Have you looked at the Trainworld priced for the Bachmann Climax lately? The price is coming down, even for the sound equipped one. If the same thing happens with the Piko Camelback, I just might have to find an excuse for one on my railroad. Whether its blue or not.
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Vic Smith said:
I’ll bet they all sell but if I can get one fer cheap…I’d buy it …paint is cheap.Vic
Cheap and DCC sound-decoder, sure sounds like an oxymoron. (
would that be a moron that hyperventilated and got too much oxygen?
Well I’ve been down that topic already. Sadly they will only make things these days will all the electro-goodies because it cost more to have two assembly lines…one being for non-DCC. So everything will get that stuff from now on. I’ve always said I would gut the DCC/Sound and sell it to offset the initial costs.
I believe it’s their policy to have DCC in all locos from now on. I have heard that from the Piko people at shows.
I think they really want sound in all locos, and the incremental cost of a DCC decoder over sound only is really small nowadays.
(I mean quality sound, not $50 sound).
Greg
If PIKO try to force consumers to accept mandatory fully DCC/Sound equipped locos they will end up exactly like LGB did when they tried the same thing, and why MTH could never get properly off the ground.
Ken Bianco said:
Hey Guys,
Piko sent me a sample of the new PIKO #38241 CNJ 2-6-0 Camelback Loco “Blue Comet” & Tender With DCC And Sound. It may not be prototypical but it’s awesome! Really love the blue.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.974863572529455.1073741870.413396772009474&type=1
Been on Facebook since 2009 and hadn’t thought to see if Trainworld had a page. Been doing business on and off with them since the 1980s when I lived in Virginia.
Not much help to Piko or Trainworld for me to say if I had the money I’d do such and such; but, if I had the money, I think I’d take them up on one - and as usual, tinker with the paint - would look good with boiler jacketing something somewhere in the range of gunmetal to metallic grey; cab roof between drip rails oxide red & I’d paint car roofs silver-grey patterned after a common European livery I like.
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
The other day I read a very good quip on a local Blog referring to one specific personality - with a fair bit of notoriety to her name - as “AK is like rust, never sleeps” to which I could have added “Yeah, very corrosive in conjunction with oxygen”.
Just came to mind reading this thread.
A lot of stuff with quite a bit of rust on it.
Yes , it’s mostly word for word with the LGB arguments here a few years back . And I even recognise the same people making the same comments , me and Hans included .
I comment because , like all fair minded people I like to see balance in an argument , and not one sided
semi sarcastic unproductive waffle .
Go ahead , put many would-be buyers off , destroy the American market , and then come back here whining about lack of choice , lack of models altogether .
Kamikaze modellers .
Mike
Tony Walsham said:
If PIKO try to force consumers to accept mandatory fully DCC/Sound equipped locos they will end up exactly like LGB did when they tried the same thing, and why MTH could never get properly off the ground.
Tony,
How could you mention that? Tsk, tsk, tsk. That borders on blasphemy.
I’m not familiar with the timeline at MTH, but followed the LGB Nürnberg Saga rather closely. I’m still amused by how little “broad minded people” seem to grasp when new items receive a “less than flattering” reception based on their visual merits.
Always reminds me of the “What do you get when a committee designs a horse? A camel!” quip. 
Unlike when LGB tried to force that then newfangled MTS witchcraft on everyone, today I don’t think anyone seams to care. The trains can be run non DCC and it seams that today more people WANT all the electronic gobbledygook pre- installed and bare bones guys like me are the dinosaur.
What I have never fathomed is how adding a $2 circuit board doubles the bloody asking price.
The circuit board might cost $2 but not the components on it.
In the volumes we see, I would guess the microprocessor used is probably about $7-10 or so, and you have flash, dram, etc.
My guess is the decoder board in large scales has a manufacturing cost of about $10 - $15 for something simple like a Revo… that should add (rule of thumb for mfg cost is 5x) about $50 to $70 to the loco.
Greg
Vic Smith said:
Unlike when LGB tried to force that then newfangled MTS witchcraft on everyone, today I don’t think anyone seams to care. The trains can be run non DCC and it seams that today more people WANT all the electronic gobbledygook pre- installed and bare bones guys like me are the dinosaur.
What I have never fathomed is how adding a $2 circuit board doubles the bloody asking price.
Vic your comment about the $2 circuit board has a lot of truth in it . It happens pretty well anywhere that sells factory made goods ; prime examples are found in the car industry . Want a DVD player in the car ?.
Fine sir , that will be 5 times the cost of your domestic one----yet all the fixtures and fitting are there already .
Want a sump protector on you cross country Jeep sir ? That will be a sheet of bent steel at about the price of a washing machine . The fixing holes are already there , all we do is bolt it on .
Mike
Vic Smith said:
Unlike when LGB tried to force that then newfangled MTS witchcraft on everyone, today I don’t think anyone seams to care. The trains can be run non DCC and it seams that today more people WANT all the electronic gobbledygook pre- installed and bare bones guys like me are the dinosaur.
What I have never fathomed is how adding a $2 circuit board doubles the bloody asking price.
Vic,
PIKO’s DCC stuff is OEMed by Massoth, so when you “toss” that stuff there should be enough prospective buyers.
Yeah, the “MTS witchcraft” was really something, it was so “exclusive” I had a good chuckle when I read the manual when I was in the “decision mode” for a system.
Dumbed down DCC was the closest fitting description, but even that was “just wonderful” for certain people.
I run DC, so I don’t need all the wiz bangs. I do want sound, but the cost of aftermarket sound is kind of prohibitive. I like the digital sound in my MTS equipped Mogul, but the wiz bang decoder does drive me buggy sometimes. You see, even on DC it has momentum, and so does my Train Engineer, so coupling and building trains with the Mogul is a bit of a challenge.
I am also in the camp of I would like a “bare bones” locomotives, since I am paying for wiz bangs I am not using. But Piko does have Moguls and the 0-6-0 without decoders in them. Maybe, just maybe, they will do a small run of that Camel Back without decoders too. And maybe I am just dreaming.
Hans, yes the MTS system kind of locks folks into just that system. Proprietary systems do not make sense to me, because most people like to have a mix of equipment. So having a control system, or couplers, or whatever, that will not play nice with other products, kind of limits your market share and market acceptance.
Greg Elmassian said:
The circuit board might cost $2 but not the components on it.
In the volumes we see, I would guess the microprocessor used is probably about $7-10 or so, and you have flash, dram, etc.
My guess is the decoder board in large scales has a manufacturing cost of about $10 - $15 for something simple like a Revo… that should add (rule of thumb for mfg cost is 5x) about $50 to $70 to the loco.
Greg
Yet they somehow figure that adding a $70 board now means a once $120 MSRP loco is now worth asking $345 MSRP, almost 3X the original price (using my old favorite example LGBs Porter). Piko’s Mogul non-sound/DCC had a street price of about $199, yet today’s version is $350 almost across the board, yet the only difference is the electronics, whats worse is that the camelback is $100 over that, I’m sure the Blue version will be about the same. But not having a basic option though really irks me off to no end.
Is it possible to get someone with experience of industrial costing into this discussion ?
Mike
Vic Smith said:
Greg Elmassian said:
The circuit board might cost $2 but not the components on it.
In the volumes we see, I would guess the microprocessor used is probably about $7-10 or so, and you have flash, dram, etc.
My guess is the decoder board in large scales has a manufacturing cost of about $10 - $15 for something simple like a Revo… that should add (rule of thumb for mfg cost is 5x) about $50 to $70 to the loco.
Greg
Yet they somehow figure that adding a $70 board now means a once $120 MSRP loco is now worth asking $345 MSRP, almost 3X the original price (using my old favorite example LGBs Porter). Piko’s Mogul non-sound/DCC had a street price of about $199, yet today’s version is $350 almost across the board, yet the only difference is the electronics, whats worse is that the camelback is $100 over that, I’m sure the Blue version will be about the same. But not having a basic option though really irks me off to no end.
Vic
you double the price of that board, add it to the old MSRP and there you are. Eons ago when I first arrived in Canada and was working at Black and Decker, I had a confidential source who had access to the cost and the wholesale price. My popping eyes almost pushed the glasses off my nose when I heard the details. Same deal on the life expectancy. Real eye openers and that was long before the Great Greed Wave arrived. (http://rhb-grischun.ca/phpBB3/images/smilies/3.gif)
Mike Morgan said:
Is it possible to get someone with experience of industrial costing into this discussion ?
Mike
Mike, Hans and Vic. In the copier world, the usual is to charge customers 3.5 times what the part cost the company. So if my company buys a part for $10, we charge the customer $35 for it. If the part cost 50 cents we charge $5 for it, since that is the lowest price we charge for anything. I earn a bit less then $19 an hour, but the customer is charged $135 an hour for my on site time. Overhead they say. Well, yes, I sure that those guys in the front office are paid a lot of money, judging from what they drive.
Years ago, I was talking with a manager at a local computer store. He was telling me what the mark up was on computers in his store. We were at an establishment that served adult beverages, and he was very well lubricated. Depending on the make and model, the mark up was 5 times the wholesale price or more. Now this was many years ago, many years, so I do not know what it is now, what with internet competition.
That being said. None of my LGB Porters have MTS, and so they were affordable. I have lost count of how many I have. I found another one today that I didn’t know I had, behind some old passenger car shells. If Piko would do a run of locomotives without all the “stuff” and list them for a reasonable price, they would sell. They did make, as I said before, the Mogul and 0-6-0 in non DCC versions. Knowing that, I wonder if in a year or so, if we will see non DCC Camel Backs come to market.
Cale, I have run a string of MDC and Piko boxcars behind my LGB Mogul, and it looks nice. It almost makes the Mogul look like a standard gauge locomotive that way.
Vic Smith said:
Unlike when LGB tried to force that then newfangled MTS witchcraft on everyone, today I don’t think anyone seams to care. The trains can be run non DCC and it seams that today more people WANT all the electronic gobbledygook pre- installed and bare bones guys like me are the dinosaur.
What I have never fathomed is how adding a $2 circuit board doubles the bloody asking price.
Fear not, Vic, you’re not alone. I run battery power, exclusively. I use Del Tapparro’s systems. But when it comes to sound I like simple. Since Del’s systems don’t seem to be compatible with some of LGB’s simple sound boards, I had to find a steam sound board that would work properly.
My solution was to purchase an HO gondola with steam sound. It’s about as simple as you can get. The HO model has two wipers that make contact with a brass strip on the axle. The power for the circuit board is a nine volt battery. When I installed the board and speaker in my battery trailing car, I used a reed switch and two 1/8" magnets glued to an axle. Now the sound matches the speed of the locomotive.
Mike, I have manufacturing experience, but do not know the microprocessor they are using, nor the bit rate or memory size, so difficult to make the real assessment.
If someone takes some high resolution pictures of both sides of the decoder, I can have my hardware engineers see if they can identify the processor and tally up the cost of the components.
Then, we have to estimate the volumes of production, etc.
Greg
Dan, Small Scale Railway used to make HO sound boards, they even had a whistle and bell that would randomly kick in. But they quit making boards a while back. I want a bit more then just chuff on my locomotives.