Kato Mikado

[Dwight in Toronto]

For years, I had been hearing how Kato had hit a home run with their durable, reliable and well-running Mikado.

I found one at a train show this weekend, new-in-box, never run.  Vendor was asking $110, but took $90 (Cdn).  The model came with a baggie of small parts and add-on handrails for extra detail, with a dummy coupler up front and Kato coupler on the tender, so from Spookshow, I peg this as a 2001 release:




My intention is to equip the model with ESU Loksound DCC down the road, but just gave it a test run on a short length of DC track.  Throttled up to half speed over a 4’ run, then repeated in reverse.  After only 3’, the loco died.  No motion, no headlight, no hum.  Beats me. 

Off to the workbench, I guess (and it sounds like these are a bit of a challenge to take apart).
Being Kato, I had no qualms whatsoever that this would be a great runner, but, big disappointment so far.

[jargonlet]

I hate to hear that. I have 2 and both have issues. Like yours, I had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t run well. On one of mine, the motor overheats really bad and the other one seems to loose power to the motor intermittently. Maybe one day I’ll get around to fixing them. Good luck with yours.

[randgust]

It's been years since I had to tear apart my L1 conversion.  Other than the fact that the traction tires dried out and shattered needing a difficult replacement, it's been pretty much flawless.   The one 'original sin' on the Mike was the need of a traction tire axle on the rear #4 driver set.  Put that on and it's a champ.

Found a diagram....  https://hoseeker.net/katoN/katoN282mikadopg1.jpg

If I remember right, there are brass contacts on the motor brushes hitting the split frame, more like a diesel design.    I think I'd suspect that.

And yes, particularly if you have one of those heavy L1 boilers, and a traction tire, you can actually get one noticeably warm.  Mine is still the 'single locomotive' champ for pulling power, steam or diesel, but I keep an eye on it.

I'd start with getting the shell off and hot wiring to the frame halves, then seeing if you can get prods to the motor.  I'll bet it those contacts.

[Dwight in Toronto]

Thanks for the help guys.  I’ll report back once I start poking, prodding and investigating.
In the meantime, any and all additional insight/suggestions would be welcomed.

[peteski]

This loco has the usual Kato simple and reliable design and precision construction.

Loco  has a split-frame design (like a typical Diesel) with the motor contacts directly touching the frame. All the drivers pickup power connecting the frame halves through the axles and bearings (so it should run even with the tender disconnected).

Tender picks up power through all wheels using the axle cone pickups  and flat springy contacts (like Kato passenger cars).  So all wheels except for the leading ant trailing trucks in the model pick up power.

The motor is again, a standard Kato motor with a flywheel.  Since no  headlight is lit I think the motor is ok.  Are you sure you had the throttle polarity in the forward direction for the headlight to be lit?

If it is dead (no headlight and no motor) then obviously there is a pickup problem.

If this model sat in the box for over 20 years I  suspect that there is an oxidation problem. Wheel  treads, contact points on the springy pickups and contact points on the frames, or anywhere else two metal conducting areas are in contact.

Earlier examples of this model had somewhat unreliable driver electrical design (they used metal disc behind the driver wheels to connect the metal tire with the axle. Later releases had solid metal wheels with plastic spoke inserts. But the loco should still run even with just the tender powering it.

Like others mentioned, I would take the loco's shell off and use a fresh 9V battery touching the frame halves to see if the headlight and motor come to live.

[altohorn25]

I start by cleaning the wheels if it's been sitting in the box for 20 years.  Most likely oxidation on the wheels.

[u18b]

I start by cleaning the wheels if it's been sitting in the box for 20 years.  Most likely oxidation on the wheels.

And the pickup cones in the truck frames.

[wm3798]

I did a DCC install in one of these many years ago, and it's not for the feint of heart.  Mostly trying to isolate the motor without disrupting the precision of its mount and position.



Big pain in the butt.  Tracing wires between the engine and tender was awkward given the multi-part shell...  great for detailing, not so great for ease of reassembly over new wires.
But given your penchant for reviving old warriors, I'm confident the project is in good hands.

Lee

[Dwight in Toronto]

SO much good feedback guys … thank you all very much.

I’m anxious to dive into this Mikado.  But, as luck would have it, I now have a Kato E8 that stopped dead on its tracks for no apparent reason, so that has taken priority.  All sounds and LED’s are functional, just no motion. 

I’ve stripped it down to all its individual parts for a good cleaning.  The ESU 58741 decoder checked out flawlessly on ESU’s decoder tester, and the Kato motor operates fine on DC.  I guess I’ll put it back together and see what happens.  Then I can tackle the Mikado.

[peteski]

The weird thing about your recent problems is that those are only very basic electrical connections inside the model. 2-contact points between metal parts. No wires or solder joints to worry about.

[jdcolombo]

I have half a dozen Kato Mikes, all of which run flawlessly.  As others have indicated, I suspect your problems are all oxidation related; and if the motor hasn't run in 20 years, hook it up to a 9-v source and let it run for a half hour to clean the commutator and burnish the brushes.

I have done sound conversions on all these locos using Loksound micros (V4's back in the day, but I recently used a V5 on a conversion I did for a friend) with a TCS KA-1 keep alive  and an 11x15 speaker mounted transversely in the tender.  Doing a sound conversion on these isn't easy, but honestly the hardest part is disassembling the shell.  Take a look at the following thread to see how the shell is about 9 separate pieces, all of which you have to take off the frame to do the conversion efficiently.  https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44020.0  Once you have the shell off, the rest of the process is actually pretty easy, and the key is to use ESU's 32-gauge decoder wire for the motor, and 38-gauge magnet wire to feed the headlight.  The headlight should be a LED on a small circuit board; you'll need to cut the traces and feed that board directly, and I replace Kato's yellow-ish LED with a warm white one while I'm doing this.  Then route the wires under the weight and out the very top edge of the boiler shell by cutting a very small "half-moon" exit hole at the very top edge of the shell.  This will keep the wires from contacting the flywheel, and this exit hole is going to be covered by the cab anyway.  Then route the wires down the back of the boiler, along the floor of the cab (small pieces of black electrical tape are useful here) and into the bottom of the tender.  Everything else goes in the tender, and since the tender already has an electrical connection via the drawbar to the boiler frame, just use the copper strips inside the tender for electrical pickup for the decoder.  Kato's electrical pickup on these (except for the very early run noted by one of the posts above) is basically foolproof.  Don't try to improve it.

This sounds intimidating, but really the hardest part by far is dis-assembling the darn shell!

John C.

[jdcolombo]

FWIW, here's a photo of the sound install in the tender of one of my Kato Mikes:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Dwight in Toronto]

@jdcolombo  - thank you very much for taking the time to share all that Mikado experience. Tremendous help, and great confidence-booster.

Truth be told, I really don’t have much trepidation in tackling this project.  Some time ago, I put an ESU 58731 sound decoder into my old Kato GS-4.  This included rebuilding the Kato light-board with dual 0402 LED’s (as per Kelley Duford’s approach), retrofitting updated drivers, and putting a rear LED in the tender.  I think it was good training for what’s to come with the Mike.  In fact, if it will fit in the tender, I think I will again use a 58731.

Side note - With the GS-4, I’m especially pleased with some custom flowcharting that I implemented in LokProgrammer.  This is a scheme whereby every push of the Headlight button cycles through a lighting sequence … lower lamp on, then upper lamp on, then upper lamp in Mars mode, then back to only lower lamp on, and finally all lights off.  It’s a pretty cool operating feature, if I do say so myself.  I’ve also used it for the over/under headlights on that Kato E8 that I mentioned earlier.  Apologies … I digress.

Hoping to dive into the Mikado this weekend.

[Dwight in Toronto]

I spent some time with the Mikado today.

Managed to remove the tender and all the shell components.  With the loco upside down in a foam cradle, I connected alligator clips from my DC throttle to the two brass wires on the draw bar.  Applying voltage, the motor came to life, the wheels commenced turning, and the headlight came on. 

After 60 seconds or so, the tiny pin that holds the 3 rods to the 3rd driver on the fireman’s side popped out, jamming the mechanism.  Spent some time figuring out the quartering, and eventually resumed operation.  So, at least it’s alive.

Also, there’s plenty of room for an ESU 58731 in the tender, so I’ll order one of those, along with a speaker.  While I await delivery, I’ll just let it run in the cradle from time to time over the next few days, as a break-in exercise. 

I have to say, I am a bit concerned at how easily that tiny driver-retaining pin fell out.  Anybody else experience this? Any suggestions on how to better secure these things? 

Thanks again for all the help; much appreciated.

[mmagliaro]

My initial "go to" attempt on a loose driver pin like that is to use the point of a toothpick to stuff some Walthers Goo into the hole.  Wait a few minutes, and the put everything back together.  Not putting it on the pin avoids the inevitable risk that some will get smeared onto the outer surface of the hole or onto the backs of the rods, and then you have to pick at it with fine tweezers to get rid of it.  Waiting a few minutes also helps avoid that since the Goo will be less fluid.  What you're doing it making the pin mechanically tighter by filling in the hole with some "stuff", rather than trying to glue it in there.

There isn't a lot of stress on N Scale crank pins like this, so you just need something to keep it from gradually working its way out.  Goo sticks well to almost anything, but it will still be possible to pry the pin out if you ever need to.

I have used various adhesives like Loctite or ACC on things like this, and I always regret it later.  Try the Goo first.