@ChiTown Steve posted:This is where ebay needs a block seller feature.
They do, or at least did, have as I used it. I also note that the sellers' names are no longer showing in the search results. Only after one clicks on the individual listing.
Looks like a Menard Talking Billy Bass
@027runner posted:Woo hoo! Just picked it up. And no I’m not a collector or a reseller. Just a happy Train grandpa!
Looking forward to your thoughts.!!!!
Another reseller has posted another eye opening price for these blue bonnets. Glad I got a hold of the warbonet dummy A unit.
My sister was able to get me the Beta 4.0 set and shipped it to me. I have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed with the train. Upon putting the set on the tracks and applying power the non-powered unit began emitting smoke. This was caused by an incorrect capacitor used in the unit's lighting wiring burning up. The powered unit started up as soon as power was applied to the tracks and the engine sounds began. When I turned on the hand held remote all the sounds stopped. The engine did run in both forward and reverse but no sounds at all. That scenario was repeated several times with the same results. I am not sure who I should contact about this but I feel that Menards is not going to stand behind these Beta units. An email was sent out by Menards to those who had purchased the sets with the non-powered units that failed. They offered 3 suggestions: 1. Continue to run the non-powered unit without the lights, 2. Remove the pickup rollers from the non-powered unit and return them to Menards for a free freight car, 3. Sell the units on Ebay for a $100 to $200 profit. I have to say that this experience has somewhat soured me to purchasing any more Menards model train products.
@Allegheny48 posted:My sister was able to get me the Beta 4.0 set and shipped it to me. I have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed with the train. Upon putting the set on the tracks and applying power the non-powered unit began emitting smoke. This was caused by an incorrect capacitor used in the unit's lighting wiring burning up. The powered unit started up as soon as power was applied to the tracks and the engine sounds began. When I turned on the hand held remote all the sounds stopped. The engine did run in both forward and reverse but no sounds at all. That scenario was repeated several times with the same results. I am not sure who I should contact about this but I feel that Menards is not going to stand behind these Beta units. An email was sent out by Menards to those who had purchased the sets with the non-powered units that failed. They offered 3 suggestions: 1. Continue to run the non-powered unit without the lights, 2. Remove the pickup rollers from the non-powered unit and return them to Menards for a free freight car, 3. Sell the units on Ebay for a $100 to $200 profit. I have to say that this experience has somewhat soured me to purchasing any more Menards model train products.
I don't have these but is there a volume control on the remote? Could the volume be set to minimum and that is why the loco goes silent when you turn it on? Also you can open up the unpowered unit and remove the bad capacitor. It is not needed for the lights.
@iguanaman3 posted:I don't have these but is there a volume control on the remote? Could the volume be set to minimum and that is why the loco goes silent when you turn it on? Also you can open up the unpowered unit and remove the bad capacitor. It is not needed for the lights.
I do plan on replacing the blown capacitor with the correct one. Thanks so much for the information on the volume control. Will give that a try. That also brings up another gripe I have with Menards and the set. No instructions were included. Granted it's a pretty simple operation but how much more would a printed sheet of instructions have cost?
@Allegheny48 posted:I do plan on replacing the blown capacitor with the correct one. Thanks so much for the information on the volume control. Will give that a try. That also brings up another gripe I have with Menards and the set. No instructions were included. Granted it's a pretty simple operation but how much more would a printed sheet of instructions have cost?
Truthfully, you need at least a diode and a cap since the function of the cap was to provide filtered power for the LED's. A NP cap across AC will not do that, even though it wouldn't blow up.
Maybe I missed something, but isn't this a "Beta" product, which is strictly an opportunity for purchasers to test a product under real life conditions to uncover any bugs or issues before a general release and is not a product release to the general public with warranties against defects ?
The objective of "Beta" testing is to uncover as many bugs or usability issues as possible and anyone who purchases a "Beta" product should know that and certainly runs and accepts the risk of something going wrong.
This thread had all the modification information for the dummy.
https://ogrforum.com/...fe-dummy-unit-review
Either:
1) Remove the existing capacitor. Lighting will still work, but flicker on motion
-OR-
2) Add diode and rewire existing capacitor (or new one if original has exploded). See instructions in thread. Lighting will be a bit brighter and will not flicker.
@Richie C. posted:Maybe I missed something, but isn't this a "Beta" product, which is strictly an opportunity for purchasers to test a product under real life conditions to uncover any bugs or issues before a general release and is not a product release to the general public with warranties against defects ?
The objective of "Beta" testing is to uncover as many bugs or usability issues as possible and anyone who purchases a "Beta" product should know that and certainly runs and accepts the risk of something going wrong.
Please! Having components popping and melting down minutes after putting it on the track is not BETA product, it's early development! That should have been discovered far before any BETA product shipped! I've made lots of beta products, and none of them exploded when the customer received them and attempted to use them!
Let's not overdramatize this. A cap popped because the wrong one was installed at the factory. It is easily rectified by cutting it out and taping the wire ends.
Trying to define what should have been done correctly before Beta testing makes no sense, since that's the whole purpose of Beta testing.
If you want to be a Beta tester, you pay your money and you take your chances - period.
It's not the wrong cap, it's the wrong circuit design. Replacing the cap with a NP cap won't do anything for the lighting, the cap is doing nothing but killing the DCS signal on the tracks if you happen to be running DCS. An NP cap would provide no benefit running with AC track power, that's what 98% of the 3-rail community uses!
It's clear that whoever made the decision of how the lighting was to be wired had no idea what they were doing! Go ahead and make excuses for them all you like, that abortion was something that should have never escaped the factory.
@Richie C. posted:A cap popped because the wrong one was installed at the factory.
No. That wasn't the problem.
The cap that was installed was not wired into the lighting circuitry. It was inexplicably wired only to the center rail (pickup roller) and the outside rails (via the wheel axle). It had no purpose even had it not been an electrolytic.
This didn't need to be beta tested to realize the level of stupidity at so many levels.
1) From the designers/factory perspective, you just needed to look at the schematic to see that the capacitor served no purpose.
2) From the designers/factory perspective, knowing this item was designed to function on an 18 VAC track, it would be obvious to a tech with a rudimentary education that the (useless) electrolytic capacitor would explode.
3) From the QA/Testers/factory perspective, a simple factory test of the first article item would reveal the car would smoke and capacitor explode.
4) From Menards perspective, a simple test of one unit received from the overseas factory should have revealed smoke coming out of the dummy unit. Thus, as a clear safety hazard, Menards should have not have sold these units to the consumer regardless of the "Beta" branding.
All the above has nothing to do with the purpose of a beta test. As a minimum, it just represents incompetence and negl...... at so many levels.
Attachments
Not making excuses - just pointing out that the expectations of someone purchasing a product as a Beta tester, by definition, have to be lower and riskier than someone buying a publicly released product under warranty and when someone says they'll never buy a product again from so and so because their Beta product was defective, I find that logic faulty and disingenuous, at best.
I think the more fundamental issue is the process of charging people for the product to be Beta tested. I'm not a fan. Far better to have selected a few hard-core and knowledgeable enthusiasts to test the product and report back to the manufacturer for corrective action until they get it right, than to involve and charge the public.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Please! Having components popping and melting down minutes after putting it on the track is not BETA product, it's early development! That should have been discovered far before any BETA product shipped! I've made lots of beta products, and none of them exploded when the customer received them and attempted to use them!
Well, other than the ones who were a pain or who were slow to pay....*evil grin*
@Richie C. posted:I think the more fundamental issue is the process of charging people for the product to be Beta tested. I'm not a fan. Far better to have selected a few hard-core and knowledgeable enthusiasts to test the product and report back to the manufacturer for corrective action until they get it right, than to involve and charge the public.
This I can agree with. I've been a beta tester for a number of products, and I never paid for the privilege. If I have to shell out money, I expect the product to not blow up when I apply power. 
BTW, the products I beta tested typically worked very well, though I usually found one or two "nits" that needed to be addressed. None of them went up in smoke!
@Richie C. posted:Not making excuses - just pointing out that the expectations of someone purchasing a product as a Beta tester, by definition, have to be lower and riskier than someone buying a publicly released product under warranty and when someone says they'll never buy a product again from so and so because their Beta product was defective, I find that logic faulty and disingenuous, at best.
I think the more fundamental issue is the process of charging people for the product to be Beta tested. I'm not a fan. Far better to have selected a few hard-core and knowledgeable enthusiasts to test the product and report back to the manufacturer for corrective action until they get it right, than to involve and charge the public.
Now, that makes sense!
As someone who does QA for a living and is well aware of what Beta designation means, what Menards shipped in general would not be considered a beta unit. I can only speculate on why this got through, I don't know if it was the relatively unskilled labor who put the cap in or if someone in the factory decided it needed a cap there. If someone designed it this way, they should be fired, the stupidity of putting a cap like that across 18 volts would fail even a basic design review (which tells me, not surprisingly, they aren't doing design review. In real world coding , lot of the time other software engineers review other people's code to look for gotchas, long before it ever even hits testing).
If someone changed the design, let's say at the factory, then that raises other red flags, design changes are supposed to be reviewed and approved.
Beta units are not untested, Beta units mean internal testing has been done and any open issues are such that they feel they can live with them, that may or may not be fixed for the final prod run. Something this stupid should have been picked up by a QC person, this is not some subtle thing, this was gross.
Basically what the Menards units seem to be is they make them, then let people buy them and do the testing for them (kind of reminds me of Tom Sawyer with the fence). This is akin to giving out a beta version that crashes on any machine that tries to install it, it means there was no testing (in software development, in formal software testing, you get a build that crashes on startup, you rip the development team a new one, means they never ever checked the build). Beta means advanced testing, about ready to enter the market. I wouldn't even call it an alpha (which generally is given to a small group of trusted users, Beta is a much larger group).
I also find it appalling that Menard's would tell a customer with a defective product that if they aren't happy, sell it on ebay for more than they paid for it, that is quite honestly bush league.
And yes, Beta products are designed as a final level of testing, but the reason you do a beta is to find issues that in house testing isn't likely to find. For example, let's say the Beta unit won't work if someone has DCS on the same track or because of some transformer that Menards internal test would not have. This happens all the time with software, you find things related to a specific setup/OS, things like network firewalls, other apps on the machine interfering, and even customers way of using it (hitting the enter vs return key is a common one that screws up). Things like an operating system beta (like Windows) will go through many beta versions because of the size of the user base. On the other hand, given the relative lack of complexity of an engine like this, the number of betas we have had means they are charging customers to do their entire testing for them, that isn't a beta, that is using customer for primary testing. People expect Betas to work reasonably well and not have sloppy gotchas.
Obviously, people's expectations vary, and of course people have every right to buy the units, and if you are willing to deal with the headaches, that is fine. As someone pointed out, normally you don't pay for beta units, and Menards would have been better served, as someone else said, having people who signed up for the beta , they get the engines, test them, and then are expected to return them (in exchange for maybe being able to buy the full production version at a steep discount). Among other things, charging for the beta unit makes me think Menards is putting these out there as potential collectors items (Hey, folks, get your beta, sure to be a collectors item) rather than as a straight beta unit to assess operation.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:This I can agree with. I've been a beta tester for a number of products, and I never paid for the privilege. If I have to shell out money, I expect the product to not blow up when I apply power.
BTW, the products I beta tested typically worked very well, though I usually found one or two "nits" that needed to be addressed. None of them went up in smoke!
Hopefully, it wasn't for Takata airbags ! 
Apparently Menards would disagree with the minority assumption that agreeing to "buy" a Beta item means they should then absolve themselves from any obligation whatsoever to the customer since they have made good on defective (completely non-functional) "beta" engines for several customers including myself in the past.
Moreover they are making good on the smoking dummy units in question containing an amateurish design error that could in no reasonable way be misconstrued as part of a Beta test.
Thankfully the company does not share that minority assumption. That is why they are a really good company IMO.
John
Since it’s obvious that Menards has no engineering department maybe they should abandon the hopes of entering the building of engines and just stay with the terrific buildings and traditional rolling stock that are having huge success with in today’s market.
@romiller49 posted:Since it’s obvious that Menards he’s no engineering department ..........................................
Not sure how they came up with the designs for the engines. Left it up to the plant where they are produced maybe? Good question to ponder.
John
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Please! Having components popping and melting down minutes after putting it on the track is not BETA product, it's early development! That should have been discovered far before any BETA product shipped! I've made lots of beta products, andnone of them exploded when the customer received them and attempted to use them!
Given your line of work - that's a very good thing! 
I thought this horse was beat to death weeks ago
@Dave Nichols posted:I thought this horse was beat to death weeks ago
It was. and it was locked.
But here we are again.
🥱
@Dave Nichols posted:I thought this horse was beat to death weeks ago
Yes it was but @Allegheny48, who apparently never saw that previous warning thread, just discovered his train was smoking. Even if this thread is closed, there will be someone else who eventually pops up with a real smoking Menards engine and requests help.
@jhz563 posted:Given your line of work - that's a very good thing!
Well, when I was doing my real job, aircraft fuel systems, anything smoking or blowing up would have been more than a little inconvenience! The most sterling example of an aircraft fuel system explosion is TWA Flight 800, I am glad that I was not involved in that particular fuel system design! 
Of course, even the beta testing in that environment has some rigorous testing before it flies. In addition, on many of the test flights, I was in the airplane, making it more imperative that there was no explosion! 
Odd how few are mentioning , the powered units seem to run fine. that this is all about a bad component in a dummy unit, a unit that really doesnt need to even be lit. There were no fires , nothing exploded, the world didnt come to an end , but the witch hunt , and Menard's bashing continues!
@GG1 4877 posted:My Beta 1 unit won't have much of any value after I am done modifying it.
Jonathan,
Would you mind sharing the mod with us when you are done? I, for one, would truly appreciate it.
John 
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Of course, even the beta testing in that environment has some rigorous testing before it flies. In addition, on many of the test flights, I was in the airplane, making it more imperative that there was no explosion!
There was that little issue in the recent past. Where the autopilot was crashing planes with the pilot at the controls. But, that's for another forum.
@RickO posted:There was that little issue in the recent past. Where the autopilot was crashing planes with the pilot at the controls. But, that's for another forum.
I only did one autopilot, for the Boeing 727, and that one never crashed a plane. Besides, it was the FMS that was doing the damage for the 737 MAX. 
@Craftech posted:Jonathan,
Would you mind sharing the mod with us when you are done? I, for one, would truly appreciate it.
John
Hi John,
Right now this is a "get around to it" project for my Beta1 and Beta4 units, but I just really like the look of the locomotives for what I paid for them. The rest is almost sacrificial. My mods are mainly going to be focused on creating a fictional more accurate version of what the ATSF would have done if they had purchased FP9s in lieu of steam generator equipped GP7s and GP9s. My goals are these:
- Add the post 1955 grab bars up the side of nose on the engineer's side of the locomotive and add the roof mounted grab bars.
- Drill holes for the red LEDs currently in the number boards and place them in the correct position above the number board.
- Potentially light the number boards with new LEDs, but not a priority.
- Paint the chassis and truck frames matte silver.
- Mask-off and paint the appropriate body panels with either a simulated stainless paint or gloss silver. I need to see what is available.
- Since I will be painting over the incorrect 7" high Santa Fe lettering, I will decal the units with more appropriate 5" lettering.
- Internally, if I can get the units to behave, I won't do much. However, if I can get them to look the way I envision them I may go for ERR boards and use the current internals for something else. I haven't done my homework on that yet. I would be happy with conventional AC operation as well.
- Put the diode in the correct place in the non-powered unit now that I have 100 of them
- Last, but not least perhaps add some decal rivets to the pilot for a more prototypical appearance.
The train I am looking to recreate with these fantasy units is ATSF trains 42 and 47 that ran from Ash Fork to Phoenix. It ran with an AB F7 but also in the later years was pulled by a steam generator equipped GP9. It also is just a nice small size train to run as it rarely ran more than 5 cars. By the 60's it was down to 3.
A total diversion from the current trend of this thread, but I purchased these beta units in the spirit they were offered with and look at them as starting points for something better. I could be delusional on that, but I have always like the FP variant of the F unit in general and this was an economical way to get there. If I screw them out I'm not out the price of the Sunset FP7s I have.
You mean these:
PICTURES REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT VIOLATION!
Don't do it again!
John
@Craftech posted:You mean these
John
Not the specific locomotive numbers, but rather the train numbers. Train 42 and 47 were the trains that picked up cars off the ATSF transcontinental route at Ash Fork and got transferred to a more local train for the trek from Northern AZ down to the deserts of Phoenix on what is locally known as the "Peavine" for due to its less than straight route through several mountain ranges. The only major stop on the route was Prescott, AZ the former territorial capital of the state, but that was discontinued in 1959 when a more direct route was built that bypassed Prescott. ATSF trains 42 and 47 ran up until June of 1969.
ATSF locomotive sets 42 and 46 were part of the large fleet of passenger F7s the ATSF used in service across the entire system up and into the Amtrak era. Locomotives in this series were originally delivered as four units sets all numbered alike with a L, A, B, C configuration. In short the lead A unit was **L, the boosters **A & B, and the trailing A units **C. ATSF also ordered passenger F7s in the 300 series but they were delivered in A-B-B configurations.
@Craftech posted:PICTURES REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT VIOLATION!
Don't do it again!
John
Sorry about that. Wasn't thinking.
John
@Bruce Brown posted:Yes it was but @Allegheny48, who apparently never saw that previous warning thread, just discovered his train was smoking. Even if this thread is closed, there will be someone else who eventually pops up with a real smoking Menards engine and requests help.
Bashing anyone isn't the issue, many customers won't know anything about toy recalls because the manufacturer doesn’t know who purchased the items. There was just a segment on this mornings news about all the recalled toys that are still out there.
Last week one was about all the autos being sold without the manufaturer safety recalls being done because there is no law forcing them to be done. And the auto industry has a much better chance of knowing who has, or had, a specific make and model.
Looking forward to Menards finally releasing their ready for prime time version of this loco!
