Bachman EZ mate couplers

[Anonymous]

What do ya'll think of these?

[cacole]

I have them on nearly 100 pieces of rolling stock and have had no problems with them.

[Anonymous]

Don't use them. Use kadees

[Anonymous]

They are compatible with Kadees, basically any kind of knuckle coupler. EZ mates are great, keep using them!

[Anonymous]

Which is the most compatable with all makes of cars and locos? Kadee or Bachman?

[Anonymous]

Answers that question! thanks!

[Anonymous]

Kadee will probably work with anything, but EZ mates are compatible with most cars and locos.

[Anonymous]

I try to avoid using EZ mates - most RTR stock comes with them, so I'm slowly replacing those with Kadees. However, there are certain situations where Kadees seem to be unusable - Athearn's SW7 springs to mind, I've tried both #5s and #58s on these locos and had no success in getting them to self-centre properly, even with plenty of Kadee's "Greas-em". There are cars - Walther's Scale test car is a good example, with the same problem. I also use them on most of my Athearn loco fleet, pending finding the correct drill and tap set to fit Kadees.

I've found EZ mate couplers to be nothing like as bad as some claim. Agreed, they don't look as good as Kadees, and they don't work particularly well with delayed uncoupling (The plastic spring is obviously a bit much for the Kadee magnets to pu***hat far), but otherwise I've found them ok, they mate with Kadees and Proto couplers and will uncouple on Kadee magnets. Interestingly, some RTR cars fitted with them have the couplers mounted a little too high - but when you fit Kadees #5s or #58s, the coupler height is correct - guess they plan for you to fit Kadees eventually!

[CP5415]

The Bachman couplers work great, only for a short period of time until the small piece of plastic they call a "spring" looses it's tension.
As Railroading_Brit stated, slowly replace them with Kadees if you can afford to do this.
They will last a long time unless mistreated.

Gordon

[fec153]

Bachy Mark 2's have a metal return spring. Work great.

[CBQ_Guy]

Sincerely, don't waste your time.

Kadee is the best operating and strongest. These plastic wannabees didn't need to try and re-invent the wheel.

[orsonroy]

Kadee couplers are made of metal, and virtually indestructable. Kadee also makes the largest variety of couplers anywhere, so a Kadee will fit onto any piece of model rolling stock ever made.

Bachmann couplers are made of a pretty soft styrene. They work well enough under typical layout conditions, but that's not saying much considering "typical" is a 4x8 with no grades and 4-8 car trains. ANY of the plastic Kadee knockoffs with the exception on Accumates will break for basically no reason. The nuckles will flex and cause midtrain breaks with relatively little weight behind them, and the ones without nuckle springs are basically worthless.

I've used every sort of coupler available in HO except for the Sergeant proto coupler. I've switched to Kadee 58's as my basic coupler. Accumates work well and don't suffer the same problems as other plastic couplers, but they won't mate to anything else with any regularity. I strongly suggest sticking with Kadees for reliability, ease of installation and maintenance-free operation (I'm using a few cars my father put Kadee #4's on in the mid-1960s!)

[Budliner]

Kadees have a small spring that gets lost easy I lost all mine


buchmanns are so much cheeper

[Anonymous]

I have the vast majority of my rolling stock equipped with Kadees. I have never lost a spring, once the couplers are installed and adjusted. To have lost the small springs, you had to have done something wrong!

[Budliner]

well I did get them on a gently used woodside sothern boxcar
may have been damaged but do thay sell just the springs
and if so some must get lost


B -
:O)

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by deschane

I have the vast majority of my rolling stock equipped with Kadees. I have never lost a spring, once the couplers are installed and adjusted. To have lost the small springs, you had to have done something wrong!

Out of hundreds of HO freight cars in service, a spring has been lost maybe three times in the past dozen years or so.