N-Possible Coupler Announcement (Nashville 2022)

[oakcreekco]

Me too.

Impressed, and looks like they would work well on my mainline running.

[Rasputen]

How is the "delayed" uncoupling action?  Can you manipulate them so that you can shove a car backwards and pull away from a siding that is hard to reach??

[ednadolski]

How is the "delayed" uncoupling action?  Can you manipulate them so that you can shove a car backwards and pull away from a siding that is hard to reach??

I've never used any magnetic/delayed coupler features, so I'm not sure how that is supposed to work.  (It is more of a "model train" concept rather than a prototype operation.)   The NPCs are not a magnetic coupler, at least AFAICS, but perhaps @turbowhiz could clarify further about that.  Other couplers such as the Protocraft or Sergents would be similar in that regard.

Ed

[wazzou]

I've never used any magnetic/delayed coupler features, so I'm not sure how that is supposed to work.  (It is more of a "model train" concept rather than a prototype operation.)   The NPCs are not a magnetic coupler, at least AFAICS, but perhaps @turbowhiz could clarify further about that.  Other couplers such as the Protocraft or Sergents would be similar in that regard.

Ed

Maybe not, but with the device used to uncouple, you can usually push one face offset of the other, in order to make an uncoupled shove move.

[Rasputen]

Yes, this is what I am asking.

Maybe not, but with the device used to uncouple, you can usually push one face offset of the other, in order to make an uncoupled shove move.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That is compelling.  The only downside I see is from the side view there is a gap between the two coupler shafts.  This is very minor, and the operational properties and good looks (and lack of slinky) get top marks from me.

Thanks for the video.

It's funny, the gap is the first thing that stuck out to me. But it looks like there might be tiny nubs of flash in there that might be causing it. It's also something that is probably ONLY visible from the side.

[peteski]

Maybe not, but with the device used to uncouple, you can usually push one face offset of the other, in order to make an uncoupled shove move.

Yes, delayed uncoupling (which was probably just a useful side effect of the original Kadee design) is quite useful in model railroading ops, since we don't have a N-scale live person to pull the car's uncoupling lever at their remote siding.

[turbowhiz]

Some more clarification about the N-Possible coupler, as the question of magnetic uncoupling is also being raised.

What N-Possible is all about is the novel new spring design I developed. The spring design was developed for scale size couplers first and foremost. In fact, it was developed purely in an effort to make the MTL True Scale coupler truly functional for myself rather than any grand commercial ambitions. That said, the N-Possible spring mechanism is equally applicable to an overscale compatible/magnetic split shank design as well. It incorporates a metallic spring mechanism that does not suffer any slinky effect, but still maintains all of the desirable mechanical attributes only possible with metal springs (i.e. low force automatic coupling, no memory effect, long term reliablity, and well yes, reliable magnetic operation).

Making a true to scale coupler magnetically compatible compromises both the appearance (trip pins) and the head design (needs mechanical head slack, which then causes buff alignment issues, and it won’t look quite right). Is it technically possible? Absolutely, I’ve attached trip pins to scale couplers and it most certainly works. But I feel that the compromises required for magnetic uncoupling undermine the whole point of a scale coupler. And for clarity, it’s not physically possible to have a scale head design compatible with existent coupler designs (other than the MTL TSC).

The N-possible spring mechanism can be also be used to make a compatible with classic MTL style coupler that doesn’t slink but still shares all of good operating characteristics of the original MTL design, including magnetic uncoupling. I’ve built a small number of overscale/compatible prototypes, to completely prove that the spring mechanism works in that scenario, and as a proof of concept for true “drop in” compatibility for typical factory body mounts. These are functional as well, including magnetic uncoupling and automatic coupling with multiple existent commercial designs. From my preliminary development work, I’m not hopeful that a substantially more prototypically proportioned head design will function reliably enough with the classic MTL coupler (in particular with longer shank MTL variants, i.e. 1016’s) to be acceptable, so significantly improving the appearance over a traditional MTL coupler might be a challenge. And a low slack head will false uncouple on fixed magnets with light loads (been there tried that!). But at least they won’t slink, so for some that could be a real winner.

My near-term objective is to get functional scale couplers to market first over yet another compatible coupler design. The scale design won’t be for everyone of course, and I do feel that there are benefits of a N-Possible compatible coupler, but that’s not the priority for now.

[garethashenden]

Do you have any ideas of price and timeline? These look great and I want to try them out.

[turbowhiz]

How is the "delayed" uncoupling action?  Can you manipulate them so that you can shove a car backwards and pull away from a siding that is hard to reach??

You can manually manipulate the couplers into an offset scenario just like traditional magnetic designs. As soon as you pull forward, the couplers will self center and you can automatically couple again.

[Rasputen]

Great!
Thank you.

[turbowhiz]

True, but that is only visible because the camera lens is at exactly the same level -- in person you don't see it at all.

Ed

With respect to the shank gap, there are two different factors at play contributing to the significant gap you see in the prototypes Ed demonstrated. I know exactly why it’s there. Full disclosure, all of the scale couplers publicly demonstrated thus far are hand-built pre-production prototypes, using MTL TSC cores. The process to convert them to N-Possible spec isn't perfect and is fairly fussy, and since I wasn't expecting a video debut of them from Ed it looks like I didn’t send him perfect examples. I have many hand-built prototypes that aren’t so “gappy”.

Expect production couplers to have significantly less pronounced gap, similar to a stock MTL coupler or TSC.  Or possibly something even better I have cooking on this point, no promises yet though.

[turbowhiz]

Can someone display mounting them using Athearn cars? We need to see a variety of cars with these running together. I'm picking on Athearn as they are beautiful cars, with crappy couplers.

The demo train I ran in Nashville demonstrates my couplers on a variety of cars with a variety of installation complexity. Atlas/JTC/Scaletrains/MTL/Kato/Athearn; Mostly but not exclusively factory body mount cars.

3 different Athearn car types (4600/LPG tanks/2970) are all in that train. All of those cars were factory body mounts, using the original factory boxes (i.e. no 3d printed replacement ends on the LPG tanks).

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More videos of the train running on the layout in a variety of circumstances are on the channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7dtseIcT6XLxtPG_8Od0Ow


Athearn cars are good to pick on too, since I'm not aware of any traditional MTL coupler that works on those cars.

Quick pic of an Athearn 4600 and LPG tank coupled with N-Possible couplers installed in factory boxes:




The prototypes demonstrated are installed in the stock Athearn box by means of a replacement box lid, and some trimming of the original molded in box:




I have other printed prototypes that "drop in" to the Athearn boxes with the oem lids and no box modification at all. I expect that will be the production form, although there are tradeoffs with respect to the coupler pivot post location.

I don't need the MTL pivot slots in my design, so Athearn conversions (among other factory body mounts with that general "central post" type configuration) are totally doable with relatively minimal fuss.

Andrew

[Maletrain]

You can manually manipulate the couplers into an offset scenario just like traditional magnetic designs. As soon as you pull forward, the couplers will self center and you can automatically couple again.

I expect that will work far better than what actually happens with the slinky MTL couplers.  The slinky effect has the side effect of recoupling cars that are being shoved with their couplers offset at a magnet.  Going back to the magnet to uncouple is a very non-prototypical move, especially on the third try.   

[Ed Kapuscinski]

How does one go about getting on the beta test list?