I would like to say that IMHO IM has hit a real homerun with their AC-12. It was 23 months ago that I reserved it and finally picked it up yesterday at Mike Fifer's. Thanks MIke and Robin for the hospitality and for putting up with the two kids. The AC-12 ran flawlessly right out of the box and will crawl in either direction. Intermountain :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:. Now, how about turning it around and add a skyline casing to make an exceptional AC-9 ? BTW, the detail rivals any brass version. It just begs for some weathering. That and the tsunami are next, maybe by weekend.
You need some dirt on that loco. As far as detail, it surpasses all three of my brass ACs. The only details they missed were the exhaust splitter and the blowdown spreaders. They even molded the lagging on the steam piping. An outstanding product by IM. Now when is the second run with more road numbers going to be out?
I've said it many times and it certainly has earned me saying it more. This steamer is the most beautifully detailed N Scale item yet!! :thumbs_up::thumbs_up: I've posted them several times already so I'll just link them on this thread: My 4 IM Cab Forward shots.
Thank you so much for sharing your "evaluation" of this steamer. My very next move on the Internet this AM is to locate an online vendor who still has one in stock!
Yep, they are beautifully detailed, but I have two that have issues serious enough that they are going to have to go back to IM for repair. One makes an intermittent noise like a dragging driver when running in reverse only. The other just threw a main rod. The left-front main rod disconnected at the piston rod end. Not sure how it came off the rivet since the pin is still there. Both were lubed before doing any running.
Oops! That must hurt like crazy! Maybe I will wait until a few more reports come to the surface! Thank you, Jim, for your honest statements.
Oh my gosh! This is disappointing mainly from the standpoint that some may have problems and some may not! Perhaps the next run [release] of these will address the issues found in the first release. I am truly spoiled because I have two perfectly running and DCC equipped Heritage 2-8-8-2's as well as several Kato Mike's. Perhaps I will just wait a bit longer before jumping aboard.
The overall quality on these units seems to be pretty good so being 0 for 2 is disappointing. Giving a lifetime warranty on the AC-12 seems to indicate IM has confidence in their product. There does not seem to be a flood of adverse reports on these so I am hopeful that it is not a systemic design problem. That said, the connecting rod disconnected from the piston end rivet while running in reverse, but I have no way of knowing if it is related to the noise I hear in the second unit. The first unit seemed to be running normally prior to the rod becoming unlinked. Both units have less than 15 minutes runtime at slow-medium speed. When running the second unit on the track, I watched carefully with my Optivisor to make sure the pilot was not dragging on the track. It was not. While trying to diagnose the noise, I ran the unit upside down in a cradle on my workbench. The unit seemed to run smoothly and quietly forward and reverse and I did not find anything that explained the noise. I did notice that a couple of the eccentric cranks were misaligned causing the eccentric rod to travel much farther than it should. I am not sure if the units came out of the box this way or if they moved while being run the first few minutes.This shows itself as the reverse rocking link moving around pretty wildly when it should just rock a little back and forth as the driver turns. It was an easy fix to turn the eccentric crank slightly to the proper position. Here is a diagram that illustrates the parts involved: Steam Locomotive Walschaert Gear Diagram I sent off an email to the IM Service Department. I will see what they tell me. It will probably just be "Send them in".
There's always going to be a few lemons no matter what fixes are issued or who produces something. As far as the IM AC-12, they've been out for a few weeks now and this is the first I've read of such an issue. I'd buy several more in an instant if I had the funds.
I've got two with a couple hours run time each, and haven't had any problems yet. I guess with such a complicated mechanism, some problems are bound to crop up.
I have a mea culpa to announce regarding my AC-12 that was making a dragging noise in reverse... I had failed to notice at first that the tender, pony truck, and trailing truck wheels are different sizes! When I reinstalled them, I got the trailing truck set (28") in the pony truck (33") paired with a tender axle (36"). Oops. This caused the pony truck to not set flush on the rails and caused it to drag when running in reverse. Not surprisingly it also caused the pony truck to sometimes derail at switches. A lesson from which others might benefit. Apologies to the list and to Intermountain.
I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to report this. Good to hear! I have one of these and I have been very pleased with it so far. Once I get the decoder installation down well I will post something about how I did it, unless someone else posts a better idea first (I am sure someone has a better idea).
