Kato 10-530 + 10-531 151系「こだま・つばめ」DCC Conversion

I recently bought this model, but I think it was originally released in 2010. It's a DCC Friendly model, so DCC Conversion is straight forward.

About interior lighting kits I recommend Kato 11-214. These ones are warm white, not so white as Kato 11-212. I tried also 11-212, but I changed all to 11-214.

Cab and end car decoder fits very well, easier and smoother that other models:

About motor decoder, make sure you use Kapton tape to isolate it. I burned more that one because the body is metallic, and if the decoder gets in contact with the metallic part it instantaneously burns. So now I always do it doesn't matter the train model:

I must say I'm a little bit disappointed with this model. First reason is that windows detach on their own, so open the car upside down and keep the hull in this position to insert the methacrylate piece of the lighting kit and to close it.

Second thing is that top front and rear bogies derails in any curve. Seems like they don't pivot easily, so I had to pivot them several times with my fingers until they were able to turn smoothly.

Finally, it runs well and with 12 illuminated cars it looks impressive:

Kato 10-1644 E261 Saphir Odoriko DCC Conversion

This model is "DCC friendly" as written in the instruction manual, but you will find that head and tail cars have no under hatch to put the usual FL12 decoder (or I couldn't find it!). Instead, you have to open and disassemble the seats plastic piece:

I had to remove two cooper strips acting as springs to insert the decoder, and then put them again in place. Be patient, these springs are not easy to put again in place keeping the decoder and the long cooper strips in place. So it's a little bit tricky and seems not secure, but after putting the sits and closing everything everything works well so far.

About lighting, every car has its own light panel so will not need the plastic panels that comes with kato lighting kits:

Motor car is like any other DCC Friendly model:

It's nice that every car has a special light panel or diffuser, and the decoration of each car is also exquisite. The big windows allow to see perfectly and enjoy the interiors.

 

I hope you enjoyed it and that you find the way to install the cab and end car decoders easier than me!!

Greenmax Multiple Tie Tamper 09-16 DCC ESU Sound

 I finished my first sound project using an ESU sound decoder, in this case a LokSound 5 Nano. First of all I have to admit that there is no competence for ESU sound decoders. First of all the decoder comes complete with his speaker already soldered and a very smart way to make the soundbox, with different sized plastic pieces that you glue together to make the soundbox as much taller as the available space.

But it's not only about how well packaged it is, the sound is incredible, really powerful and with no distortion. The decoder is wired for 6 functions, the motor control is smooth and precise, and it has tons of parameters to adjust effects, intensities, sound parameters, random sounds, events,... just awesome!!!

You pay for it, but it really beats any competence.

But let's start the work. First of all open the locomotive and unclip the motor. The motor has two small metallic pieces that won't be used (see them in the second photo, next to the motor):

I started soldering the motor wires as you can see in the following photo:

Then glue the soundbox. I used the tallest piece from the kit for that. I could have added an extra piece and make it bigger as there is room enough, but just with that it sounds amazing. There is a place where the speaker fits perfectly fixed, so I didn't use glue nor double sided tape:

I saw the lights quite difficult to connect, as the board has no place in the visible side to solder and it is completely fixed to the body frame. It has an extra car that would need also its own decoder or extend the function wires to this car, so you cannot detach it again. Finally I decided I would do a very simple conversion connecting only the motor and sound, lights will be always lit on. Here you can see it from both sides to check the connections:

So that's it, it was hard enough to learn how to make a sound project, find original Preiser & Theurer sounds... don't expect a complicated conversion with extra lights and effects. :)

For the sound project I started from the ESU Class 66/77 / EMD JT42CWR Sound Project (http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/search?q=Class+66%2F77+%2F+EMD+JT42CWR) as the motor seemed to me to be the closest one, and then added original Plasser & Theurer tie tamper sounds to reproduce the clamp, tamping sound at low speed, horns... etc

You can download the sound project here. These are the implemented functions:

List of functions: F0: Lights F1: "Sound on/off" F2: "Work horn" F3: "Air horn" F4: "Tamper / shunting" F5: "Grimper" F6: "Radiator fan" F7: "Cab door" F8: "Worker Vibration" F9: "Worker 1" F10: "Worker 2" F11: "Coupler clank" F12: "Dinamic break fan" F13: "Brake off/on" F14: "Conductor signal" F15: "Compressor" F16: "Compressor air off" F17: "Brake function" F18: "Brake release/set" F19: "Switch flange" F20: "Rail clank" F21: "Airhorn short" F22: "Curve squeal" F23: "Manual notching" F24: "Disable break snd" F25: "Fade out sound" F26: "Shift 2" F27: "Shift 3" F28: "Shift 4" F29: "Shift 5" F30: "Shift 6"

By the way, many thanks to the JNSForum and the Desktop Station Open Sound Data page who encouraged me to make this project and share it. Check their awesome sound projects for Japanese rolling stock.

You can see some final photos and a video demonstration:

GreenMax Ballast Regulator KSP2002E DCC Conversion

 After many (good) changes in my personal live I managed to have a little bit of time to spend in my hobby again. I'm working in the two Greenmax models: Ballast Regulator and Tie Tamper.

In this article I'll show you how I converted the Ballast Regulator KSP2002E (Greenmax catalog number 4784) in a simple way, using a D&H DH05 decoder. For the Tie Tamper model, I want to install also sound, and I'm making a customized ESU sound project.

This is the disassembled model. There are 3 light boards (front, rear and interior lighting), each one having two springs to pick up the current. The strategy I followed is to get rid of the spring of one side for both front and rear light boards, and the opposite one for the interior lighting board.

So each board remains with only one spring, and the other is removed and at this point I will solder the decoder wires for lighting (white and yellow). Red and black wires (current) will be soldered in the remaining springs, this is why I left the springs in different sides of the boards.

But may be with an image it's easier to understand:

You can see the yellow wire is soldered at the point where I removed the sprint of the front and rear light boards. White wire is soldered to the point where I removed the spring of the interior light board. Note that the spring removed from the interior light board correspond to the opposite rail than those removed from the front and rear light boards. Add Kapton tape to the bottom of the decoder!

Then black and red wires are soldered to the base points of the remaining springs. Orange and gray are soldered to the motor. Note that you will have to bend the tab of the cooper strips so they are not in contact with the motor. And better add some Kapton tape at this point for better isolation:

And this is pretty much the work needed. Note that wiring it in this way you do NOT have directional lights. So with one function key you turn on all the "exterior" lights and with another you can turn the interior lighting. But I don't see any logic for this machine to have directional lights (there are no "red" lights). I tried to add a micro led for the emergency light on the roof, but I saw it impossible for me as it is too close to the edge of the roof.

Let's see if I'm able to create a good sound project (my first one) for the next Greenmax model. I hope to write again soon!!

Philips HUE illumination system with Rocrail (2/2)

Before you continue reading, it is assumed that you have your Philips HUE Bridge installed and working with some lights, and it has a fixed IP Address that you know. Also, the bridge must connected to the same local network (same router or Wi-Fi) than the computer running Rocrail. If not, you can check the previous post here.

The first thing you have to do in your track plan is to open the Rocrail Properties under the File menu and add a new command station of type "HUE":

In hostname field put the IP address of your HUE bridge, and leave the User ID blank for the moment. This is explained also in the wiki of Rocrail: https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=philips:hue-en

Next step is to create in the HUE bridge a user name to allow Rocrail to access to it and manage the lights, but for that Rocrail has implemented a special functionality. Go the the tab of decoder programming, write in the IID field the name of the newly created controller and press the PT button. This will get a new user from the HUE bridge and the User ID field of the image above will be automatically filled in. At the time of writing this post the instructions of Rocrail were not updated, so be careful if you try to follow the instructions from here.

There is also a very useful configuration screen for Philips HUE under the Programming menu. From there you can see the Bridge configuration and the lights linked with the address number that you will use for the weather configuration:

Next step is to create the light objects in rocrail, one for each physical light linked to the HUE Bridge. For each light you have to identify the interface (the name of the new controller you created) and the address that you checked in the screen corresponding to the image above. Define these output objects as type "lights". You can set in the "Value" field the desired intensity for this light:

And finally, you can setup the weather functionality. The complete description can be found on Rocrail wiki: https://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=weather-en

Basically, you have to select Weather under Tables menus and write the name of your recently created lights in the Outputs field (comma separated). I suggest you to use the "Colour table" and load one of the profiles already included in rocrail specially for HUE lights. Try to change some parameters to set the illumination you like, and test also the Theme tab where you can create storm effects if you have a white HUE lamp also linked to the bridge for lightning effects. I hope you enjoy it!!

Philips HUE illumination system with Rocrail (1/2)

Some time ago I published the following article explaining how to make an illumination system for the layout, compatible with the weather functionality of Rocrail:

http://www.clubncaldes.com/2016/01/layout-illumination-and-weather.html

But for those who don't want to use Arduino and make their own electronics, I'll show you how to use the Philips HUE system, much easier and professional, but a little bit more expensive. Anyway I'll show you also cheaper lamps to use than the original ones from Philips.

The first thing you will need is a Philips HUE bridge, this is what you will connect to your network (and to Rocrail) and manages all the lights you want to install:

HUE Bridge

You will need also some compatible RGB colour lights. There are kits including the bridge and some light bulbs, or a remote switch. Depending on the layout size, disposition, environment light or on the number of lights you want to install there are different options. Basically you have the following options:

GU10

GU10 lights: these are spot lights, so I do not recommend them or you will need to install a lot of them to cover all the layout with a light in an uniform way.

E27

E27 lights: these bulbs make a more diffuse light, but they should be installed not close to the layout. This is a very good option, but on a long layout you will need many of them and they are not cheap.

Led Strip

Led Strips: this is a cheaper option as you can illuminate a long section in an uniform way. In my case, my layout is composed of modules, so it's narrow but long. I would need many bulbs to illuminate it in a homogeneous way, on the other hand the led strips must be placed quite close to the layout. But I have a shelf at 50cm from the top of the modules all along the layout, so I just had to stick three 5 meters long led strips under the shelf instead of installing a dozen of light bulbs.

ZIGBEE compatible led strip

Any other ZIGBEE compatible lights: Philips HUE lights are awesome by the intensity of the light and the colours, but they are also expensive. So you can use any ZIGBEE compatible light. Just make sure it is specified they are compatible with Philips HUE (check the icon under the image) and support the ZIGBEE protocol. I bought these led strips for my layout in Aliexpress, search for the following description: "Zigbee-minicontrolador RGBCW, 1-5M DC12V 5050 RGB + CCT 90leds/m, Kit de luces de tira LED para ZIGBEE 3,0 HUB hu-e Echo Plus APP"

So you will have to test and find the best (and cheapest) combination of lights for your layout, in my case I used 3 led strips (5 meters long each one) and one E27 light for a corner that missed more light.

Before starting the Rocrail configuration and the weather functionality setup, make sure your light are working with the mobile Philips HUE application in your smartphone. Follow the Philips instructions to pair the lights with the HUE bridge, it's really simple as you only have to press the button on the led strip and the bridge, or introduce the serial number of the bulb in the application.

Another important thing is to assign a fixed IP address to the bridge. This can be done using the smartphone HUE application as explained here: https://huetips.com/help/how-to-find-my-bridge-ip-address/

Once you have the lights working you have to setup Rocrail, but this will be explained in the following post.

Kato 3060-3 EF65-500 DCC Install

This model is prety much the same than the previous DCC Install published for the Kato 3061-4 EF65-2000, so you can check the previous post here for more detailed information. It is basically the same locomotive with the same hull and space where to install the decoder, and almost the same light board. I just found one small difference in the capacitor compenent.

You can see in the following photo that light board capacitor is so small that is almost imperceptible. This is the only difference I found with the light board of EF65-2000 model:

Strategy used will be the same, so the previous schema to prepare the light board for a wired decoder is still valid:

Red arrows inticate where to cut the cooper tracks:

• I personally prefer to remove capacitors and coils from the board as I had extrange behaviours in the past in some models where I kept them. So first of all I removed the capacitor at point 8. Don't confuse the resistor in the middle (we need it where it is!!) with the capacitor in one of the sides of the board. Capacitor is extremelly small in this board!
• Four cuts are needed to isolate the contact with the motor. I will solder orange and gray wires to points (1) and (2)
• Red and black wires (track current) will be soldered in points (3) and (4)
• This time I didn't solder the white wire to point (5) and I soldered it directly to the negative lead of the led light. The positive side of the right led is already connected to the resistor.
• For the left led (as it is in the photo) you have to bridge the positive side of the led to the resistor track by soldering a small wire between points (7) and (8). You will need to scratch a litle bit the cooper track of the point (8) as the pad is small as the capacitor. The yellow wire will be soldered directly to the negative side of the led (6).

Here you can see the decoder already soldered and how to fit it in the hull. The same milling is required like for the EF65-2000 that you can check with more detail in the previous post:

 I hope that you found this useful!