Tomix EF81 DCC Pt 2: Small Victories

It lives! Tomix EF81 with working DCC provided by a TCS CN-GP.

[Update 7 July 2010: The decoder failed by February. TCS advised that the CN-GP is a very delicate decoder; consequently, I cannot recommend this installation method. Currently looking for a new method of installation. Watch for future posts.]

Read Part 1.

It’s done. Well, almost. [Update 10 Jan 2010: Yep, it's done.] Anyway, it works, and that’s what counts. Here then I recount the two hours I spent last night making it work, and the year of effort that culminated in those two glorious hours. (Yes, it takes me about one year to install one decoder. No, I’m not that slow: it’s just a function of how much free time I have, and how I choose to spend it.)

Continue reading…

Review: Micro Ace A4821 JR East E653 “Fresh Hitachi”

A JR East E653-series taking a detour down the Ikea Line

A JR East E653-series taking a detour down the Ikea Line

Micro Ace, way back in 1995, started with North American prototypes, but by 1999 had abandoned them in favor of Japanese prototypes. Among the first Japanese models they released was the JR East E653 series. (Micro Ace maintains a pictorial history of releases online.) Even though I have heard these early models were not very good, I pined for one. 10 years after their production, though, and they have become quite rare. (Micro Ace typically only does one production run of a given model, then retires it immediately.)

But Micro Ace has lately begun to issue re-releases of older models, and this gave me hope. Continue reading…

Tomix EF81 DCC Pt 1: Disassembly and Frame Milling

Tomix EF81 "Hokutosei"

Tomix EF81 “Hokutosei”

Here’s today’s subject: A Tomix EF81. This one, no. 98, is a special edition, not easily replaceable—and not DCC-ready, either. In this article, I will cover how to disassemble the locomotive—which is very easy—, and mill the frame to fit a TCS CN-GP decoder—which isn’t terribly hard.
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Review: Tomix 92950 "Yumekukan" (夢空間)

Happy birthday to me! This set was a gift from my wonderful wife. Actually, we kinda picked it out together, for reasons I won’t yet reveal.

The box reads “J.R. Limited Express Sleeping Cars Series 24 Type 25 ‘Yumekukan’ with Electric Locomotive Type EF81″ (which is far more terse in the original Japanese: [...]