I have just received the Piko 96619 set of five Zugkraft Aargau coaches (limited edition, only available in Switzerland).

The coaches are beautifully decorated and have multiple lighting features, with a decoder in the control car.

However, the couplers do not lock. They are a two pole conductive type (Piko part number 56047). They mate nicely and conduct the electricity well, but pull apart. I have Marklin single pole conductive couplers (72025) that I could use (the coaches have the standard NEM pocket), but two poles are needed. The reason is that Piko chose to have a pickup shoe on the control car, plus a wiper on two axles to provide the ground return, but the other coaches do not have ground return axle wipers.

No doubt there are other two pole couplers around, but they are very expensive, especially when one has to fit five coaches.

Any thoughts on how to make the existing Piko couplers work ?

regards to all
Norm in Oz

I have done further experiments. I found that if I briskly slam the coaches together, they will latch. But not very reliably, coaches tend to sometimes separate when trundling around the layout.

Also, Piko have supplied the coaches with the Piko conductive coupler fitted, but of course the loco end of the train, the coach that is supposed to couple to the loco has a standard non conductive loop coupler (what Marklin call the relex coupler) on one end, the other end has the Piko coupler. So that the loco coupler will not short out the electrics.

However ................... one would expect only one of these "different" coaches, but actually two of the five are like that, so one can only use four of the five coaches together.

Solution: I consulted my spare parts box and found I have plenty of the Marklin 219446/219447 two pole conductive couplers, so I will fit those to the Piko coaches.

Disappointed that I have had to modify a newly received model.

Norm

Too often we are finding that new items are being delivered and do not work as they should. Manufacturers are clearly not testing their product properly and maybe we should start complaing more.
However my view remains that these are cheaply made plastic toys and whu ile they may look good they should be useable without the buyer having to modify.

Thanks guys for the comments. I will answer each in turn:

PeFu: I did try that YouTube clip. The autotranslate was not terribly helpful, much of it gobbledegook, but it does not address the problem, in fact it gives the impression that the reviewer is in love with the couplers and can see no wrong.

David: They might be "plastic toys" but cheap they are not. The whole set was almost $1000 AUD

mvd71: spare couplers would not be any use. It is not that the ones I have are faulty, it is just a lousy design that is dodgy and unreliable. So more of them I do not want ! I am in the process of converting the coaches to Marklin two pole conductive couplers, it is a fiddly job but will hopefully solve the problem

regards to all

Norm.

David, I have been saying this for years, especially Marklin products. They simply don't thoroughly test the products. This was seen with their steam loco 37017. It has only 2 main wheels on each side and when it reaches an incline the back wheel lifts off the tracks and the loco stops. I returned the loco to Marklin with a video showing the problem, however they ignored me and simply return the loco. If you look at some of Marklin promotion videos they show you the test track area and ALL the track is on a flat, level surface with very few curves. Therefore the test process does not reflect our actual layouts. As we say hear down under, "You've got Buckley's of trying to tell the Germans".

I don't have the ZKA Set. I have the Goldenpass Set, which is 5 coaches (no pilot coach). I have the Piko current conducting couplers between coaches. Each coach has its own axle contacts, so a single wire is all that is needed to power the coaches. The set comes with normal couplings for the first and last coach to connect to a locomotive.
Based on what I found here: https://www.moba-forum.c...bb-ew-i-zugkraft-aargau/
The pilot coach has a slider and decoder that controls functions for the pilot coach only. The rest of the consist has OEM lighting, but is supplied by a slider on one of the coaches. Power is transmitted between coaches by 2 pole current conducting couplers. The set comes with normal couplers to connect with the locomotive and pilot coach. Connecting the pilot coach with current conducting couplers could lead to a short of the decoder. The way to remedy this would be to remove the AC slider from the coach that is so equipped and to power the train from the pilot coach instead. I do not know enough about the Piko decoder, but you may be able to connect the coupler to the lighting output of the decoder to control the interior lights of the entire consist. Before doing so, I would follow the instructions below to get more info from the Swiss distributor.

I would recommend that you contact Arwico (service(at)arwico.ch), the Swiss distributor who commissioned the ZKA Sets. They might be able to assist you with your problem.
The only issue that I have had with the Piko couplings is that I had two NPZ coaches outfitted with lighting by a well known Swiss dealer but cannot use one of the coaches with my RBe 540/BDt set because the wires to the lighting interfere with the couplers and cause a derailment. At some point, I will open the coach and try to reduce the stress on the wire so that the coupling mechanism can once again freely move.

Piko Germany might be able to help regarding the couplers, but the models were commissioned for Arwico, so they should be the go-to for questions.
https://arwico.ch/de/cms...s/service/servicestellen

Regards

Mike C

One interesting detail about the set. The control car has a function decoder. I tried it on my ESU Lokprogrammer, it said it is not an ESU decoder, and gave the manufacturers code as " 85 " which is Uhlenbrock. But the surprising thing was that it auto registered on my Ecos, so it must have Railcom plus. Very convenient.

Norm

The saga continues .........

I should say that my problems with the Piko coupler are probably due to the many gradient changes on my layout. The Piko couplers have no protection against even very small variations in height, similar to the way that the KD type knuckle couplers are . I can successfully run items with the KD type but the Piko couplers are much more touchy.

Anyway I tried the Marklin 219446/219447 two pole conductive couplers. These are like a two pole plug and socket, and require a bit of effort to couple up. I found that they are too rigid, causing a following coach to twist on curves and derail. Also they hit the buffers on curves.

So next try was the new 72025 conductive close coupler, released by Marklin to conform with NEM buffer heights. Of course only single pole so I had to fit an axle wiper strip to each coach to provide the return path.

This works well, except that if the couplers are pushed fully home in the NEM coupler pocket, the coaches are too close and the pretend concertina passageways between the coaches foul each other on curves. So I extended the couplers out from the pockets by about 1 mm.

The other advantage of the 72025 coupler is that it couples and uncouples easily, unlike the original Marklin conductive close couplers.

Norm