I'm hoping this won't, to quote Sir Humphrey Appleby, become a "troublemaker's letterbox" for people to share their issues with individual products. My thinking behind this thread was to provide a place to share news and updates regarding issues about the supply and stock of model railway items - I got the idea from this week's (12.7.2021) edition of Jenny Kirk's Monday Club livestream (regular forum members will know I'm quite the fan of these streams), in which Jenny talks a bit about some issues with various model supplies.
The issues she talks about are as follows - there may be more:
This processor shortage she describes seems to be the biggest issue at the moment. Apparently one DCC decoder manufacturer - which Jenny does not name in the livestream - has already pulled advertisements for its decoders as it fears it won't be able to actually make the products. Jenny works for DCC Concepts and has said that they have bought a big supply of processors (and I assume other relevant parts) so they can continue to produce their decoders.
The processors used in DCC decoders are made in a "couple of plants" in the USA. Jenny also makes the point that DCC controllers would be impacted as well as decoders given they use processors - as does anything which can be given a DCC address.
My thinking with regards to this processor shortage is probably if you desperately need some decoders, or if you think you'll probably need some in the future, then maybe look into getting them now as opposed to waiting - but just be sure to not buy loads as if everyone does that then it'll simply accelerate the inevitable! I'm fairly lucky in that I'm not in a position where I need anything right now which could be affected.
As I said at the start of this post - I thought it might be worth making a sort-of master thread where people can share news and updates on model railway products so that information which may be really useful to some people as a lot of these updates wouldn't necessarily need their own thread. We've already got the Hornby 2021 Range thread, I know, but that's a big topic - "Barry's Models edition of the Class 442 in N gauge has been delayed by three months due to a sneezing fit" is only a big topic to those who've ordered a model and who want to know what's going on with it.
-Peter
The issues she talks about are as follows - there may be more:
- Hornby's price rises - we've already discussed this a bit in the Hornby 2021 Range thread - and the likelihood of other manufacturers doing similar things
- Dapol O gauge Class 122 delays due to the Evergiven container ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal earlier this year (the ship is on its way now, with the models onboard)
- A potential - but likely, it seems, from what she says - processor shortage which could affect the production of DCC decoders
- Rumours (?) that Amazon may have booked all (or a lot of) the containers leaving China in the run-up to Christmas, affecting other manufacturer's ability to get models out of China
This processor shortage she describes seems to be the biggest issue at the moment. Apparently one DCC decoder manufacturer - which Jenny does not name in the livestream - has already pulled advertisements for its decoders as it fears it won't be able to actually make the products. Jenny works for DCC Concepts and has said that they have bought a big supply of processors (and I assume other relevant parts) so they can continue to produce their decoders.
The processors used in DCC decoders are made in a "couple of plants" in the USA. Jenny also makes the point that DCC controllers would be impacted as well as decoders given they use processors - as does anything which can be given a DCC address.
My thinking with regards to this processor shortage is probably if you desperately need some decoders, or if you think you'll probably need some in the future, then maybe look into getting them now as opposed to waiting - but just be sure to not buy loads as if everyone does that then it'll simply accelerate the inevitable! I'm fairly lucky in that I'm not in a position where I need anything right now which could be affected.
As I said at the start of this post - I thought it might be worth making a sort-of master thread where people can share news and updates on model railway products so that information which may be really useful to some people as a lot of these updates wouldn't necessarily need their own thread. We've already got the Hornby 2021 Range thread, I know, but that's a big topic - "Barry's Models edition of the Class 442 in N gauge has been delayed by three months due to a sneezing fit" is only a big topic to those who've ordered a model and who want to know what's going on with it.
-Peter