My Bad Experience with ME Models Curves

[storms26]

About four days ago, my order of a full loop of R104 and R88 curves arrived, and I couldn't be any happier. I had already torn the track off of my layout in advance for their arrival. I built them all in one night, and the building process was not too fun. It started out with it bring nice until I got a full piece of track together and pieces started to pop off. That issue alone extended the build time by about an hour or so. I had finally gotten them all built, and they were ready to be installed. The next day, I place them on the layout, and they start to pop again and again until I had to rebuild about half of the curves until they were all together. I took a step back and I was finally glad my track was complete. I quickly set up a train for both the inner track and outer track, my custom ten-wheeler with eight cars and my Daylight with four. I set them both at a speed that wasn't too slow nor was it too fast. They were fine until it got all the way around the layout, where the tracks started to break randomly. I fixed it in hope that it wouldn't happen again. Then another piece broke, then another, then it just got worse. I had gotten to the ninth time of the track disassembling itself, and my Daylight came around the corner at a fast speed and track let loose and the engine, tender, and two cars came barreling off of the layout, leaving me with a bucket of parts to end the night with. Today, I had everything put back together, including the track, and was ready to run everything once again. The track continued to break and kept sounding like the pieces weren't all connected, to I had assembled the track using a rubber mallet to secure them. It got to the point where an entire quarter of the layout would shift and be destroyed as the train went over the curves, and that's where I had enough of it and quit instantly. My question is, what is the purpose of making the curves have to be assembled instead of being one solid piece? I get it there are some cool ideas using them out there but if Lego makes it one piece, it should be logical to use the same good idea and make the custom rails one piece. I am EXTREMELY displeased with the quality of the curves and I feel like I didn't get what I paid for, after seeing such positive reviews on them. I almost resorted to breaking the cardinal rule of Lego and gluing them, but I feel that I would regret it. If anyone has a fix to any of these issues, please, please, please tell me about it so that I can run a train without it crashing.

 

(Sorry for such a long rant)

[asleepatheswitch]

Lego track was one piece, but the dies to mold track that way were very expensive in addition expensive fixtures were required to attach the metal rails.  The volume of sales was not sufficient to justify replacing the fixtures when they wore out.  Thus the ABS plastic track.  The ME track must be glued together and it will be fine!  There is to much weight and force pushing on the outside curve for it to  remain intact.  there is a tutorial on how to glue the track sections together on Flicker Lego trains, Tom Paul, (aka Asleepatheswitch).  I also have found that Oatley all purpose cement that plumbers use works great.  Be sure and get the one that lists ABS.  You can get at Ace Hardware.  Use a small artists brush to apply the glue.  Give it time to set up.  Patience, it will work great!

[Duq]

I've used a full loop of R88 in my layout. While I agree the track pieces are a bit fragile I don't recognise the problem of track popping out once it's put down. I've built this layout for two shows and on both occasion I've reliably run trains for two full days. The only tip I can give you is to swap rails around between sections; use an inner rail with a different outer rail if the first combination didn't work.

My only problem with ME Models is communication. At times it can take weeks to get a reply from them. I have placed and paid an order for the new metal curves. It's now day 46 since payment and I haven't got a shipping confirmation, nevermind a tracking number or a box of track.

[pirzyk]

You can't break the cardinal rule of gluing LEGO since these aren't LEGO bricks.  I have glued all my ME bricks together and then ballasted with LEGO bricks, which aren't glued.  I am planning on replacing my R104s with BrickTrack ones when they are available.

[legoman666]

Glue it. 

[Jeffinslaw]

1 hour ago, legoman666 said:

Glue it. 

This.

My girlfriend and I spent a good solid week gluing 180 sections of track. WELL WORTH IT. This stuff is solid and doesn't break apart, rather "explode" when you touch it. Take your time and glue it. ME Models does plan on doing solid pieces for their plastic track eventually.

-Jeffinslaw

[storms26]

Thank you all for the replies.

I guess I will go ahead and glue them all, but coincidentally, the closest Ace to me was permantly shut down...  better try Wal-Mart ;)

It will probably take me around a week and a half since I have a busy April ahead of me so I'll try to keep this post updated when finished.

[coaster]

I will be releasing solid R104s and R120s soon.  Tooling is in process, first samples due in about a month.  Sit tight.

[Cwetqo]

I glued them too (only brick related stuff I glued so far).

[zephyr1934]

14 hours ago, storms26 said:

...Today, I had everything put back together, including the track, and was ready to run everything once again. The track continued to break and kept sounding like the pieces weren't all connected, to I had assembled the track using a rubber mallet to secure them. It got to the point where an entire quarter of the layout would shift and be destroyed as the train went over the curves, and that's where I had enough of it and quit instantly. ...

While I found the ME rails to be testy like that, for me they would mostly stay together when left in place. I think part of the problem is that there simply is not enough clutch, so whacking with a mallet shouldn't help the problem (albeit a good way to vent). As others have said, glue is the way to go.

I think your experience is a little extreme though, one thing you definitely need to check is to make sure you have the inside and outside rails in the right spot. It is a pain to find the "I" or the "O" on the underside of the rail, but if you get one reversed (as I've done) or you get two of the same on one rail, it will definitely explode. Even glue won't solve this problem.

Meanwhile, I had always wondered why lego went from multi-piece 4.5v to a one piece 9v track. Then ME showed me why. Too much force from the trains on the curves will eventually pull the rail off the ties.

 

 

10 hours ago, Jeffinslaw said:

This.

My girlfriend and I spent a good solid week gluing 180 sections of track. WELL WORTH IT. This stuff is solid and doesn't break apart, rather "explode" when you touch it. Take your time and glue it. ME Models does plan on doing solid pieces for their plastic track eventually.

-Jeffinslaw

That gal is a keeper

 

10 hours ago, storms26 said:

Thank you all for the replies.

I guess I will go ahead and glue them all, but coincidentally, the closest Ace to me was permantly shut down...  better try Wal-Mart ;)

It will probably take me around a week and a half since I have a busy April ahead of me so I'll try to keep this post updated when finished.

Hobby stores are probably the best bet. If you don't have any in town search the web, particularly on-line hobby stores. I think I used MEK (I can dig up the exact name if it helps). The stuff I used you do not need a brush, it wicks in between the cracks in the bricks. But you do need an applicator bottle.

[3797]

18 hours ago, coaster said:

I will be releasing solid R104s and R120s soon.  Tooling is in process, first samples due in about a month.  Sit tight.

Not sure why they seem to keep ignoring you. For me it's either your tracks and switches or nothing.

[coaster]

3 hours ago, 3797 said:

Not sure why they seem to keep ignoring you. For me it's either your tracks and switches or nothing.

Thanks!  I figure once I start getting product in the field, they'll come around.  :)

[ALCO]

15 hours ago, 3797 said:

Not sure why they seem to keep ignoring you. For me it's either your tracks and switches or nothing.

I feel the same way. Standard Lego brand or BrickTrax. Coaster, I like how your rails look like the standard Lego rails too. ME rails looks too much like the old 12v era rails yet, with the new connectors. Weird. 

[Ludo]

Hi Coaster,

is there a website available for BrickTrax?

Can't find a valid site for BrickTrax.

are there pictures available for your kind of track?

Thanks,

Ludo

 

[3797]

53 minutes ago, Ludo said:

Hi Coaster,

is there a website available for BrickTrax?

Can't find a valid site for BrickTrax.

are there pictures available for your kind of track?

Thanks,

Ludo

Hi Ludo, 

 

coaser doesn't seem to have a site just yet, but here are a few links for you.

 

The original thread:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/105999-custom-9v-tracks/

 

The more up to date one(s):

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/140877-bricktracks-different-curves-pf9v-compatible/

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/147246-bricktracks-double-crossover/#comment-2755980

 

There are quite a few pictures of 3D printed prototypes in there but coaster said that the goal is to get them molded properly. He also said that he would put a logo on each stud so that they look more like real LEGO and don't stick out as much. What we've seen so far looks very promising, imo.

 

[cptkent]

Glue it.

Its taking me ages to do, as I've ordered a fair bit. Some parts need a light sanding as well as the tolerances are too tight.

I am also taking the metal rails out, and installing some pre-curved ones. Having straight rails in a curved track seems to be asking for trouble long term.

eventually I'll get the rails I want, even if I have to half build them myself 

 

[coaster]

@Ludo The website will be bricktracks.com.  I've been working on it, but website design isn't my forte, so it's taking me a bit to get going.  It'll be up and running by release though, which I'm targetting June 1st.  Here's some good renders of the tracks:

R104:

 

R120:

We'll match to the dark bley as close as possible.

[zephyr1934]

Wandering back to the OP, I've been thinking more about your experience and I bet the "exploding" track is due to attempting to put two outside rails in one segment and/or two inside rails on another segment. An easy mistake to make. Obviously the outside rails are longer than the inside rails, but at R104 it is only a small difference. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a faint "I" and "O" on the underside of the rails. It would have been nice if the ME rails had a divider on at least one of the rails, right where each tie was supposed to go, but they didn't (well, I think they did for the center tie on the R88, but on the R104 there is an even number of ties so the center does not have a tie. So it is a matter of sliding the ties back and forth until you get a good alignment. I think there was a thread about how to get the spacing correct.

[storms26]

7 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Wandering back to the OP, I've been thinking more about your experience and I bet the "exploding" track is due to attempting to put two outside rails in one segment and/or two inside rails on another segment. An easy mistake to make. Obviously the outside rails are longer than the inside rails, but at R104 it is only a small difference. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a faint "I" and "O" on the underside of the rails. It would have been nice if the ME rails had a divider on at least one of the rails, right where each tie was supposed to go, but they didn't (well, I think they did for the center tie on the R88, but on the R104 there is an even number of ties so the center does not have a tie. So it is a matter of sliding the ties back and forth until you get a good alignment. I think there was a thread about how to get the spacing correct.

When I was building the curves I used a flashlight to make sure that I was building them correctly, so that isn't the issue. I found a photo from Holger that shows how to do the spacing correctly, by placing a 2x8 plate in between the ties.

[Ludo]

23 hours ago, Ludo said:

Hi Coaster,

is there a website available for BrickTrax?

Can't find a valid site for BrickTrax.

are there pictures available for your kind of track?

Thanks,

Ludo

 

Hi 3797 & Coaster,

Thanks for the fast reply.

I still have 2 questions regarding the 9V track.

• Are you using the same kind of 'metal sheet' to make the 9V track like LEGO used to do, or are you using the same principle as ME Models using Code 100 metal track?
• I noticed trough the years 2 weak places on the LEGO 9V track which are the 'finger' connection at the end of the track and the 'jigsaw' track connection. Looking at the renderings i think this will be the same problem.

 some of my track 'finger' connections are bend upwards due to ungentle disassembling the track after a show.

and a few are missing the 1 x 4 'jigsaw' connection at the end of the track. This is a weak point too.

Gently disassembling the costly custom track will be necessary.

Regards,

Ludo

 

[Ludo]

On 24-3-2017 at 11:51 PM, storms26 said:

About four days ago, my order of a full loop of R104 and R88 curves arrived, and I couldn't be any happier. I had already torn the track off of my layout in advance for their arrival. I built them all in one night, and the building process was not too fun. It started out with it bring nice until I got a full piece of track together and pieces started to pop off. That issue alone extended the build time by about an hour or so. I had finally gotten them all built, and they were ready to be installed. The next day, I place them on the layout, and they start to pop again and again until I had to rebuild about half of the curves until they were all together. I took a step back and I was finally glad my track was complete. I quickly set up a train for both the inner track and outer track, my custom ten-wheeler with eight cars and my Daylight with four. I set them both at a speed that wasn't too slow nor was it too fast. They were fine until it got all the way around the layout, where the tracks started to break randomly. I fixed it in hope that it wouldn't happen again. Then another piece broke, then another, then it just got worse. I had gotten to the ninth time of the track disassembling itself, and my Daylight came around the corner at a fast speed and track let loose and the engine, tender, and two cars came barreling off of the layout, leaving me with a bucket of parts to end the night with. Today, I had everything put back together, including the track, and was ready to run everything once again. The track continued to break and kept sounding like the pieces weren't all connected, to I had assembled the track using a rubber mallet to secure them. It got to the point where an entire quarter of the layout would shift and be destroyed as the train went over the curves, and that's where I had enough of it and quit instantly. My question is, what is the purpose of making the curves have to be assembled instead of being one solid piece? I get it there are some cool ideas using them out there but if Lego makes it one piece, it should be logical to use the same good idea and make the custom rails one piece. I am EXTREMELY displeased with the quality of the curves and I feel like I didn't get what I paid for, after seeing such positive reviews on them. I almost resorted to breaking the cardinal rule of Lego and gluing them, but I feel that I would regret it. If anyone has a fix to any of these issues, please, please, please tell me about it so that I can run a train without it crashing.

 

(Sorry for such a long rant)

Hi,

I agree with you that it is a disapointment when your sleepers pop of the track. 

I don't have such track at home, but i know from my childhood (end of the 60's) that the old 4,5V blue rails and the white 2x8 plates did not stuck together.

They disassembled also very easily and was also irritating for a kid. 
I think that Coaster will admit that the aproach from ME has a lot to do with mold cost. 

If you can reuse a single mold for different track pieces (straight & radii in this case the sleepers and connectors), it brings down the initial cost to start up. 

I hope that the different answers here brings up an aceptable solution for you.

Seeing the aproach from Coaster makes the choise wich larger radii i would like to buy even more difficult. 

Not even speaking of the price and the import taxes in Europe.

And even when you have a reseller in Europe, then you have - according to me - high shipping rates if it send as a parcel.

10 to 13 Euro is common for a small parcel coming from abroad. 

[coaster]

@Ludo I'm starting with just all plastic tracks for now.  I definitely want to do 9V in the future, but I need to start somewhere, and since I'm funding this on my own, I can only afford to do so much.  I have a design for the 9V track that uses a special profile to fit into the rails.  It'll be a more heavy-duty design than the 0.2mm stamped rails LEGO used, but still match the outward appearance.  But even if all goes well, we're at least a year off from 9V.

I'd venture to guess ME's decision regarding the design is both tooling and engineering cost.  Tooling is expensive no matter what it looks like, but the fewer tools the better off you are.  I think the bigger issue for ME was the engineering.  Designing the tracks has been extremely time consuming, and if they contracted an engineering firm to do the one piece versions it'd be well over $100k in work.  They probably still spent more they the should have, but their piece-part design could be done in just a few days.  However, they didn't get the dimensions right. 

 

[Ludo]

Thanks Coaster for the fast reply. I wish you and ME all the luck to get this to a happy end for every one.

It's alway a high risk to start something like this.

Hats off and respect for the pioneers.

 

[Duq]

I am done with ME Models. We're at an event this weekend and the R88 loop is working fine. Most sections that were simply bagged after the last event had survived and putting the loop back together didn't take long.

However.

This layout was meant to feature a loop of R72 metal track along the R88's. I placed an order and paid $200+ 75 days ago. After a few friendly messages from Mike they have stopped replying to emails and PMs. I haven't got so much as a tracking number. That's not bad customer service, that's just rude and ignorant.

I'm looking forward to alternative solutions because I will never order from ME Models again.

[Stash2Sixx]

Hope you got your money back Duq!  That is...frustrating, to say the least.