I’ve been lax in posting. Yes, Santa brought some cool stuff. A Tomytech Gudetama train for my daughter, a KATO Haruka for my son, and the KATO Seven Stars in Kyushu trainset for me. And my daughter got the Tomix Hello Kitty Shinkansen 500 for her birthday, and my son got a Tomix Shinkansen 200 for his. I’ll post pictures and report on them later.
I’ve been able to get a lot done, however, in the mean time, as I built a 4’x8′ temporary layout in my basement, got a test track set up, got the Digikeijs DR5000 command center and other modules up and running, and have gotten lots of DCC decoders installed, including in trains not originally foreseen to have a decoder. This includes two newer coreless Greenmax JR 103, an older dual motor Greenmax JR 103, a Tomix EF 210 I am working on now, and a Tomix Shinkansen 500 (the Hello Kitty one). I am going to put step-by-step how-to articles on these installations soon. I also used TCS decoder replacement boards on several KATO trains and have several more to do.
The JNSForum.com had a project and a member created an EM13-replacement board, actually two versions, that take Doehler & Haass decoders, so that you can use D&H decoders with RailCom in your KATO models that take the EM13. The JNS Forum member made the PCB gerber files available to me and I had some boards made. I installed DH05C and a PD05A in the boards and got most of my KATO models that take EM13 decoders up and running. Just have 2 more to do.
