This must be a new record for me: Two successful decoder installs in four weeks. The Skyliner motor car is, thankfully, a straightforward install with only minor gotchas. Read on to see what I mean. [...]
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  A Keisei AE100形, headlights blazing. Ok, yeah. I said my next DCC conquest would be my Kato 651系 “Super Hitachi”. I lied. Besides, I said that, what, six months ago? I don’t have the necessary decoders on hand to continue work on it, but I did have the necessary decoder for this model, the Micro Ace A2896 Keisei AE100形 “Skyliner”. What makes this model challenging is that the headlights and the markerlights are not lit by distinct LEDs, but by a single bi-polar bi-color LED—a single monolithic LED that cannot be split apart into two distinct circuits for control by two distinct motor leads. Read on to see how I got it working. Here’s a guy on the cutting edge of modern model railroading. If designing and building your own DCC booster and command station doesn’t establish your model rail electronics creds, I don’t know what does. Lately, Steven’s been experimenting with using the Arduino platform, and churning out some really interesting proof-of-concept circuits for automatic control using infrared [...]  Update: After consulting with TCS, I no longer recommend the TCS Z2 decoder for this installation. Sadly, the TCS M1 is too large for this installation, and so I have selected a Lenz Silver Mini to replace the Z2. Previously, I showed how to disassemble the tamper down to the point where we can proceed with decoder installation. Let’s move forward with the decoder installation itself.   The Duomatic itself. Stop. (Collaborate and listen.) You just bought one of these fancy Lemke ballast tampers, and you are considering converting it to DCC. You can read a little German, maybe, or at least you can work from photos; or you found another guide on the web. It doesn’t look so hard. Don’t believe everything you read. The Kato EM13 and FL12 drop-in decoders, when used in Kato “DCC Friendly” models, are basic but fairly nice, and dead-simple to install. In this post, I demonstrate how to install them into Kato’s E4 shinkansen (bullet train). In a previous post, I installed these decoders into a Kato E231-500.  Stack of EM13 and FL12 decoders The Kato EM13 and FL12 drop-in decoders, when used in Kato “DCC Friendly” models, are basic but fairly nice, and dead-simple to install. In this post, I demonstrate how to install them into Kato’s E231-500 Yamanote Line. In a later post, I’ll show how to install them into an E4 shinkansen. This one was pretty easy. Four wires, nothing tricky, 20 minutes.  Exterior of KANI24-500 The KANI24-500 is the baggage car used on Hokutosei sleeper express trains. This model is part of my Tomix Yumekukan set. It has a set of markerlights and a signboard that light up when the car is at the rear of the train—which is 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, when the car is at the front of the train, these lights are all off. One light, one function, easy-peasy. Read Part 1 of this article. Read Part 2 of this article. As a preface let me say this: The results of this install are mixed. On one hand, I got everything to fit, with room to spare! Which is excellent news. I also learned a lot, which is also excellent news. However, several things went wrong with [...] Read Part 1 of this article. A preface: I’d hoped to have this wrapped up by now, but frying a headlamp and the decoder itself have proved insurmountable delays. I can at least say something about the first steps taken in this install. Here’s where we left off: Pondering a tight fit! As it is, there are a [...] |
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