A cheap hi-rail?

[bsoplinger]

Don't know about the hi-rail, but aren't many of the GHQ vehicles in the cheap one piece category solid? If you look at the pictures that Chris333 posted links to they all have painted on windows.

A hollow body is needed to put in the motor and gearing and whatnot, no?

To clarify...

The inexpensive (ie cheap) GHQ models are one piece castings, vs the expensive GHQ models which are many pieces that have to be glued together. That is what I meant, not that the GHQ castings are bad in and of themselves. Just that they were a one piece casting that I thought wouldn't even be hollow, but I see they're hollow inside (guess to keep the amount of metal used down).

[DKS]

Just to follow up on the subject of tiny motors and gears, today I've just received my order from Mikroantriebe (http://www.mikroantriebe.de/). It's not often I'll do a mail order and receive significantly better merchandise than I'd expected. This stuff is small! Also exceptionally high quality. I fired off a few very rough photos to provide an idea of the sampling I got. In each shot, I included a Wiking N scale VW Beetle for size reference. At some future point I'll take better photos--I didn't dare remove anything from their packages.

Here are the pager motors I ordered; on the right are the 4 x 8 mm motors used in the T Gauge trains (http://1-450.blogspot.com/). (Word has it there are 3.5 mm diameter motors coming--I might just try powering that VW...)

[img width= height=]http://lh5.google.com/dks2855/R6TnR7QVsuI/AAAAAAAAD3I/9ba5290KRlo/s800/IMG_2211.JPG[/img]

Here's a pair of micro-servos. One is a standard rotary unit; the other is a linear actuator. I probably won't even use them as servos, but instead just use the motors and drives. The threaded-drive linear actuator is a real beauty, and my head is exploding with ideas for that one...

[img width= height=]http://lh5.google.com/dks2855/R6TnS7QVsvI/AAAAAAAAD3Q/sshZzyr-J4A/s800/IMG_2212.JPG[/img]

Plastic spur and compound gears. They have 'em by the bushel. Due to the language barrier, unexpectedly one package contained a highly unusual gear set: the pair on the far left is a flat worm (spiral teeth on a disc) and worm gear for a compact right-angle drive. I'll probably be getting more of these!

[img width= height=]http://lh4.google.com/dks2855/R6TnTrQVswI/AAAAAAAAD3Y/2oUAqSE1guw/s800/IMG_2213.JPG[/img]

Worms and worm gears galore. This is just a small sampling.

[img width= height=]http://lh3.google.com/dks2855/R6TnUbQVsxI/AAAAAAAAD3g/FzTd0c4d8h4/s800/IMG_2214.JPG[/img]

Here are three right-angle drive gearbox kits. These beauties are parts goldmines in themselves; beautifully crafted, complete with ultra-small roller bearings!

[img width= height=]http://lh6.google.com/dks2855/R6TnVLQVsyI/AAAAAAAAD3o/vs7Tcky2IH4/s800/IMG_2215.JPG[/img]

Bottom line: I'll never have to scrounge parts from a dead Z scale loco again. Now, if I could just find a source of 48-hour days...

Other interesting news: I received an email from the owner of Gizmoszone (http://www.gizmoszone.com/). He'd seen my blog entry (http://1-220.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-widget-goldmines.html) and was excited to receive some press. He asked if I could make recommendations for products specifically targeted to modelers like me. I told him that I'd ordered the micro gearhead motors from him for evaluation, and would probably order lots more. Their gear assortment is nothing like Mikroantriebe's, but Mikroantriebe doesn't offer the micro-gearhead motor drives that Gizmoszone does, so between the two of them, I'm a modeling pig rolling in sh*t!

[sparky]

Wow David, that stuff looks awesome!  Thanks for posting the pics.  A few questions:

How did you decipher the website?
What methods of payment do they accept?
How did they ship, and how long from order to receipt of goods?

Thanks again!

[SquirrelHollow]

Good stuff.  I was hoping you'd update us soon.

The gearboxes appear a bit big for my projects, but I'm sure I'll end up ordering a few eventually.

The flat worm...  that opens up some possibilities...   My speeder might be feasible, after all.

Thanks for the review, David. 

[DKS]

How did you decipher the website?
What methods of payment do they accept?
How did they ship, and how long from order to receipt of goods?

Since Google Languages would not work using the web shop's URL, I kept two windows open and cut-and-paste all of the descriptions, one at a time, into Google to translate manually. It was long and tedious, but worth it. After a while you start to pick up on enough that you don't have to translate absolutely everything.

They accept PayPal for payment, which is great because PayPal automatically handles the currency conversion. I don't know what other payment methods they accept, because I didn't bother looking; as long as I see that little PayPal logo, that's pretty much all I care about. (You can use PayPal even if you don't have a PayPal account.)

They shipped via the German Postal Corporation in a "Businesspacket". I placed the order on 16 January, so it was only about two weeks to arrive--perfectly adequate in my book.

[sparky]

Yeah, I tried the Google web page translation to no avail too.

They do have English pdf version of their catalog here:

http://www.muskeldraht.de/1zu87modellbau/produktuebersicht-e.pdf

It makes browsing the products easier, prices and an order form are on the last few pages.  I'd like to be able to order online though.  I certainly wouldn't fax credit card information, especially internationally.  It's cool that they take Paypal though.  You could probably get them to enter an order and invoice you through Paypal, which would make things much simpler.

[sparky]

It appears they are trying to get an english version website up and running.  If you click on "shop" on the main page that David posted above, you get a couple of paragraphs that, roughly translated, says they have a new e-commerce site as of January '08.  The main page has a link to the english page and takes you here:

http://store.sol-expert-group.de/products_new.php?language=en

It appears as though they're still working on it, because nothing displays under the "Categories" tab.  However, there are links there and you can navigate the site by clicking them from the pull down.  I just went one at a time, top to bottom.  You can add items to a shopping cart.  I haven't bothered to try the checkout feature yet, but I'm hoping it works.  Hopefully, this new site will be complete soon and easy to use.  Let's keep our fingers crossed!