David, I believe they DO have a centering device...look closely...and I share your concern about pulling the load.
Will they replace the couplers in the heavyweight passenger cars? Those couple too far apart for my taste, and I always run them together so they would be a good candidate for me to try them.
Guesstimate on price for regular and bulk packs? Will MTL have a height gauge, and other accessories to go with? Shelf or tightlock couplers for the modern modelers?
Based upon photos posted elsewhere, these appear to be a viable solution for the 'blind' end of various Life-Like diesels where a UniMate can't easily be installed. Will they be available factory assembled? Is the brake air hose necessary to hold the pieces of the coupler knuckle together, or can it be left off?
The assembly is really easy. There is almost no need for a factory assembled coupler. As I said earlier, my clumsy 10 year old daughter who wears coke bottle glasses assembled a pair in the beta test (just to show how easy it is). The air hose is separate and mounts to the bottom of the coupler box. It is not needed but looks really goood. If you look at my GP35, you will not see the hose.
You just shifted me from mildly interested to excited. I think the heavyweights are fantastic, but the coupling distance has been a concern. If these prove to be a drop in replacement, then I'll be extremely happy. Joe - how 'bout a test and photo post?
For you guys interested in how the True Scale coupler looks on the heavyweights, here's a comparison shot. It took me all of 3 minutes to change 2 couplers. Just remove the stock coupler by easing it away from the body, press out the plastic pin and press it into the True Scale Coupler. It did take a little extra pressure to get the pin into the TSC box but it works great. I think it looks awesome and really does a nice job of reducing the space between cars.
Ryan, how do they perform going around less than ideal curves? Is there enough coupler swing to keep the cars from derailing?
I Found a picture of an 1:1 scale GP30 taken at almost the same angle as Ryan Wilkerson's picture above -> https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3131/2740362912_28be338115_b.jpg Compare the size of the couplers, are they close or what!
That is a major improvement! I see a bunch of these in my future. Thank you Ryan for the photos. (P.S. 3:31am? Now that's dedication)
I am wondering how these will work to replace the scale dummy couplers on the pilots of Bachmann Spectrum Consolidations. I was working-up to use the Z-scale couplers, and looking at what others had done, but was not happy with the way the coupler box stuck out the front of the pilot. I was getting ready to see how far into the existing model I could install the z scale couplers before the trip pins on the n or z couplers on the car the loco was coupled to would catch on the "cow catcher." I don't actually use the trip pins because I uncouple with picks. Cutting the trip pin off the loco coupler would not be an issue, but cutting them off the whole fleet of cars my locos might couple to was a substantial issue. So, using these True Scale couplers would be an improvement over the de-pinned z couplers, in appearance, at least, without any function loss. IF the pilots can be made to accomodate them. This is an important thing for me, because my plans are to do the vast majority of my switching with 3 of those Connies.
Remember these will not interchange with other couplers (see earlier posts in this thread) so you would have to change out your whole fleet for that to work.
I understand that. My point is that to do what I want to do with the z (or even n) magnetic couplers, I might have to modify the whole fleet, anyway, and end-up with the same level of functionality in the end.
I saw that. But I would not use the True Scale coupler box. I would try to modify the pilot's structure to accept the True Scale coupler and make it function correctly, so in essense, the pilot becomes the box. I was already contemplating doing that with the z coupler to get what I wanted. It looks like assembling a True Scale coupler through the front of the pilot might be a heck of a lot easier than doing that with the spring in the z coupler. But, I need to get my hands on a True Scale coupler to see what I can really do with it.