would be so brittle. Has the M7 got scale diameter wheels or have they shrunk the drivers to suit the splashers but then kept the bogie wheels the correct diameter?

[Izzy]

The driving wheels do look rather undersized in comparison to the bogie ones, massively so when compared to the front splashers. Going by the description that both driving wheels will lift off the rails if pressure is applied to the chassis above the bogie does rather suggest that there is a real mis-match somewhere either between the wheelsets or in the chassis/bogie design. U

 

Bob

 

[OFFTHE RAILS]

3 hours ago, Ed-farms said:

One thought on the subject of wheels, has anyone checked them for accuracy in diameter? All models have to compromise on either the wheel diameter or thickness of the splasher above - if made from scale thickness plastic they would be so brittle. Has the M7 got scale diameter wheels or have they shrunk the drivers to suit the splashers but then kept the bogie wheels the correct diameter?

The Dapol M7 (Mk1 & 2) bodies are OK - it's the chassis' (Mk1 & Mk2) that are wrong. The driving wheels appear to be below scale diameter but the driving wheel axle and the splasher should be concentric and on the model (Mk1 & 2) it's way out, that's why I've never bought one. IMO the Mk 1 version was bad enough but Dapol seem to have made the Mk2  even worse.

[bdt0805]

A quick measure using a ruler and a magnifying glass shows that the driving wheels a tad under 10mm diameter and the bogie wheels about 7mm but I need to find my digital vernier and check properly . The data for the M7 lists the driving wheels at 67"/1702mm and the bogie wheels at 43"/1092mm. Quick maths shows that the bogie wheels are scaled at about 1:150 (ish) but the driving wheels at about 1:175 - all very, very approximate but clear enough to suggest that the driving wheels are below scale as per ED-FARMS, IZZY & OFFTHERAILS suspicions. I reckon if Dapol had made the driving wheels closer to scale (using 1702/148 = 11.5mm diameter) then there wouldn't be any ride height issues at all. I understand compromises have to be made and there are moulded details such as brake blocks etc but why would Dapol do this? Is this intentional or has the factory misinterpreted the spec/drawings?

[Mr chapman]

This is an old model from when Dapol first dipped their toe in N. I think the original was basically a modified 14xx chassis or used common components like the driving wheels. A model from a different time when an N gauge southern tank engine was unheard of. It should really have been totally retooled from the ground up. 

[woodenhead]

3 hours ago, Mr chapman said:

This is an old model from when Dapol first dipped their toe in N. I think the original was basically a modified 14xx chassis or used common components like the driving wheels. A model from a different time when an N gauge southern tank engine was unheard of. It should really have been totally retooled from the ground up. 

Perhaps the new one will also be used for a 14xx chassis hence a repetition of the past...

[fezza]

17 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Perhaps the new one will also be used for a 14xx chassis hence a repetition of the past...

Please no! I still have PTSD from all my efforts to get the original 14xxx to run half decently...

 

There must be a good market for small tank engines in N so why don't manufacturers make the effort? A good small prairie, 14xx, Buckjumper, O2, J72 would surely fly off the shelves. The technology for really good small chassis in N is there.

[woodenhead]

9 minutes ago, fezza said:

Please no! I still have PTSD from all my efforts to get the original 14xxx to run half decently...

 

There must be a good market for small tank engines in N so why don't manufacturers make the effort? A good small prairie, 14xx, Buckjumper, O2, J72 would surely fly off the shelves. The technology for really good small chassis in N is there.

Farish tried and gave up with the J72.

 

But since then they have done some tiny Narrow Gauge and redone wth 03/04 with space for a chip so perhaps that is where we need to look? 

 

However, it is clear Dapol are again seriously looking at N and hopefully the learning points from the M7 will mean the next small engine out of them is DCC ready, maybe even with a speaker fitted - a small Prairie to go alongside a Sonic Large Prairie surely.

[Ravenser]

The current issue of the Railway Modeller contains a rather startling review of this model, with the deadpan statement that they were unable to test it because one of the wheels fell off the review sample  and they couldn't reattach it:  

Quote

Unfortunately, upon removal from its packaging the model transformed into an 0-4-3T, with one of the wheels on the leading bogie wheelset becoming detached from the axle; it appears to be a split axle design . Efforts to reattach the wheel and its half axle proved unsuccessful, resulting in us being unable to test its running characteristics. [They state they put the wheel loosely into place for photographic purposes....]

 

....A noticeable nose down stance was observed... 

 

I am startled that a model with such an obvious defect managed to get through the development process, and even more startled and bewildered that a manufacturer believes that the market can be made to swallow it.

 

And this is the Mk2 improved M7.....

[Gareth Collier]

The new M7 is unique. The first updated model that is worse than the one it replaced. So many issues and so many questions as to how and why 😔

[woodenhead]

16 minutes ago, Gareth Collier said:

The new M7 is unique. The first updated model that is worse than the one it replaced. So many issues and so many questions as to how and why 😔

Not to mention the rather odd workaround for the lack of DCC readiness in the EP.

 

The class 50 with its Next18 and sound space should have been the way forward but this M7 which came much later had no DCC readiness initially.  The forthcoming class 56 is a body refresh only, why not improve the PCB and put in a speaker space as well?  I’ll wager the class 69 from Farish will be sound equipped from the outset and down the line might we expect a Farish 56 again?

[Adam1701D]

The Class 56 is made at a different factory to the 50 and 68. The retooling is an addition to the already announced models and we are using the existing chassis to keep the costs sensible.

 

With the N Gauge market increasingly crowded, I do not think a ground-up retool would be a good idea and we would rather put the resources into something totally new.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Adam1701D said:

The Class 56 is made at a different factory to the 50 and 68. The retooling is an addition to the already announced models and we are using the existing chassis to keep the costs sensible.

 

With the N Gauge market increasingly crowded, I do not think a ground-up retool would be a good idea and we would rather put the resources into something totally new.

Out of curiousity, the class 87 new chassis or using the block of the clas 86?

 

Edit: seen the answer on TomE's blog - class 86 chassis with a consideration for sound later.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by woodenhead

[Roy L S]

5 hours ago, Gareth Collier said:

The new M7 is unique. The first updated model that is worse than the one it replaced. So many issues and so many questions as to how and why 😔

Indeed, I had great hopes for this loco, in my case I wanted one as a basis for conversion to an LNER G5 with (I had thought) a much improved chassis over the old one and DCC capability. Sadly it just hasn't turned out that way and I wouldn't touch one of these new ones with a proverbial barge-pole even if ludicrously discounted (which they may well need to be to sell them at all). The extent of the problem is pretty clear from the reports we are seeing and Dapol's reply to Haddocksrock which he shared on 6th July is utterly laughable. 

 

With the new people like Adam on board at Dapol I am hopeful that we will now see a much greater focus on quality in N so that it no longer looks like a poor relation in comparison to their O Gauge models. In this respect I am looking forward keenly to the Ivatt Tank, but really it is going to be the brand new models like the GW Mogul and West Country (if it ever materialises) that will confirm it.

 

Roy