Large Scale Central

Credibility and Kool Aid

General Discussion
#1

From the Aristo forum, Lewis Polk:

http://www.aristocraft.com/vbulletinforums/showthread.php?t=14173

Dear All,

The 400’ range of the Revolution is unmatched in any other R/C competitor and is real. We do not reverse engineer anyone and have a bonified advanced R/F engineer here who has made the Revolution a better product than the rest. We have studied the NMRA CV’s that number up to 1,000 or so and selected the best concepts to mimic. However, the implementation method is through a Zigbee like network and at a much faster signal rate.

All of our work is done in house here and is not a purchased makeshift implementation from another field. It’s true R&D and allows us to make it industrial strength. Who else gives you the range length and glitch free sureness of signal?

Our application is unique and we will post our speed matching menu’s shortly. The product is done as well as the menus are, but Jonathan is pre-occupied and will get to the posting shortly.

It works well and no beta user has said otherwise. It’s just a better thought out design and will win the day There is no come back to these facts.

All the best,
Lewis Polk

You are sort of right, there is no come back [sic] to these facts because there are basically NO facts.

  1. I think that several manufacturers would say they have 400’ range, not just Aristo, so I do not think this can be presented as a fact without some sort of proof or testing against the competition.

  2. “We do not reverse engineer anyone”? Oh, like the Bohler switch motor you made an identical clone of, or how about your rail bender, or way back the duplicate of LGB track? Uh… I think there is also another remote control system you reverse engineered a while ago. I think it takes a lot of “something” to make a statement like that.

  3. There are not 1,000 NMRA CV’s… there is a set of NMRA CV’s and some for expansion by the manufacturers. And you say you studied them? Hmm… maybe your engineers need newer abacus’ to count the number of CV’s.

  4. “not a makeshift implementation from another field”… who are you talking about? The manufacturers who have been making stuff for years? Makeshift applies to trying to use Zigbee for remote control when it was designed as a networking protocol, and you do not do networking. That’s a makeshift implementation. Needless protocol overhead.

So, I agree there is no comeback to the “facts” because I have a hard time finding them.

I have never agreed with marketing by trying to make your product look better by cutting down the competition and calling them names, which seems to happen with every post.

“we don’t reverse engineer”
“not purchased a makeshift implementation”

Well, the first production run arrived today, so we will see. I think it’s an OK product, but why does every advertisement have to be full of hype and put-downs of other competitors?

Regards, Greg

#2

“why does every advertisement have to be full of hype and put-downs of other competitors?”

Why not?

Keeps the shills toe-ing the line.

#3

I guess I’m just old school. I worked for a great company in the 70’, Hewlett Packard. Our entire marketing and product marketing departments were counseled: “Never use disparagement of the competition in our advertising. If our product is not good enough to stand on it’s strengths alone, we need to make a better product”.

I thought that was very professional, and in the end, a winning strategy.

Regards, Greg

#4

Yes, but we are dealing with whiners, not winners.
Different spelling.

#5

That’s very unfortunate. No reverse engineering? That makes me laugh. So, they came up with the idea of a dual rail bender that looks like everyone else’s all on their own?
I remember the old HP stuff. The printers were the gold standard. I used to run lab equipment (flow cytometers) on Motorola chipped HPs back in the 80’s. Good stuff. Though they were eventually replaced with Macs.
Then again, I remember using 8 inch floppy discs…

-Brian

#6
Brian Donovan said:
<Big Snip. Then again, I remember using 8 inch floppy discs....

-Brian


Lord, we are old, aren’t we? :stuck_out_tongue: I remember using a slide rule!

#7

Brian, I had an HP 9825, and a 9836, and the 9836 did have 8" floppies and ran the UCSD p-system. I worked in the plotter division, and everything was top quality, all boards gold plated. It was a great time.

Regards, Greg

(and I used a slide rule in college too… the first calculator I had was almost the size of a loaf of bread and had to be plugged in).

#8

Greg, give it a break.

#9

Tell that to Lewis, I’m not spreading disinformation. (and that is a polite term)

I think it hurts the hobby, and definitely hurts newcomers who WANT to believe the head of a company.

Greg

#10

Coming home to roost, Tom.

You thought he could do this stuff forever without it finally catching up to him?

#11
Tom Ruby said:
Greg, give it a break.
Tom. Why should Greg give it a break?

As to “All of our work is done in house here and is not a purchased makeshift implementation from another field. It’s true R&D and allows us to make it industrial strength. Who else gives you the range length and glitch free sureness of signal?”

Although he has tried to rewrite history a few times, Mr Plok actually copied the whole idea of battery R/C from somewhere else in the first place. Me. Right after he saw what a big hit LS R/C would be after kindly arranging for his (then) Eurpean distributor to show RCS for me at the 1992 Nuremberg Toy Fair. The TE did not appear on the market until 1995.

For your information. Whilst it is true the early RCS TX handpieces certainly were adapted from another field, the currrent TX-24 was developed specifically for the LS Trains market for RCS and is NOT offered by ELSEMA to anyone else.

#12

I still have a couple of 8" floppies and my original bamboo slide rule.

#13

I know I have not been here long…I have been into “G” for quite some time but know of no one else personally who is. So no doubt I will be tossed on the burning pile of “sinners” for what I am about to say…

I know I have very little REA/Aristo. What I do have runs very well. I like their gondolas and two-bay covered hoppers. I hate thier trucks and couplers (I replace them with USA trucks/San-Val wheels). I know Aristo has been in R/C for a very long time with aircraft, going back decades. If I recall correctly they came out with one of the first fully synthesized R/C aircraft transmitters.

I know that Mr. Polk has done considerably more for the hobby than just about anyone else (Tony and Barry are not to be forgotten). So I respectfully ask, what in particular is it that you do not like about the product being offered now? What evidence is there that this product has been “stolen” or “copied” from other sources as many here seem to be implying?

I know I asked several suppliers of train R/C for their opinion of what to start with and why, Aristo was the only one to respond. I have been in R/C for 20+ years I have never used it for trains. I was thinking I’d give it a go but can find little to help me choose a system. I finally experimented with my own and made one using a Futaba 2-channel surface trans/rcvr, a Black and Decker 18v batt pack, and a castle creations speed controller.

I wish there was an unbiased source for the “newbie”.

As far as “thievery” is concerned…Why do my USA wood side box cars look just like my LGB wood box cars? Why do the trucks on my LGB SF caboose look identical to the ones on my Bachmann passenger cars?

#14

Mark.
With respect, if you had been a fly on the wall at the end of the 1992 Nuremberg Toy Fair you too would have had the privilege of overhearing what Mr Polk said to me when I went to collect my R/C system after he had arranged to have it demonstrated at that Fair by his European agents.

To put it politely, I was made an offer to produce it for me in Korea. An offer that I could not accept.
Three years later the TE first appeared on the market.
I understand the way business operates, and that was my choice.

Now I acknowledge AristoCraft have been in R/C for a long time, mainly as the agent in the USA for Hi-Tec. But, to have a specialist system just for Large Scale Trains had not occurred to him. If it had, why would Mr Polk have made me an offer to produce my design in Korea?

I am not complaining about Mr Polk copying my original idea per se. What I cannot stomach is the attempt at rewriting the history of proprietary R/C for Large Scale Trains, to help him promote his business.

#15

Nobody said it was “copied” or “stolen”.
Rather, Master Plok claimed they did not back-engineer anything “We do not reverse engineer anyone”.

However, he “borrowed” someone else’s gear, then made certain comments when said gear was not provided to him.

What IS funny is not only the operating protocol, but the copying of names.
Our higher-end is and has been for 12 years or more “Elite”.
So, guess what his power supply is called?

Everytime someone does something it gets copied.
I set him up years ago, by printing that my battery guy said he would bypass NiMH and wait for Lithiums.
That is true, he said that, but I wasn’t going to have anything to do with Lithiums until they get them sorted.
I went with NiMH, just didn’t say that.

Guess who came out with Lithiums?

And now is coming out with NiMH?

The list goes on.
And on.

#16

…and is also going back to NiCd as well.

#17

The history of Aristocraft in the model train field begins long before Large-scale. With all due respect to Nat Polk, a fine gentleman, their history is well documented by the members of the TCA. The business model from the very beginning was to “knock off” popular products and produce them in the far east. Don’t mean to imply that this is the current policy, but there have been precedents.

#18
TonyWalsham said:
Mark. With respect...
I do not doubt you mean it. I value your opinion as you "have a horse in the race". Your opinion comes from someone who makes a solid contribution to the hobby in general, and R/C in particular.

My angst comes from the lot of an “outsider”. I am involved in a few hobbies where opinions run strong, but for some reason trains seem to invoke more powerful passions. It seems with trains the simple statement of preference can instantly cast you as the “enemy”. The constant reference by some to anyone who expresses an appreciation for Aristo as “drinking the Kool-Aid” is somewhat insulting. Makes it hard for someone from outside to separate “fact” from “opinion”.

For the record, I like much from many manufacturers…bit of a train whore I guess. With the “death” of Lionel, then LGB I am now leaning towards USA. USA seems to be widely accepted. Are USA trains easily modified for R/C applications?

#19

Lionel died? Did I miss something

#20

Lionel has “died” and reinvented itself many times over…I was referring to their now deceased “Large Scale” line. A very toy-like series but I liked it’s simple charm. Lionel the company is still very much “alive”.