Dear all,
As many of you are aware, our first N scale locomotive, the GMD-1, has some issues which are preventing some of you from getting the most out of these engines.
We've been looking into how to solve the issues, and I apologize for taking a bit longer than intended with this message. The factory has been closed for the last couple of weeks due to Chinese New Year so communications have been slow.
There are three main issues with the N scale GMD-1, and here are our proposed solutions to them.
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1. The silent NAR and CN 1600-series GMD-1A locomotives run backwards in DC. If you have one of these engines and you are using DC control, this must be extremely frustrating! Despite having the same wiring in our sound-equipped NAR/CN 1600 models and in our HO NAR models, this is the first time we've encountered the backwards running in DC.
We are going to produce replacement chassis for the N scale NAR and the CN 1600-series locomotives. It will be entirely DC and will not contain a decoder at all. The chassis will include a new set of handrails installed.
This is completely free of charge for anyone who has an NAR or CN 1600-series engine and wishes it to run properly on their DC layout. All you need to do is mail us the two ends of the packaging insert. If you have a fleet of five, six or 15 engines, you need to send us the ends from each box and we will send you a replacement chassis for every engine in your fleet. Please make sure you include your name, address and phone number with the labels.
The deadline for sending us your labels is March 31st. We will start production immediately in April and deliver the replacement chassis in the late spring or early summer, depending on how many we have to make. This offer is open to both end users and dealers alike.
Our mailing address is:
500 Alden Road, Unit 16
Markham, Ontario
L3R 5H5
Canada
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2. Again for the silent locomotives, the headlights do not go on in DC unless you first turn them on using a DCC system. After that they will work fine in DC. If you can not get to a DCC system and you would like to remove the decoder so the headlights always work properly in DC, we will offer Digitrax dummy plugs at no charge for anyone who requires them. Again, we need you to send us your end labels and we will send you a dummy plug.
To do the fix, just unplug the decoder and plug in the dummy plug. These will be available next month.
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3. Finally, the drivers are a fraction of a millimetre too tight, which causes the GMD-1 to derail or jump on some turnouts. The drivers can be spread out manually, but if you go a fraction of a millimetre too wide, they bind in the trucks.
So we are making replacement drivers available to anyone who has a GMD-1 and is having these issues. You just need to email us through the CONTACT page on our web site and let us know how many you need. We will upload a YouTube video showing how to do the driver swap. Please put "GMD-1 WHEELS" in the subject heading.
The replacement drivers will be here in April.
The contact page is here:
http://www.rapidotrains.com/contact.html--
We have had some reports of the sound models stuttering at slow speeds. To solve this, there is an awesome automatic fine-tuning mechanism in the ESU decoders under CV 54. A number of people have emailed us this solution which they "discovered" after spending days scouring the internet and talking to experts in search of a solution.
But in fact, that solution was always recommended in our full GMD-1 instruction manual (page 12) which was uploaded to our web site when the locomotives were released. We urge everyone to please download our N scale GMD-1 manual from the Support pages of our web site and to read it, especially if you have limited or no experience with ESU Select sound decoders.
The manual is here:
http://www.rapidotrains.com/support_gmd1n.html We'll be adding the contents of this message to the GMD-1 Support page later today.
Are there some other minor issues with the locomotives? Yes, of course. This is our first N scale locomotive and we will do our best to learn from the experience and make sure that our second N scale locomotive, the FL9, is even better.
One thing we've learned from this experience is that we need to keep DC and DCC separate in N scale. For future models, we will offer straight DC or DC/DCC/Sound like we do for our HO models. That way, DC non-sound modellers won't have to worry about unwanted decoders in their models.
Overall, reports we've had from most of our customers have been overwhelmingly positive, and the criticism we've received has been, for the most part, polite and constructive. We've only had a few "I hate you for ruining my life and I will never buy your products again" emails and only one "You are the embodiment of all that is evil and I will burn you in effigy and fart in your general direction" email.
I hope that the above solutions to the three major issues with the GMD-1 will help us get closer to our customer satisfaction target of 100%.
Thanks a lot for your patience with us. When Mike got sick in the fall, Dan and I thought we could finish the project and bring the GMD-1 out on our own. This experience has taught us that we need Mike or another N scale expert involved right from concept to delivery. We can't properly deliver N scale models without having an N scale expert on board.
Thankfully, Mike is back in the saddle and we can rely on him to help us ensure the FL9 is a grand slam rather than a sacrifice bunt.
I'm up to my ears in weird British passenger train testing so I have asked Mike to respond to follow up questions to this email.
Thanks and regards,
Jason
