Kato “Seven Stars In Kyushu” Set

[peteski]

Cleaned the track with varsol/mineral spirits (it wasn’t very dirty).  May have helped to a small degree, but the flickering persists. 

I guess I’ll be adding a bit of weight after all.

The odd thing is that you mentioned  that after cleaning track and wheels the train made few laps flicker-free. That seems to indicate that something insulating was deposited on the track or wheels.

[MK]

Thanks guys. 

I removed the trucks, then the wheels, then the copper bearings/conductors.  Cleaned everything with isopropyl alcohol.  Didn’t see much/anything in the way of residue. 

Put it all back together, and placed the coach back in its place on the tracks.  I was surprised and pleased to see flicker-free lighting for one, then two, then three laps of my 16’ Unitrack test loop.  And then the flickering reappeared.

I’ll next give the track a thorough cleaning.

Dwight, before adding weight, take a look at this video about Kato flickering lights.

I have this EXQUISITE set that I picked up when I was in Japan in October.  AMAZING pearlescent paint job, something you would see on a high end car.  I have not gotten a chance to DCC it or add the lights.  Hopefully this will help you.

[peteski]

Speaking of exquisite Japanese luxury trains and amazing models of them , I have a Tomix Shiki-Shima Train Suite set. It camw with factory-installed car lighting. The out-of-the-box detailed interior was very nice but I added some "peteski touches" to it and DCC of course (no sound).  I'll have to do a write-up one of these days.

[MK]

I would love to see that Peteski!  I imagine it's a hard wired DCC install as my experience with Tomix is that it's not DCC friendly in a sense you can't just drop in a decoder.

[peteski]

I would love to see that Peteski!  I imagine it's a hard wired DCC install as my experience with Tomix is that it's not DCC friendly in a sense you can't just drop in a decoder.

It is, in both, the end units and in the power car.  And you are right - Tomix is not decoder-friendly at all, which means more fun for me. 

[MK]

I did the same last year with a Tomix Mickey Mouse 800 Series Shinkansen.  The irony of it all was I used Kato's FL12 (end units for lights) and EM13 (motor) decoders hardwired into it.  Blashphemy!   

[Dwight in Toronto]

MK - that video was entertaining … and I gotta say, at the 10 minute and 15 minute marks, where he is poking & prodding, and the lights are on/off/on/off, and he’s muttering “I don’t get it” … THAT WAS ME!  Precisely my recent experience. 

Funny enough, where he describes folding over the end of one of the conductive strips, well, I had done that very thing a couple days ago.  When sliding one of the conductors in and out, I couldn’t detect any resistance at the known ‘pinch point’, so I essentially doubled the thickness of the conductor strip by folding the end over on itself by 3/8” or so.  I’ll try doing the same on the other side, and will report back.  This most certainly seems like the most suspicious and trouble-prone point in Kato’s track-powered lighting design.

Peter - the time I observed 3 or 4 laps around the oval without any flickering was immediately after having cleaned the wheels and copper ‘cones’, but I had not yet cleaned the track.

When all is said and done, I’m convinced that there is just no substitute for capacitance on a lighting strip.  A couple years ago I made up my own lighting for my 12-car Kato Morning Daylight set, using a circuit much like the one Peteski has shared here on TRW.  It’s the most solid, reliable, flicker-free string of illuminated passenger coaches in my collection.

That Shiki-Shima Train Suite set is gorgeous - I’ve had my eye on that (and feelers out) for a while; might well be my next acquisition. 

[Dwight in Toronto]

Well, I’ll be darned …. pulled out the other brass conductive strip, folded over the end to double its thickness, then re-seated it back to the pinch-point under the floorboard.

Eureka!  The formerly troublesome coach has been doing endless ovals with nary a single flicker, and with no auxiliary weight.  Even though I had unwittingly stumbled on the same solution a day or two ago, I only tried it with one brass strip.  I had no reason to think that it had actually DONE anything, because the problem remained, and it had yet to occur to me to do the same modification to the other strip. 

Big props to MK and the video he posted above.   Thank you for taking the time to share that. 

TRW - better modelling through peer pressure!

When I finish lighting up the remaining cars, I’ll post a short video clip showing how the DCC/sound features turned out.

[MK]

When I finish lighting up the remaining cars, I’ll post a short video clip showing how the DCC/sound features turned out.

I would love to see that.  Glad you got it working.  I'll have to do that to my Mizukaze Twilight Express set when I get to it.

I need to find another tourist trains set when I get there in June (as a souvenir).  I'm looking for the Kato Saphire Odoriko set as I actually rode in it back in October.

[Dwight in Toronto]

I'll have to do that to my Mizukaze Twilight Express set when I get to it.

Now you’ve got me curious … I’m wondering if the mechanism/frame that drives the Mizukaze set might have the same lightboard as I had to deal with in the Seven Stars?  Ditto for the Shiki-Shima.  Anyone care to remove the loco shells for these and post pics?

[MK]

Now you’ve got me curious … I’m wondering if the mechanism/frame that drives the Mizukaze set might have the same lightboard as I had to deal with in the Seven Stars?  Ditto for the Shiki-Shima.  Anyone care to remove the loco shells for these and post pics?

Dwight, if you rewind a minute or two of the video that I linked you'll see the lightboard inside the Mizukaze.  Kato did something out of the ordinary with this set.  Every car has a lightboard (pipe) built in to the point where the clear plastic lightboard in the lighting kit is not needed.  You just need the LED modules.

Because Kato wanted to do up the interior properly they made custom lightboard for each car to go around any obstacles, etc.

There's an after market company that makes a entire set of interior additions for this set that really blings it out.  Unfortunately it's sold out in Japan at this time but I'm hoping it will be back in stock in late June when I visit.  They specialize in interior upgrades and I'm almost sure they have sets for your Seven Stars and Shiki-Shima.

[peteski]

Now you’ve got me curious … I’m wondering if the mechanism/frame that drives the Mizukaze set might have the same lightboard as I had to deal with in the Seven Stars?  Ditto for the Shiki-Shima.  Anyone care to remove the loco shells for these and post pics?

My Shiki-Shima is Tomix, not Kato (but Kato also makes their version of that train). The motor is in one of the cars, not end unit (similar to how most Shinkansen sets are powered).

[MK]

I've never seen any passenger sets from Tomix or Kato where the motor car is the lead (or end) car.  It's always a 3-decoder setup with the Japanese non-freight sets though there are a few freight exceptions.

[Dwight in Toronto]

Dwight, if you rewind a minute or two of the video that I linked you'll see the lightboard inside the Mizukaze.  Kato did something out of the ordinary with this set.  Every car has a lightboard (pipe) built in to the point where the clear plastic lightboard in the lighting kit is not needed.  You just need the LED modules.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough, and my question was easy to misconstrue.  I was curious about the factory circuit board that picks up track power, enables motor drive, and illuminates the loco LED’s … I see that often referred to as the ‘factory lightboard’.

[MK]

Ah, ok.  Sorry for the misinterpretation.   

I've done quite a few DCC motor conversion (drop-in EM13) for Kato passenger sets and they all have the same mechanism to gets track power to the inside of the car.  Actually there is no circuit board per se.  It's just two power rails, one on each side that are fed by the bogies.  Whether it's the motor car or the end units, there are further power strips that meet/touch the main power rails.

There is a tiny circuit board for the end units for the lights.  Those are slightly difference for each due to the space/shape constraints of each train's nose area.  The motor car does not have any circuit board.  It's a "direct feed" to the motor.