1st Shots and EP

[Andy Dapol]

There are of course a few tweaks required, a little sinkage in the windows and door area which will require minor tooling modifications and one or two other changes but our new mechanism runs nice and quietly.
Electrically, per specification we have just lost the halo function from the OO version which is a matter of size and practicality, all switches are easily accessible for DC users, for DCC users all functions can be controlled from the DCC decoder which is a simple drop-in installation. The model is designed around sound of course.

[woodbury22uk]

Thanks for the update. As good looking as I was hoping for. Looking forward to these arriving ................next year I suppose?

[Ben A]

Looks rather tasty! Thanks for posting.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Hello Andy Dapol

Thanks for sharing images of these. It really looks promising and I cannot wait for further updates. I'll be looking out for a DRS or Chiltern version (haven't decided yet).

Is it too late to put in a request for a Class 68 with the simplified DRS livery?

Cheers!
J

[Vonzack]

That looks very nice, great work so far.

[Ian3721]

Hi [email protected]

Please could you give an update on both the N gauge Class 68 and Class 59,

[JeremiahBunyan]

The Dapol N gauge Class 68 has had it's first EP from the tooling (as seen in post #1 of this thread).

The Dapol N gauge Class 59 is in abeyance (presumably awaiting funds from current re-runs to commence tooling or something like that).

[DavidInYork]

I see from the updated online catalogue that this will have a Next-18 decoder socket and that it's 'DCC sound ready'. Does this mean that Dapol is going the same route as Farish with their Class 40, and including a speaker as a standard part of the model?

[Longbow]

Good question. Andy's post rather implies so and I think the consensus from other forums is that the cost of factory-fitting a speaker as default was small and means that retrofitting sound is a simple matter of swapping in a sound decoder. If instead there is a sound enclosure but no speaker (as with eg the Farish Castle) then retrofitting sound would likely require a little soldering.

[Andy Dapol]

Hi, 'Sound Ready' means that the model will easily accept a sound decoder and that there's a space for the loud speaker in the model. The difficulty in pre-fitting a speaker is that differing manufacturers recommend different speaker impedances, this means that we would always be fitting the incorrect speaker for someone's preferred make of decoder, therefore we will provide a speaker enclosure and accessible solder pads on the PCB. Other than the two solder pads, the speaker and decoder 'drop-in' without any requirement for tools.
Factory fitted sound locos will of course have the appropriate speaker fitted for our sound decoder.

[DavidInYork]

Thanks for the information.

I realise that Next-18 and sound-ready models are in their infancy, but is there potential for loco and speaker suppliers to agree on a common connector for attaching a speaker to the loco's circuit board?

I work with computers, and a connector type which immediately springs to mind is the type used to connect the antenna wires to a wifi card inside a laptop, as shown in these pictures:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...WJikzlRV-WEBQw
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...vIwfnp50Q7At5J

[JeremiahBunyan]

Andy Dapol when can we expect paint samples of the N gauge Class 68?

[JeremiahBunyan]

I've just stumbled upon some beautiful pictures of the Dapol N gauge Class 68 painted samples by Paul Churchill...absolutely stunning work. I'm inclined to say that it's the best N gauge model I've seen, the detail is superb and if it weren't for the couplings I would've assumed it was the OO gauge version.

I hope to see the official images posted here soon.

[Vonzack]

Saw several pics of the Dapol cabinet from TINGS with the 142 and 68's on display, would it be possible to post some on here for the community, in their correct threads of course.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Best is to contact those who already posted those pictures elsewhere. If they don't use the "Dapol Digest" I suggest seeking their permissions and re-posting it here.

[Vonzack]

My request was to Dapol not to others Jeremiah ;-)

[JeremiahBunyan]

Dapol would've eventually posted it anyway because it is afterall deco samples of a new forthcoming model.

Sorry for the "mix up"

[Neil Dapol]

The 142 1st deco photographs should be avaliable under that section the digest, we are currently tweaking these and waiting for a second set of deco samples. They can also be seen in the catalogue pages.

The Class 68's arrived only a few days ago and we will be posting some photographs in the next few days.

[JeremiahBunyan]

Can't wait to see better images of the Class 68's...