Piko BR 80 questions

Portsladepete

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Just surprised myself by winning one of the above on evil bay, much more difficult to get information on specific locos, or indeed anything G scale, compared to 00 for instance. Anything basic seems to quickly change into more complex but unrelated to the original question, not sure why there aren’t “normal” reviews. The ones on here appear to have expired links etc.
Anyway it is what is, I have read that my old Aristocraft controller with pwc may not be suitable, Piko state that it must be “pure” dc, never knew electricity could be judged morally! If anyone can put my mind at rest, that would be great
Any owner that has an up to date link for a normal out of the box review, could you point me in the right direction please.
I was in two minds regarding this purchase, but LGB are out of my price league now, except for the Stainz, I got this for what I consider a reasonable price, in today’s market, it is not out of a set, but has no smoke or sound and is analogre.

Cheers
 

ebay mike

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Just surprised myself by winning one of the above on evil bay, much more difficult to get information on specific locos, or indeed anything G scale, compared to 00 for instance. Anything basic seems to quickly change into more complex but unrelated to the original question, not sure why there aren’t “normal” reviews. The ones on here appear to have expired links etc.
Anyway it is what is, I have read that my old Aristocraft controller with pwc may not be suitable, Piko state that it must be “pure” dc, never knew electricity could be judged morally! If anyone can put my mind at rest, that would be great
Any owner that has an up to date link for a normal out of the box review, could you point me in the right direction please.
I was in two minds regarding this purchase, but LGB are out of my price league now, except for the Stainz, I got this for what I consider a reasonable price, in today’s market, it is not out of a set, but has no smoke or sound and is analogre.

Cheers
Can't help with a review but I bought the set with two ore cars a few years ago. Despite being a little basic I quite liked the loco and went on to buy four more plus one of the US style jobs. I've run mine with the PIKO controller, the LGB starter set and even an old H&M Duette without problems. I am considering popping decoders in and adding the LGB 65000 sound unit to a couple of them for my wartime rail gun train.
 

Rhinochugger

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Probably need to get Greg Elmassian in on this one, as I'm not sure whether PWM will harm morally upright and pure DC - not sure why it should :think::think:
 

Portsladepete

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Probably need to get Greg Elmassian in on this one, as I'm not sure whether PWM will harm morally upright and pure DC - not sure why it should :think::think:
Do you know why G scale doesn’t feature reviews like OO? Not sure if it is lack of sales in comparison to other scales, or a more sinister reasons, dc purity being just one.
 

Rhinochugger

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Do you know why G scale doesn’t feature reviews like OO? Not sure if it is lack of sales in comparison to other scales, or a more sinister reasons, dc purity being just one.
I don't think it's anything sinister - I would guess the most likely reason is that our sector of the hobby is fairly low numbers.

Quite a few people have done reviews of locos on this forum, but I don't remember the Piko BR80 being 'done'.

Might be worth a search to see what other people have said.

From memory, the early ones had dummy motion, and the newer ones have full working motion - however, I don't think the drive mechanism was changed between the two versions.
 

Portsladepete

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Can't help with a review but I bought the set with two ore cars a few years ago. Despite being a little basic I quite liked the loco and went on to buy four more plus one of the US style jobs. I've run mine with the PIKO controller, the LGB starter set and even an old H&M Duette without problems. I am considering popping decoders in and adding the LGB 65000 sound unit to a couple of them for my wartime rail gun train.
I have the Piko start set controller, another escapee from eBay at a daft price, I find it to be be a tad underpowered even with my Stainz. I’ve also got an old H&M, even that moves the Stainz faster. Can’t imagine how big the railgun is, got any pictures?
 

LGB-Sid

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I was going to bid on that one, if you won it in the last couple of Hours :) just for its motor block but decided I already have one so didn't, mine was chipped when I bought it, with smoke and sound so I am probably not a lot of help to you
 

PhilP

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Do you know why G scale doesn’t feature reviews like OO? Not sure if it is lack of sales in comparison to other scales, or a more sinister reasons, dc purity being just one.

Our DC purity is threatened.. We no-longer have the Good Friar to look after it's purity, and keep us on the right road .. ;):giggle::giggle:

All the larger scales are a niche compared to OO / HO.. 'We' are an even smaller niche being (whatever) G-scale is considered to be..
Plastic 'toy' European trains? - Who wants a review of them? - Too big for narrow-gauge, not big enough for standard-gauge.. Not very British either!

Now, something in 0-gauge, in a suitable shade of green (or BR blue, for the whipper-snappers) is just about reviewable..

:rolleyes:;):D:D
 

ped

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Hi Pete, I have a BR80 that has had a sound & smoke unit added, I do not understand electrics much, All I can say is i run mine with an LGB 1amp controller & also with a Gaugemaster 10LGB controller and have had no problems
 

Portsladepete

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I was going to bid on that one, if you won it in the last couple of Hours :) just for its motor block but decided I already have one so didn't, mine was chipped when I bought it, with smoke and sound so I am probably not a lot of help to you
Well, my gratitude is boundless Sid:), I think it was a reasonable price, but it is all a bit of a mystery on eBay to me, some items that are theoretically not expensive, go for daft money, others, don’t. I was last involved in G scale around 20 years ago, until HM customs got greedy, it was not that expensive to buy from Trainworld in the USA, now even they are eye watering. Mind you, OO has increased far beyond inflation, before Covid, so not sure what the explanation is.
 

Portsladepete

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Our DC purity is threatened.. We no-longer have the Good Friar to look after it's purity, and keep us on the right road .. ;):giggle::giggle:

All the larger scales are a niche compared to OO / HO.. 'We' are an even smaller niche being (whatever) G-scale is considered to be..
Plastic 'toy' European trains? - Who wants a review of them? - Too big for narrow-gauge, not big enough for standard-gauge.. Not very British either!

Now, something in 0-gauge, in a suitable shade of green (or BR blue, for the whipper-snappers) is just about reviewable..

:rolleyes:;):D:D
The reviewing fraternity don’t need anything popular, I am going to review it, that way, I’ll be able to argue with myself, I am determined to win this time.:mad: