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 The completed install. This must be a new record for me: Two successful decoder installs in four weeks, nothing dead or fried. The Skyliner motor car is, thankfully, a straightforward install with only minor gotchas. Now, to find the funds for another Z2 to complete the second cab car! 
 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.  Rapido couplers couple loosely; the gap between carraiges is about 6mm. Most of your trains look like this: Big, bulky Rapido couplers and nearly a scale meter of space between the cars. Your passengers have to get a running start to leap to the next carriage! What to do? The obvious answer is to install TN couplers. But this is a Micro Ace model, and the info sheet doesn’t mention anything about them. Can TN couplers even be fitted?  Rapido coupler. Looks awful, but it is one of the most reliable couplers ever designed. The Rapido coupler is the standard for N-scale trains, and has been for some 30 years. Rapidos are easy to couple together (even if they take some fiddling to uncouple), and they hold together reliably over a wide range of conditions, pushing and pulling, up inclines and at funny angles. But they are ugly, and they are huge. Most modelers in North America opt for the Micro-Trains Magne-Matic coupler, which not only looks better, but offers semi-automatic uncoupling which uses track-mounted magnets instead of hand-held toothpicks to work. (The N-Scale Division has a great history of n-gauge couplers.)  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…  Keisei “Skyliner” on the Ikea Line Prior to Fathers’ Day ’09, I had but two small Micro Ace sets. My review was not particularly flattering. Indeed, neither was anyone else’s. I enjoy the two sets, but I must admit I was a little soured on Micro Ace. But, as others have constantly reminded me, Micro Ace has a reputation for making models of extraordinary quality. So I thought I would give them another go. Now I own another Micro Ace set. The Micro Ace A2896 “Keisei AE100-class “Skyliner” Renewal 8-car set” is brilliant. Just in, after a long wait for it to make it back into production: A Tomix DE10 (seen here pulling HOKI 800 empties down the Ikea Line). This is easily my favorite diesel locomotive, perhaps ever. Although new, this model has a reputation for being a noisy, uneven runner—and sadly mine lives up [...] Certain factors have rightly kept me a little too busy to post lately. I can’t say that I mind. Several weeks ago, I received two eagerly anticipated releases from Micro Ace: A3251, which consists of two KOKI 106 container cars, each loaded with two U47A “Eco Liner 31″ 31′ ISO containers; and A3252, [...] |
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