TheGunslinger

Essentially trying to cushion the torque forces on the gearbox that would be created by spinning up a flywheel two or thee times faster than the motor shaft. You could use a spring or torsion shaft but they're prone to physical wear and they aren't very precise at a miniature scale. My original idea involved less magnets that would give you more "free play" between magnet interactions, allowing the input and output to spin at different speeds (albeit only momentarily). You could pull that assembly further apart so the two only interact with magnetic fields and make it a true clutch, however we may end up with "cogging" vibration again as the magnets pass one another and you have a momentary alignment of attracting poles. I've got a bunch of 3mm neodymium magnets, might have a play and see what kind of interactions we get.

I don't think I explained myself very well. The magnets would be set up in a manner that would prevent them from slipping past one another (preventing the "cogging" problem that was noted when using attracting pairs of magnets) because of strong repulsion force. Heck, you could orient them in a manner that the magnets actually physically touch like teeth on a gear, but the strong repulsion would prevent them ever making contact. There is potential for the flywheel to oscillate, bouncing from one repelling pair back to another, but that would only happen if the drive end was completely stopped, and the torque required to reverse the flywheel's direction of rotation was less than the torque required to drive the loco wheels i.e. hit a buffer stop. Here's a diagram I threw together.

It's funny that the asking price is literally the only thing stopping this from getting snapped up. The conversion and detailing work is quite good and using a permanently coupled truck for extra pickups is very clever. How much would you pay for something like that?

Hmmm, I think you guys were onto something with the magnetic clutch, but I'm surprised nobody tried setting it up with opposing magnets. This would create what is essentially a sprung drive, with progressively increasing resistance to slip as the magnets are forced closer together, but a distinct point where the opposing fields is stronger than any force the loco imparts and it will "slip" no further. It'd be friendly on gearboxes too as all your forces are cushioned.

They couldn't give a toss, they're doing the bare minimum to get their golden parachutes so they can retire on $400k a year. The number of authority figures earning tens of thousands while "stood down" during lengthy investigations into misconduct is beyond comprehension. https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/border-force-boss-roman-quaedvlieg-paid-150000-while-under-investigation-for-misconduct-ng-b88756401z They simply do as they please, their morals and conscience are in matching burlap sacks at the bottom of a fast-moving stream.

I have a gorgeous USRA 0-8-0 switcher in brass from Lambert, and one of the nice details is a very simple friction clutch on the motor that actuates the reverser lever whenever the motor changes direction. It is however very fiddly and requires fine adjustment. A similar principle could be used to make a larger clutch for the driveline and would probably be workable. The Lambert one is tiny and is only so fiddly because of the limited surface area for friction. Another thing to consider with flywheels (this occurred to me while musing why nobody gears up the flywheel rather than run it straight off the motor shaft) is that spinning up the flywheel is a load on the motor. There is no doubt a balancing act between enough weight to help prevent abrupt stops of the motor, but light enough it isn't overloading and overheating the motor. I did a brief search and found that DC capacitor packs have been discussed in the past and the general consensus was that DC power was just too inefficient, and that you would need a bridge rectifier and PWM module controlling the motor to make efficient use of a capacitor, which is most of the hardware for a DCC decoder.

No, but it will put more strain on the gearbox when it comes to an abrupt halt! One of the reasons why the High Level and Comet gearboxes command a pretty penny is because they use helical cut teeth on the worm wheel, which have a different moment of interaction and can apply some movement back through the gearbox. I think I've actually inadvertently discovered why modern manufacturers use flywheels! The vast majority now run simple worm drives for their high gear ratio (the worm is effectively a 1-tooth gear, so combine with a single 40-tooth wheel for an impressive 40:1 reduction). When power is lost the loco will abruptly stop as momentum cannot transmit back through the gearbox and force the motor to continue turning. This in itself is already bad for prototypical running, but that jarring halt also puts a lot of force on the drivetrain. Remember how Bachmann models with nylon axles love to split in half and tear drive gears to pieces? It might be a whole lot worse without a flywheel on the motor.

That sounds like the exact same marketing claptrap from pretty much any other model company, albeit slightly more pretentious. Call me cynical but I pay precisely zero attention to what the PR goblins say or do; my heart can't handle the amount of salt needed to take anything they say at face value, and I'm not even 30 yet. I see RTR Toads, I see the price, I buy. I'm very happy with what I got for what I paid.

I will say that flywheels can help smooth motor running, but if you want solid performance over points and dirty track, nothing comes close to keep-alive capacitors. A far smaller package (the TCS KA-3 is 25 x 12 x 8mm) that can run a locomotive for a good 5-10 seconds completely unpowered. Keep in mind there are two kinds; very, very small keep-alives that essentially maintain momentary power to the decoder to prevent the infamous "stammer" of a sound equipped locomotive on bad track, and the larger ones which are capable of fully powering the entire locomotive for a short period, motor and all. I've only used them in DCC and swear by them, but by their very nature they should be adaptable to DC applications as well. In fact for a DC application combining them with a flywheel would be very beneficial as then the motor only requires very minimal power input to maintain motor speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxEQDVI6c3E

It's the little ones you have to watch out for!

Were yellow oversprayed window frames a standard feature?

That remains to be proven until they actually do so. So far we're 0-1 with Hornby's accurate AA15 costing a tidy 50-80% more at retail. Granted this isn't be reflective of true production costs but we still don't have a better model for a similar price, so my point still holds water. Valid as that may be the hobby has suffered appalling model accuracy for premium prices for decades, with the big players seemingly thumbing their nose in a "take it or leave it" attitude, so suddenly having standards when it comes to an Oxford release seems a tad hypocritical to me.

"But hey, if you could count on [Labor] to be an effective Opposition Party you probably wouldn't need to join groups like Knitting Nannas and GetUp in the first place." Australian politics in a nutshell and too accurate to be satirical. Speaks volumes on how inept our Labor party is that the mob of Saturday-morning-cartoon villains in the LNP somehow keep winning elections.

Maybe he thinks 10p is short for "Ten Pounds"

Some of the sheep.

And we as a collective nation have been trying to erase that particular mental image. Alcohol supplies are dwindling, illicit substances are disappearing from police lockups, and bleach prices are soaring!

Which was precluded by a god-awful toad (interpret that use of 'toad' however you like) they inherited from Tri-ang and did nothing to improve for over fifty years, and as I mentioned costs more than Oxford's offering. So apparently Hornby disagree that you can do accurate for as cheap as Oxford. Which passed hands from Palitoy to Dapol to Replica to Bachmann and none of them bothered updating it, but apparently they get a free pass on charging more money for an inferior model as well. Since the 2017/18 Toad is just an alternate livery I'd say Bachmann still don't think it's cost effective for them to update their model; either because they wouldn't be able to offer it at a price that would rival Hornby (let alone Oxford), or they just don't care because people continue to pay full price for their current mediocre RTR model.

Did you even read my post or just regurgitate the same old "well they should have done their research!" ? The point was that there are a variety of circumstances that can prevent Oxford from producing these models cheap and accurate. You may not get to have it both ways. Until six months ago the other RTR toads on the market were more expensive and fictitious in design, so even the claim that "others manage to do their research" is bogus, because it took Hornby 50+ years to get it right.

My 2c on the whole "easily found inaccuracies"/china thing. Oxford may or may not own the factory in China. The Chinese are very fond of leasing floor space and equipment on a fairly long-term basis; the only thing Oxford may own is the tooling, and exclusivity is something that costs extra in China so I wouldn't even count on that. Continuing on that trend, when you commission a product from the Chinese, you don't get a lot of say in the design process. You tell them the end product, they do the majority of the design work in-house, and you negotiate with them on how high or low quality the end product will be. Generally speaking they will try and replicate exactly what you've commissioned of them. Flicking design files back and forth to check accuracy may not be feasible; Oxford probably don't have a drafter/designer on hand because that's what they hired the Chinese for. I've seen plenty of accusations that Oxford products are 75% accurate and 25% cartoonish filler, and that sounds like exactly what a foreign design firm would do with incomplete data to go off, especially one on another continent. Oxford may know better, and they could crowd-source accurate information, but that kind of design process costs money. If you want a product for cheap you let the Chinese do it their way and don't meddle. If you want a stringent design process that lets you go back and forth with the rivet-counters, you pay for the factory lease and the design team sitting around doing nothing. If you try and do all your design work before hand, inevitably they will come back and say "that's impractical to tool"; you can hire consultants on tool design or a drafter who knows exactly how injection moulding works and you will still hit snags because it's virtually impossible that your designer's experience perfectly meshes with the process the Chinese use. Western designers that know the ins and outs of Chinese manufacturing can command mega salaries, and for good reason. The long and short of it, is it all comes down to the mighty dollar. Oxford are in a pretty tidy spot here, the products are good quality and handsome (if inaccurate), and most of all they're cheap. They could go for stringent accuracy but the higher price would mean they'd be chasing the big spender "whales" rather than trawling the masses, which is being proven as an increasingly risky business model. I bought both a 4 and 6 wheel toad because there is nothing better RTR, and certainly not for cheaper than a pub lunch. I can't say the same if they'd been 100% diagram accurate but double the price.

You also need to periodically update Flash player (again it's supposed to update automatically but often it doesn't); I find Firefox is quite happy to run on older versions of Flash for a long time before the version is deliberately outmoded, however this should throw a completely different error to what you're encountering. I also agree with what Dutch_master said about installing a H.264 codec.

Insulfrogs really shouldn't cause shorts, and if your wiring is unchanged I doubt it's spontaneously grown a short. I'd be looking elsewhere for a problem. Look for errant screwdrivers, loose track etc that may be shorting the rails since I'm an idiot and don't notice these things sometimes, so I figure other people might do it too.

50% markup on a rushed weathering job for a quick buck. They need to stick to weathering wagons.

Hi Tim, I received your PM and I'm very interested.

The GS500 is a pig. The frame is heavy which makes the entire bike unwieldy, it also gets in the way of servicing the cylinder head (it's recommended to just pull the entire engine out if you plan to do anything to the top end). Overall performance is lacking, in part due to the overbuilt frame, and the riding posture is upright and yet somehow less comfortable and harder on the back than a sports bike! As mentioned the cylinder head is notoriously hard to work on, which is awesome because the valves consider their clearances as a loose guideline. Add into this a finicky, easy-to-tear cylinder head gasket that will get destroyed every time you pull the head cover and you get a pretty clear picture of the engineer who designed this engine. You also have the same electrical gremlins you wrangled with on the GSXs, and other weird quirks like a crankcase breather that runs all the way up through the head (so you can mistake it for a rocker cover breather but it isn't) with a "filter" that somehow clogs easily, traps oil while the engine is running, and then vomits it out the breather hose overnight as it cools, instead of draining back into the engine! I constantly see people recommending it as a learner-friendly bike despite the fact it is a nightmare for first-time bike owners to diagnose and fix faults without getting robbed blind by Suzuki mechanics. As far as I'm concerned it fails at pretty much every aspect of being a motorcycle. It's not very economical, it's boring to ride, it's uncomfortable, it's hard to work on, and somehow it's even uglier than the competitors' bikes, too. EDIT: And for full disclosure, my previous bike was a Chinese-made "chopper" running a knockoff CB250 donk. It was terrible, the engine vibrated components to death on a regular basis, all the bolts and fittings were made from terrible cold-cast steel, the rake made cornering... difficult, and yet I consider it a better motorcycle than the GS500, because it at least looked kind of cool (I even once won a "Best Rat Bike" trophy with my bodge-job repairs) and it was very comfortable to ride. Current motorbike is a Honda VLX600 which is old enough to drink, yet it never skips a beat and is a dream to ride and service.

I... what? The GS500 has to be one of the least serviceable bikes in existence, which makes its propensity for strange gremlins all kinds of fun. The raw design is... acceptable, but it smacks of an engineer who is distinctly detached from reality.