Next18 blanking plugs,varying standards in use - be aware for locos with lights!

[Dr Al]

Folks,

Just a headsup for folks, that I've become increasingly aware of an issue developing relating to the Next18 sockets and manufacturers interpretation of standards (I presume).

I've seen several Dapol 66s now of latest Next18 standards, with lights that do not work at one end. After going over all the normal faults (connections, diodes, testing bodies on other models to check the LED boards, which all worked) nothing was seemingly faulty.

Finally after component swapping the problem became apparent - the NEM652 Next18 blanks in the locos were not all the same - working models had different boards. Presumably the ones on the non working models had decoders in at some point, and certainly looked like Farish ones; with Dapol boards having more electrical components on them (which seems counter to logic, and the previous NEM651 6 pin standard, which has no components on the blanking plug generally, just being a routing board).

Putting these in immediately restored the lighting.

This does mean that potentially one, or both manufacturers aren't following the standards for this type socket (which I presume exist for NEM or NMRA). That is immensely infuriating, and is going to cause all manner of models to be labelled with non-working lights as they cycle through the secondhand markets and folks swap in and out decoders (I've already seen others for sale from these model batches with this stated). Worse, neither manufacturer currently offers the blanks as a spare  , so if you don't have the original, you're stuck.

So hopefully this raises some awareness - do try and keep the blanking plug with the loco if you DCC fit, and if you get a secondhand model with all lights out at one end only, suspect this as the cause, especially if you are aware it's previously been DCC fitted.

As for manufacturers - please stop doing this if at all possible! Farish have history here with multiple interpretations of the NEM couplers (none correct), though they finally are now standard, and Dapol did the blanking plug thing on their early Voyagers, and also don't make the 6 pin sockets easily fit a Farish blanking plug. Sure they don't really need to, but pragmatism says that in the market place most folk couldn't tell them apart and are going to mix them up. It make more sense for all to keep these standard - after all it's the manufacturer that will inevitably get returns and repairs (and loss of reputation) as a result.

Hope this helps someone going forward!

Cheers,
Alan

[jpendle]

Hi,

I'm not sure if there are any standards for the blanking plugs, there are two standards for the Next 18 socket, one with and one without speaker connections, but I don't think that's the issue.

I don't have any Farish Next18 models, yet, but I wonder if the blanking plugs you have came from a steam loco, rather than a diesel?
It would perhaps make some sense if that were the case, as I doubt that a steam loco would need more than one lighting output on an N Gauge model, so Function Output 0 is connected to the headlights/lamps and Function Output 1 isn't connected to anything.
On my Dapol diesels, FO0 is connected to the lights at the number 1 end , and FO1 is connected to the lights at the number 2 end. I assume that Farish diesels would be the same and their lights wouldn't work properly with the blanking plugs that you have.
It does beg the question though, that why would Farish design two different blanking plates when one would do. Unless of course, those mere details are left to the individual Kader factories that produce the models.

Regards,

John P