97xx

This is something of a prototype comment, but posting here for interest. In May 1950 The Railway Magazine, an article "From Tunbridge Wells to Eastbourne via Heathfield" containing: "Just before Hellingley, one of two principle streams forming the Cuckmere River is crossed. This station, in contrast to all the others, has no passing loop or signals although there are interchange sidings with an overhead electrified line leading to the metal hospital, the tower of which can be seen about half a mile away on the left." (My highlight). A non-electrified line with an overhead electrified siding?

Saw that Key Publishing are still selling these for £36 or so, versus the whopping £130 I saw somewhere! Anyway, fancied doing some heavy weathering... Sorry about the desk as backdrop - not the most 'railway' of environments! It's surprising how under photography the green still looks so green - in the flesh it's a good deal darker and more subdued.

I'd be interested to see how true AG wheelsets run versus Romfords/Markits. I absolutely cannot stand wobble/nodding donkeys. I have only tried AG drivers once on a large-overhang 2-4-2T but the wobble was 'down' to the standard of many current RTR models! I rewheeled it with Markits and it's as true as one can expect. At the risk of embarrassing myself, link below - it is a pretty rough fully scratchbuilt model I made in my teens in the 1970s, chassis two strips of 1/16" brass hand-drilled in my Dad's garage and so yes there is a little wobble but that may well be down to the chassis... https://app.box.com/s/2uu04sei5qiuxwkjw90igdialirdqx8b (Sorry it's on Box, but I do not have a YT account).

Sorry, yes, useful to see the GA - thank you. Still no idea why a UJ - except to accommodate sloppy design and manufacture, so perhaps I've answered my own question! Unless there is some reason the (original) motor cannot be mounted tight up to the gearbox?

Helping a friend re-motor a S/H Adams Radial which came mint aside no motor/mount/flywheel. AFAIK this originally has a 5-pole skew wound open pole motor, a flywheel and a UJ between motor and worm/gearbox. Can anyone help with all of any of: Source of suitable double-ended motor to allow for flywheel Source, or dimensions of, worm required to mesh with gearbox (which is present) Explain why a UJ is necessary when the gearbox/wheelset does not move? Point to any open-source 3D files for printing mounts or other relevant parts. My preference would be to source a decent quality DE motor, fit a flywheel, and fab a motor mount (with a little adjustment to set the mesh). Would value any thoughts. Thanks!

FWIW, the blanking plate does the following: 1. Rectifies the incoming loco feeds (which very obviously can be of either polarity DC) to feed the elements of the loco circuitry that require DC of a specific polarity no matter what direction the loco is commanded (these are the four largish black diodes marked A7 - four in 'bridge' configuration I expect). 2. Provides protected DC of track polarity to devices requiring directional control - e.g. to drive marker lights or cab lights. This may be direct to device, or simply a signal to some of the more complex on-board circuitry to work it out (looks to be the case here) 3. Applies some interference suppression - to limit noise generated by the motor and other switching devices being sent back down the track (one or more of the 330 marked devices which are 'chokes' or inductors - coils of fine wire on a ferromagnetic former- plus a resistor/capacitor network) 4. Applies some interference rejection - to limit potential disturbance to loco electronic circuits from track-borne noise (ditto). Others may know - are there any 'standards' for blanking plate circuits?

You should indeed get a constant reading at any particular point - accepting that it's a 3-pole motor you may at certain points catch two windings instead of one - meaning you can get different readings but not ones that fluctuate. I recall changing an Airfix 14xx from plunger to scraper as the small springs had lost their temper due to current draw and were useless. Plungers are good in theory but seem difficult to get reliable in practice, especially with the large side-play in RTR models.

What a shame, albeit predictable. Little consolation, but a really excellent exercise in weathering.

@rapidoandy You've been very open and your team on here have been communicative and responsive. Problems afar set aside, I'm sure we'd all agree that this sets a welcome and high bar in terms of customer engagement which is an increasingly rare commodity in this age. Good luck resolving the fundamentals - here's to getting that smile back!

Thank you @RapidoCorbs for such a swift, understanding, and courteous reply, plus the PM. To reiterate, you at Rapido HQ designed a potentially truly outstanding model, and I am sure we all feel your pain at the issues you've experienced.

Er, this was a warranty return to, and 'repair' by, Rapido, from whom I bought the original direct.

Please do not be offensive - if you consider I was raising my voice, that does not constitute me being offensive.

@RapidoCorbs I'm now very annoyed. Having returned my badly-running 15xx for a refund, my request has been ignored and I've been sent an even worse one. It has a hopeless eccentricity - see videos attached. Plus it's blindingly obvious that the rear axle (which was OK on the original one) has a wheel with indeed the centre not in the centre. I don't care how 'detailed' it is if it basically runs like a dog. If you'd done what I explicitly asked for, this post would not be here to show yet another hopeless chassis. https://app.box.com/s/9pm1zx5cq2xn188lkfazrxxmexxj6sck https://app.box.com/s/9o7pgw34nk52zxwiq2ycv8x87jp021a7 For good measure here is a chassis I made in 1975 in my Dad's garage with a drill and two bits of brass strip held together in a vice. If the 15xx was half as good as this (which isn;t brilliant I admit) I'd be fairly happy although bemused why holes and right angles are not possible in modern china. https://app.box.com/s/gvm3brxufwsp3j3fdagp2rh65xtgjd5o @RapidoCorbs What do I now need to do to GET MY MONEY BACK?

An/the issue that we have now is that there's 'stuff' between the track and the motor - and if you use low rent components (which they will be - see other threads about I think it was APT and burning out of components) then you can and will get problems with less than perfect controllers. There are often references to old H&M type controllers - the issue is that they put out potentially higher maximum voltages and also have zero 'smoothing'. So, although they are 'DC' in the strictest sense of the definition, they are actually fluctuating DC. They basically take the sine wave and just rectify it - which means the 'negative' lobe gets flipped to the positive side - thus all the voltage out is positive, but it is varying from zero volts to the set volts at 100 times per second. Also, the H&M type was deigned to put out enough beans to drive big HD Ringfield and Triang XO4 type motors - which easily took up to 500mA - meaning that if you apply this to some tiddly chinese coreless motor which draws 100mA then the voltage can rise too high - because the power draw normally pulls an output voltage down. Let me add that this should NOT affect any well-designed electronics. But if you stick a inadequately rated component in such a circuit then something may go pop.

It's an interesting area - DCC by definition provides motors with ca. 12V pulses, which the decoder produces from the continuous full voltage provided to the track. What get's varied is the 'on' time. So whatever motor you have gets what is called Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) power in DCC mode. I would say PWM, per se, is not really an issue (although I can see LF would be less than ideal but this would need to be very LF but can't see anyone would deliberately design that way). AFAIK feedback controllers sense the back EMF produced and as this rises when the motor is under duress more power is applied to keep a constant speed etc. Obviously if the motor is straining to move the load, and is thus heating up (partly due to current draw under load and partly due to the back EMF causing additional heating), then giving it more beans will only heat it further. A weak/crap motor won't be able to handle it. Hence why FB controllers are not 'recommended' by some. You can appreciate this in N gauge where everything is so small and getting heat out even more of an issue. Coreless motors will be less tolerant of it for all the reasons we've stated as they are much less tolerant of heat build up. I very much doubt an XO4 would struggle with 'feedback' controllers...