Hi all,
Man its a busy night for me!
I want to get Rapido undecorated cars and paint them.
Does anyone have them, because I was wondering how easy or difficult they are to dismantle for car for painting.
Also, How happy are you with the LED lights. Are they enough, and bright enough?
Thanks
I have to say that I was not very impressed with the Rapido Cars. The sides of the cars are not attached to the main body of the car, so the car appears to be warped (It isn’t warped, though)
The reason they include 4 marker lights (unpowered) with the car is because you will break 2 of them trying to put them on.
I was extremely dissapointed with the lighting. Here’s why…
The lights are GREEN (!?)
The lights are so bright (not a pretty bright) that they show through the top of the car, because the plastic of the roof is so thin.
The batteries are watch batteries located in the roof. So everytime the batteries run out, you have to pop off the roof, trying not to wreck the beautiful (non-prototypical) paint job, and replace them. If you have experience with Walthers lighting kits, you will know what I am talking about. Once the roof is put back on, it never fits right again, and there is always light showing from between the main body of the car, and the roof.
There is a light at each end of the car, so the lighting is not spaced evenly.
They are good models that need the bugs fixed out on them.
I model the MILW, and I bought the Zumbro River, because the car still exists on the E&LS. I will pass on the rest of the cars, and cancel my reserve orders, because I am not going to pay $59 for a car I am not happy with. I’ll wait until Walthers releases the 1948 Hiawatha in HO in a couple of years.
Phil
Darn, I am sorry to here that.
I was thinking from the new pictures on their website today that the LED’s were spread throughout.
I guess I will stick with the ones from eBay, SMD lighting. They seem to fit the bill pretty well, and are definately not as expensive as (I think) say Brawa.
The guy is very nice too he will replace any led strip if one is bad.
I’m not into passenger cars, but I bought one of the Rapido cars just to have one. I’ve had my roof off and back on, it fits right, no light leaks. I don’t see any other problems and I’ve read many, many posts from modelers praising these models without any of the problems listed. Maybe the problem is your own, and not the models? Looking up at the LED lighting strip, it does appear to be green, but when looking into from a normal viewing angle the car the overall lighting effects to me is a warm yellow glow and not a green glow.
I’d suggest checking out one of these models in person before condemning them. They’re selling out most places pretty quickly.
Appreciate the input, WG. I’m looking at the photos in the Walthers catalog and the Rapidos do look nice. I was thinking of maybe getting one undec car to “freelance it” into the SCL paint scheme.
When you say “warped” do you mean that the car’s sides look like they are bowed inward or outward? Is it a once piece body shell that slides on top of the underbody like a Rivorossi or Athearn passenger car? (One of my Riv
If you go over to the Passenger Car List on Yahoo where the real passenger car guys are you will find all the info you want about the cars including from Jason, the owner of Rapido. Much better info than around here.
He is not alone with the lighting issue, my two cars also have the glow through the roof issue and one of the light boards also came cracked in half and was adivsed by the company to fix the issue myself first before they would send me a new one (at 50-60 a car i don’t think so, you send me a new part). The lights are a tad to green, i like the Kato lights much better.
The only other issues i have are my passenger coach wobbles a tad when rolling even though the wheels checked out fine, and some of the factory applied grabs came bent and needed touch up paint. Over all i am quite pleased with the cars though, they look nice but when in a line up of other cars they don’t look much different other than the window shades.
What I mean by “Appears to be warped” is that the side of the car is not attatched to the side of the car, so the side of the car “floats” on the outside, because it isn’t attached.
Maybe the car not attaching the roof is my problem then… I’ll have to check it out.
Don’t get me wrong–these are good cars, but they do have problems.
Phil
I have 4 of them in CN colours and I don’t have any of those problems. Is it only a problem with the undecorated ones?
I understand now, Phil. Thanks.
One quick solution that may work for the light glow through the roof may be to paint the inside ceiling a flat black. Life Like P2K E-units have a similar problem, with light glowing through the nose around the headlights. One medium coat of flat black on the inside of the nose helps eliminate that problem. Can be done with a paint brush.
It certainly seems like a hassle having to fix up cars and locos after paying a considerable price for them, but in this hobby it often seems the norm. Don’t feel bad, owners of brass locos years back paid hundreds of dollars for their units and in many cases tweaking, fixing, and adjustments were required before they could even pull trains…just like the prototypes.
As mentioned above, it’s a good idea to e-mail the owner of the company with your feedback. Of course, tactfulness and courtesy often fosters good responses.
Back this morning.
Thanks for all the good input. I read a bit more on the lights, and they are supposed to simulate flurescents.
Does they light seem to be well distributed or does it glow brightly at the ends and dim in the middle?
And back to my original question, how easy or difficult is it to dissamble for painting?
I will also try thre yahoo thing.
Thanks
I’ll have to check that out because I was looking forward to receiving mine and was greatly disappointed when they arrived. Being a dealer, all it took was for me to open one up and have it come apart in my hand. I’m certainly not selling these things and having them come back. I sent back 12 cars all in GN. I kept one undec thinking that someone might be able to use it. I took it out of the box the other day and took some pictures of it. It took 10 minutes fiddling with body parts to get it to look good enough for a darn photo. This one’s going back too.
Besides the roof not fitting well, the small side skirt at the ends separates and leaves a gap towards the middle of the car. This picture isn’t too bad, but I can’t imagine the car running around a layout for an hour and still looking the same.
Neutrino,
Thanks for posting that photo. The roof end reminds me of the old Con Cor HO passenger cars. On some of them there would be a tiny gap between the roof and body sidewalls. Overall it seems to be a good looking car.
It seems as if they concentrated on the underbody details (which look great), but didn’t have much regard for the rest of the car. I have heard similar complaints as seen in this thread, elsewhere. Maybe it is just growing pains. It seems that a few manufacturers have been having issues with quality control in recent years. Once they overcome these issues, they will be great cars.
I also hope they plan on releasing something other than Canadian prototypes. For that reason I personally have no use for them.
Rapido has acknoledged that there are some issues out there for some cars. Rough handling in transport has caused most of them. I think that if you contact them you might find all the solutions to your problems. Let’s look at this anonther way. Can you buy another passenger car model with that level of underbody detail, interior and lighting for what you paid?
Also, it is pretty much a one man show, or at least it was when it was started. He models VIA and CN and that is the reason behind the prototypes. He also chose cars for other roadnames that were very close to the CCF cars for modellers willing to overlook those discrepancies like we Canadian modellers have to do 95% the time on the Canadian roadnames offered by all the big name manufacturers
Spoke to my LHS’s manager on the phone recently. He told me that he’s got some cars in stock and customer reaction has been very positive. Also stated that the owner of the company is a modeler like us who really wants to satisfy his customers and appreciates their input. He is a regular on a Yahoo forum.
So it is a good idea to e-mail him feedback. However, since he’s basically a very small operation changes will likely occur over time. Understandably there are going to be some glitches with products hitting the market for the first time. This happened with BLI, Walthers Budd cars, and P2K locos.
Two Ideas for the lights: