Anyone know the status of this company. I tried ordering a couple of sizes of the Flea a year or so ago, but they couldn’t fill the order because of production problems. Have these problems been solved, are they still in business, is The Flea III a good product?
Walthers shows the Flea II in stock.
I’ve always wondered what the point was. You have to get the turnouts from them, already modified. They cost a lot. I’m not sure what the real benefit is vs more traditional (and non-traditional) methods of moving the points. Sure it’s small, but so are RC servos.
And did I mention expensive? $75 for a #5 Shinohara COde 83 turnout? heir web site still exists but I can’t imaginemany peopel paying that kind of money. Sure it’s a powered turnout with DCC - but adding an RC servo with DCC control AND panel lights AND local pushbuttons costs less than $18 plus the turnout price. At full Walther’s price that’s $27. So $45 vs $75.
Part of the problem is the DCC decoder. The incremental cost of making a device that controls 4 or 8 turnouts is very small, so that a single turnout decoder might be $30, a quad might be only $40, etc.
Since there’s another ongoing “is the hobby too expensive” thread, I’ll say this - yes, if you insist on using things like this instead of putting just the slightest effort into it to hook up the point motor to the throwbar yourself. I just cannot get behind this product, no matter how well it might actually work. It’s just too expensive and too limited - so far they only offer Walthers/SHinohara turnouts, and no other option. If you like Atlas or Micro Engineering you are out of luck.
–Randy
Wrong Flea, that’s the well known power truck, the Cypress Engineering Flea is a turnout motor and DCC decoder integrated into the turnout.
–Randy
I went to their website but couldn’t find any phone number. I sent an email to their sales department. If I get something back I’ll post it here.
There have been at least two threads on topics relating to this subject in the electronics/DCC forum. See http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/167909/1884482.aspx#1884482 and http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/159196/1758151.aspx#1758151. I think there was also another in this forum: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/103563/1203814.aspx#1203814.