railflyermodel
Member
We wish you a great Christmas and holiday season. Happy New Year as well!
2011 has been a difficult year due to slow sales but we’ve managed to put well over $60,000 into new tooling and the projects are starting to wrap up over the next few months.
Monday, the revised traction motor casing test shots arrived. The mold is now in final clean up and production. The video here shows the rapid prototype we got a few weeks ago on the left for the casing, the one on the right shows the black production version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPLiHVS-VU
Some assembly jigs, photo-etched wipers & side-plates, and the new casings are inbound so we can assemble the product to fill orders received to date.
Other items covered with the new tooling are our Blomberg B/M, and HTC trucks. The trucks will feature fully detailed and scale side-frames with the traction motors as the drive. We’re aiming for March 2012 for the completion of outstanding items on this project. Most of it is already here, however tooling is quality based so it takes a while. New side-frames are the next item scheduled for release. The details are still in the T1 phase.
We’re still working on the Clean Air Room Bases, Dynamic Brakes, Fans, Hoods, and Stanchions. The latter is due to be released first with new samples due in January. The other projects will be released from tooling after they are finished. With these releases, the full kits for the GP38-2W, GP40-2W, and SD40-2W will be about 90% complete.
There is a lot of new photo-etch in production right now. We’re also trying to build up enough sales to cover a substantial restock on the photo-etch that are sold out over the past few months. We get ahead for 2 – 3 weeks with sales then it dies off completely, so this pushes reorders back. Keep in mind that our sheet costs have gone up substantially over the past three years but we’ve lowered the pricing on many items back in 2009. One solution is to raise prices on some items to enable a better supply situation. We have been slowly retooling items that were in chronic short supply the past two years such as DP 6621 Assorted Class Lights but there are a few more to go such as the popular SD40 treads.
For the electrical side of the business, we added a number of new LED colors a few weeks ago. I got test samples on the green and red LED’s this week. They are approved for production. The new Neutral White color is due a little later; it takes 7 – 8 weeks for production due to its unique color. This is a white LED with no blue tone. It’s good to replicate newer type light bulbs while our Warm White is an exact match for incandescent colors. We’ve also modified the soldering method so the profile is smaller.
Do not forget about our awesome sounding speakers! We still have a lot left from our second production batch.
While looking for some motor control options, I have found a unique method for motor control and potential DCC replacement. The system reduces the overhead required and also eliminates most wiring. I will be working on a plug and play system where the interface is very simple to use. The new system effectively makes your layout “Smart”. I am working with a number of potential suppliers right now to defined our job scope and start some prototypes. The use of our drive enables a lot of solutions that were previously unworkable due to space constraints in the hood area of the locomotive.
We will also have decoders set up for motor control with our drive in hand soon. There will be a basic option and then a 12 AUX output version that will enable prototypical LED based lighting on your locomotive. Both will be ready in January so we can demonstrate our full potential for the drive with the Blomberg and HTC trucks.
Also, we have our first Spartan Cab’s in tooling. Test shots are due anytime now. They will start the EMD and GMDD Spartan Cab equipped prototypes for our model kits in 2012.
From Christopher, Wendy, Terence, Caleb, and baby Patrick, we wish you and your family all the best.
www.railflyermodel.com
2011 has been a difficult year due to slow sales but we’ve managed to put well over $60,000 into new tooling and the projects are starting to wrap up over the next few months.
Monday, the revised traction motor casing test shots arrived. The mold is now in final clean up and production. The video here shows the rapid prototype we got a few weeks ago on the left for the casing, the one on the right shows the black production version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPLiHVS-VU
Some assembly jigs, photo-etched wipers & side-plates, and the new casings are inbound so we can assemble the product to fill orders received to date.
Other items covered with the new tooling are our Blomberg B/M, and HTC trucks. The trucks will feature fully detailed and scale side-frames with the traction motors as the drive. We’re aiming for March 2012 for the completion of outstanding items on this project. Most of it is already here, however tooling is quality based so it takes a while. New side-frames are the next item scheduled for release. The details are still in the T1 phase.
We’re still working on the Clean Air Room Bases, Dynamic Brakes, Fans, Hoods, and Stanchions. The latter is due to be released first with new samples due in January. The other projects will be released from tooling after they are finished. With these releases, the full kits for the GP38-2W, GP40-2W, and SD40-2W will be about 90% complete.
There is a lot of new photo-etch in production right now. We’re also trying to build up enough sales to cover a substantial restock on the photo-etch that are sold out over the past few months. We get ahead for 2 – 3 weeks with sales then it dies off completely, so this pushes reorders back. Keep in mind that our sheet costs have gone up substantially over the past three years but we’ve lowered the pricing on many items back in 2009. One solution is to raise prices on some items to enable a better supply situation. We have been slowly retooling items that were in chronic short supply the past two years such as DP 6621 Assorted Class Lights but there are a few more to go such as the popular SD40 treads.
For the electrical side of the business, we added a number of new LED colors a few weeks ago. I got test samples on the green and red LED’s this week. They are approved for production. The new Neutral White color is due a little later; it takes 7 – 8 weeks for production due to its unique color. This is a white LED with no blue tone. It’s good to replicate newer type light bulbs while our Warm White is an exact match for incandescent colors. We’ve also modified the soldering method so the profile is smaller.
Do not forget about our awesome sounding speakers! We still have a lot left from our second production batch.
While looking for some motor control options, I have found a unique method for motor control and potential DCC replacement. The system reduces the overhead required and also eliminates most wiring. I will be working on a plug and play system where the interface is very simple to use. The new system effectively makes your layout “Smart”. I am working with a number of potential suppliers right now to defined our job scope and start some prototypes. The use of our drive enables a lot of solutions that were previously unworkable due to space constraints in the hood area of the locomotive.
We will also have decoders set up for motor control with our drive in hand soon. There will be a basic option and then a 12 AUX output version that will enable prototypical LED based lighting on your locomotive. Both will be ready in January so we can demonstrate our full potential for the drive with the Blomberg and HTC trucks.
Also, we have our first Spartan Cab’s in tooling. Test shots are due anytime now. They will start the EMD and GMDD Spartan Cab equipped prototypes for our model kits in 2012.
From Christopher, Wendy, Terence, Caleb, and baby Patrick, we wish you and your family all the best.
www.railflyermodel.com
