Getting very frustrated at Dapol failures

[davidinyork]

I've had problems with both main manufacturers, and in most cases (especially Dapol) it's down to crap circuit boards, whereby either the lights stop working in one direction, or no current gets to the motor. Sometimes you can easily see the component which has burned out.

Having lights, etc, is all very well but only if you can get them to work reliably! Sometimes simpler is better.

[Agrippa]

Having lights, etc, is all very well but only if you can get them to work reliably! Sometimes simpler is better.

eg  Union Mills locos

[Pengi]

Over the years that I have been a member of this forum, there is one subject that regularly crops up - problems with Dapol. IMHO whether or not Farish are more reliable is irrelevant, this is about Dapol and the facts are that many of our members have bought unreliable products 

As others have said, the products should be returned  to Dapol but I wonder how many of us will try to fix the issues ourselves and so Dapol do not get an accurate picture of the number of problems? Certainly when the lighting diodes blew on my only new Dapol products (two FGW dynamic lines HSTs - that look magnificent) and I read that Dapol had issues with the diodes, I decided to fix them myself rather than go through the hassle of driving to a post office etc. Incidentally, the quality of the soldering on the boards was really poor - even worse than mine 

[Snowwolflair]

Over the years that I have been a member of this forum, there is one subject that regularly crops up - problems with Dapol. IMHO whether or not Farish are more reliable is irrelevant, this is about Dapol and the facts are that many of our members have bought unreliable products 

As others have said, the products should be returned  to Dapol but I wonder how many of us will try to fix the issues ourselves and so Dapol do not get an accurate picture of the number of problems? Certainly when the lighting diodes blew on my only new Dapol products (two FGW dynamic lines HSTs - that look magnificent) and I read that Dapol had issues with the diodes, I decided to fix them myself rather than go through the hassle of driving to a post office etc. Incidentally, the quality of the soldering on the boards was really poor - even worse than mine 

I find soldering is the issue with Dapol, specifically dry joints, heat damage of plastic parts due to over soldering and particularly burn through of insulation leading to shorts.

In most Far East factories the soldering is done by kids ~16/17 straight out of school and with no proper, training.  As someone trained to make military standard soldering joints it makes my toes curl.

[potts]

Surely it would pay Dapol to test more items before sending them out to be returned and then sold off cheap. They could return all faulty ones back to china and have a good case against the factory there.

[Snowwolflair]

I doubt Dapol can afford to have a man permanently in China monitoring production which is what you need, even an agent is almost useless for quality issues.

The first Dapol see is cases of boxes of packed locos and they certainly wont go through every one.

This has been a problem across the assembled electronics market place for decades and the only solution I have seen is to have a quality control passport with every model.

[Snowwolflair]

It would be a great marketing idea if retailers have a "we test everything" policy, so the customer gets a working model every time.

You would  buy from them over retailers who do not.

In engineering terms we used to call it goods in QA.

[Yet_Another]

It would be a great marketing idea if retailers have a "we test everything" policy, so the customer gets a working model every time.

Only if they actually did...

[PLD]

Surely it would pay Dapol to test more items before sending them out to be returned and then sold off cheap. They could return all faulty ones back to china and have a good case against the factory there.

But if there were less "returns to sell off cheap", that would upset another segment of the audience! What would the hordes of untamed bargain vultures who stampede on the Bachmann stand at the opening of Warley, Ally Pally and the like do?
Remember the complaints after one show last year when Farish gave much less space than usual to returned stock...

[Snowwolflair]

Surely it would pay Dapol to test more items before sending them out to be returned and then sold off cheap. They could return all faulty ones back to china and have a good case against the factory there.

But if there were less "returns to sell off cheap", that would upset another segment of the audience! What would the hordes of untamed bargain vultures who stampede on the Bachmann stand at the opening of Warley, Ally Pally and the like do?
Remember the complaints after one show last year when Farish gave much less space than usual to returned stock...

Guilty, and we are also the ones who know how to fix them 

[johnlambert]

Surely it would pay Dapol to test more items before sending them out to be returned and then sold off cheap. They could return all faulty ones back to china and have a good case against the factory there.

But if there were less "returns to sell off cheap", that would upset another segment of the audience! What would the hordes of untamed bargain vultures who stampede on the Bachmann stand at the opening of Warley, Ally Pally and the like do?
Remember the complaints after one show last year when Farish gave much less space than usual to returned stock...

From memory, there weren't any Bachmann cheap, returned items at the Alexandra Palace show. The Bachmann person I spoke to at TINGS last year said there were fewer returned items available to sell.

[mr bachmann]

It would be a great marketing idea if retailers have a "we test everything" policy, so the customer gets a working model every time.

You would  buy from them over retailers who do not.

In engineering terms we used to call it goods in QA.

if you are undecided over what loco to buy and the guy in the shop try's several for your decision , you make up your mind , the others go back on the shelf - now these have been used ... so now they become second hand/used stock 

[Snowwolflair]

It would be a great marketing idea if retailers have a "we test everything" policy, so the customer gets a working model every time.

You would  buy from them over retailers who do not.

In engineering terms we used to call it goods in QA.

if you are undecided over what loco to buy and the guy in the shop try's several for your decision , you make up your mind , the others go back on the shelf - now these have been used ... so now they become second hand/used stock 

Shop purchases don't seem to be the problem, I don't think anyone here would buy from a shop without testing.  Shop demonstrations are not "used models".

The big problem is mail order where the path is China factory to shipping container to Warehouse to shop to mail order customer.  Nobody opens the box from the factory till the customer.

[davidinyork]

It would be a great marketing idea if retailers have a "we test everything" policy, so the customer gets a working model every time.

You would  buy from them over retailers who do not.

In engineering terms we used to call it goods in QA.

if you are undecided over what loco to buy and the guy in the shop try's several for your decision , you make up your mind , the others go back on the shelf - now these have been used ... so now they become second hand/used stock 

Shop purchases don't seem to be the problem, I don't think anyone here would buy from a shop without testing.  Shop demonstrations are not "used models".

The big problem is mail order where the path is China factory to shipping container to Warehouse to shop to mail order customer.  Nobody opens the box from the factory till the customer.

I would add to that the point that with the bad circuit boards they can run OK for a brief shop demonstration, then when you get them home and run them in they grind to a halt with a burning smell after ten minutes!

[Snowwolflair]

I would add to that the point that with the bad circuit boards they can run OK for a brief shop demonstration, then when you get them home and run them in they grind to a halt with a burning smell after ten minutes!

Reading the many threads this is not the big problem.  Out of box failure and longer term (+100 hours) failures seem to be the big problems.  Not that ten minute failures don't happen, but personally I don't buy from any retailer not willing to run it for a while, if i'm committing to buy.