Tomix Electrically Conductive Couplers

[Dwight in Toronto]

I was scrolling through a Hobby Search (Japan) sales/promo email and tweaked to these:




In my thread about upgrading a Kato Seven Stars in Kyushu to ESU dcc/sound, Peteski mentioned that there are electrically conductive couplers on some Japanese models.  Seems like these are those things (?).

I can imagine these being used to convey led lighting through passenger coaches, or enabling a speaker to be placed remotely “down the line”, etc. 

Anyone here have experience with these? 

[MK]

I have a Tomix 800 series Shinkansen with Mickey Mouse livery.  It has these couplers.  The idea is to totally eliminate the problem of dirty tracks and/or wheels.  The full 6-car train is one conducting "wire".  The chances of all wheels dirty or a length of track that long that is completely dirty is next none. 

If you installed internal lighting (I didn't), I doubt there will be any flicker due to dirty wheels/tracks.

[C855B]

I have a Tomix 800 series Shinkansen with Mickey Mouse livery.  It has these couplers.  The idea is to totally eliminate the problem of dirty tracks and/or wheels.  The full 6-car train is one conducting "wire".  The chances of all wheels dirty or a length of track that long that is completely dirty is next none. 

If you installed internal lighting (I didn't), I doubt there will be any flicker due to dirty wheels/tracks.

Heaven help you if it derails under DCC.

We had such an event with a club member's Shinkansen several years ago. Melted several bogies.

[peteski]

Yes Dwight, those are the ones I mentioned. Tomix Shinkansen sets are equipped with those couplers. I have couple of those sets. They work great, but I have not had to deal with a short on DCC power. 
Adapting them to other sets from other manufacturers can be quite difficult.