letterspider

On 21/01/2024 at 21:29, frobisher said:

 

If you're going to do any one of those, there are obvious bolt ons;

• 312 - 310
• 313 and 315 - 314, 507 and 508
• 317 - 318, 455, 456

Well then it should be an easy win for the manufacturers. Where do I sign up for pre orders?

Thank you for following up - some quick research revealed this

(link) Supercap

at £1.83 a shot, probably not the best option out there but for me the price is right and I don't have to work with SMT components

They are even cheaper on AliExpress but the shipping takes longer. eg

(link) Supercap

Class 312

Class 313

Class 315

Class 317

Andy, thank you for starting this topic. Initially I found I was going to write a very long answer but then I realised the better answer to your question is who is going to save our hobby?

Well okay Andy yourself and your team's incredible efforts to maintain RMWeb for a start. In fact I am going to look at subscribing because I think RMWeb is good value content I have enjoyed and taken for granted for a while AND it must have saved me a lot of time trouble and money over the years from buying duff models. 

Hattons gone, Warley gone, RMWeb next...? Hopefully not.

We have Model of the Year on RMWeb - perhaps we should have a Raspberry award - although I think the Moderators would not allow it?

Just been reading this post and reliving my own nightmares and a summary for those who have just read this thread and don't want to go through it all.

Capacitor burning through the body shell, bogies on power cars which derail even when running by themselves, pantograph which fell apart as soon as it was touched, a tilting mechanism which can't tilt if you install a dcc chip and a lighting strip with a visible capacitor which scaled to the size of a small satellite. All for £400. Usually you would spend that amount and find those faults on ten different,  individual models but Hornby's innovation was to include them all on the APT and then burn up money on TV soft marketing to sell us it. 

However

2nd batch addressed a lot of those issues; Redgate models provide a good alternative pantograph and TXS decoders offer possibility of affordable sound but.... I was only lured back after reading reviews on here. 

Anyone buying first batch beware beware!

23 hours ago, vanbasher said:

By eck! That EWS box is stunning! Goes back to my earlier point that the livery sat so well on everything..  even a box it would seem! Really looking forward to seeing the box for 66004 in Green now... not a 66 fan but mighty glad I've ordered one after seeing this 😀 

Agreed - it looks really good. I don't know what it is about that box and the EWS logo but it reminds me of something...

This is a political decision. Governments in the EU are currently chasing up the short term property rental market, AirBnB etc, as the potential revenues in those cases are huge amounts. However to avoid those companies complaining of greed and hypocrisy, the Tax rules have now also to be applied fairly to other businesses such as eBay etc

I don't think this will work out in the long run (see below) and I don't think anyone selling trains, clothes, or anything else second hand that they want to get rid of will need to worry (unless they actually are trading in high volumes).

If HMRC demand tax on the sales amount I can see individuals trading as self employed and demand tax relief on everything from internet, heating, seller fees etc.  especially as the vast majority of models, clothes, cars are depreciating in value and selling at relative loss.

After all of that I can see very little of anything will remain for HMRC

But HMRC will just assume most individuals will not be keeping their receipts and will just yield to automated tax demands, however if thousands and thousands of tax rebate requests start to pour in, it will cost a fortune for them to service these new proposals with a threshold of just £1000 and I expect very quickly it will rise towards £5000

Seen both the Gbrf and the RTC on the Goblin lines on RHTT duties....onteresting liveries and did sound very much like a 66....

MRA Tippler?

I already made one...but you know the RTC livery is not the simplest of resprays...

Dear Bachmann

I like your Mark 1 coaches but can you retool the roof and paint in RTC livery for a very nice approximation of Lab 6 Prometheus.

I want to recreate this photo here

https://www.traintesting.com/images/on_test_middle.jpg

And I would run it with your HDST too

How much would it cost to crowdfund a Mark 1 roof? (I am not bothered about the generator grilles at the back or the cables at the end but if you could tool up one side as well.....that would be great)

I could really see that happen to the prototype 👍

Fingers crossed there will be strong sales and that will encourage Locomotion to produce a twin pack...

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

A first EP, I thought it was a finished model in workshop condition 🤣

The headlamps are sticking out too far

Q2 2025 - rathr brave of Dapol to announce this so early - unless they are offering early bird prices, there will be risks of price rises, delays and ....duplication? Hopefully not. A great announcement and I am saving up for this

2 hours ago, MrB said:

Sadly now delayed until 3rd quarter 2024. Due to waiting for the prototype being available to record the sound.

Why would that delay the non-sound locos from being dispatched?

If sound recordings hadnt been made at end of October...well, chips have to be programmed, inserted, tested, locos packed shipped, sampled for quality control....then sent to retailers.

My guess the sound chipped locos they will ship later...perhaps after Xmas....so you have more time to save up.

I think you may be forced to work with online servers if you want to print the high res file, as opposed to something very crude

On 13/11/2023 at 13:26, 2750Papyrus said:

I had to study metrology for a year as part of my college course and had it drummed into me that "precision" referred to repeatability, not "accuracy".  I have to argue, therefore, that segments which are uniquely contoured may form excellent examples of engineering practice but not of precision engineering.

Sorry to be a bore but Precision is how finely you measure something. Eg to nearest cm or nearest mm

Repeatability is to do with Accuracy. You can have systematic errors of a reading which are repeatable but always out by the exact same amount for example not zeroing your digital vernier calipers gives you repeatable inaccurate readings and then inaccuracy due to random errors which by their nature are due to unknowns, for example your vernier calipers may be reading wrong each time due to thermal expansion of the object 

What I don't understand is how the precision engineering as a term is applied here. It seems an exaggeration because although you might think the segments have to be cast and measured to quite fine tolerances of a few mm, then they will also have to allow for a large range of several cm of thermal expansion. In which case the mm precision is going to be pretty irrelevant.

Home printing will be a thing. You will download the stl file but it will be watermarked with a unique key like an NFT is. Each time you print the file you will need to be online as the key will be updated on a public ledger (like the Bitcoin blockchain) until you reach your limit of permissible prints. 

I suppose you could even sell or gift your unused remaining prints.

Designers could also offer limited runs of a design, or early bird prices in order to attract customers the same way manufacturer's do.

What I don't see is what will happen if your print fails. It would still be charged....

Just a warning to anyone buying Heljan parts from Gaugemaster (I am usually a satisfied customer with their service)

They have silently changed their pricing system.

If you order the part number from a sprue,  you will no longer get exactly what is on the spares sheet if it is a multiple item...for example you will only get one out of a pair of windscreens or one out of 4 engine room windows 

Ian Linley tells me this is not 'an elaborate money making scheme' (I agree there is unlikely to be much profit in selling odd parts) however my last order total went up over 300%, so there it is. 

Ian also said another reasons for the change was that customers were 'fed up of getting spare parts they had no need for' (surprising, as I never seem to have too many spare parts)

I have suggested that Gaugemaster needs to make it clear that the part number on their website is now disconnected from the part numbers on the spares sheet, which they tell you to refer to!

I have no idea if what they are doing contravenes distance selling laws, someone else may advise.

Perhaps Heljan is starving suppliers of spares / Brexit costs / Gaugemaster has to ration their remaining stock?

In the meantime I am sharing this information with fellow members who might otherwise find themselves in a disappointing situation when they don't receive the number of parts that they thought they were ordering.

On 24/09/2022 at 09:23, Towbridge Junction said:

Thanks very much! Hopefully I'll have enough progress on a couple of locos to make a new post fairly soon 👍

Any updates on your 73/9?