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Hi, In a previous post on this forum, I mentioned that the newly developed Kato slotless motor was not compatible with Kato French bullet trains (as well as other Kato European trains I bet but I did not confirm that yet). Here is a depiction of the Kato engine used in these trains. Yesterday, I opened my Kato JR700S Nozomi Shinkansen and realized that its engine was, contrary to that of the French TGV I have, the exact same dimension as the new Kato slotless motor (which is significantly smaller and slightly longer than the motor in the French TGV). I was able to replace the JR700S engine with a slotless motor, it now runs great and has a much better behaviour at low speed. One question though: why in the world would the engines in the Kato French bullet trains be so different from those in the Japanese bullet trains ??

Hello, I have been very enthusiastic about the new Kato slotless motor and I purchased a couple of them on Hobbysearch. More precisely, I ordered the Kato motor 11-503-A. Order was smooth and delivery prompt... But... I have a problem. Indeed, my initial plan was to use these slotless motors in some of my Kato trains, in particular for high speed trains such as, for instance the TGV 10-1529 (réseau duplex). After all, the product is advertised on the website as "This product is compatible with motors with flywheels.". However, after receiving the motors, I quickly realized they are slightly smaller than those in my TGVs... And I am left wondering what I can do with these motors... I feel a bit silly but I also believe somebody else could make the same mistake so I come here searching for confort / redemption and mostly ideas ! Thank you !

The train in question is an E231-500 series motor car which is at least 4 years of age, and has a (I think) 3-pole motor with flywheels on either side. Normally (as everyone who models knows lol) when the power is turned to moderate speed on the powerpack (mine is a Kato standard S) the motor begins to operate and the head/taillights on either side of the train light up. However, this time when the motor car is placed on the track, the head and taillights of the leading cars flicker off, the motor car does not move and a slight odour of electrical burn is emitted from the powerpack vent. If I turn the speed all the way up on the powerpack, the green power lamp on the powerpack turns off with a click (then I push the re-start button) and the controller returns to normal. I suspect that there is a short circuit in the motor (all the bogies and copper plates on the motor car are touching in normal position) but I do not know where. Does anyone have solutions to the problem?

I think the brand new replacement motor for my DF200 might be bad already... I purchased it because the locomotive was jerking and stalling randomly on clean track that all my other locomotives were having no trouble at all on, and I had ruled out all other possible causes (dirty wheels/contacts, mechanical binding, etc…) Anyways, I ordered the motor from Hobbysearch, and after installation, the locomotive ran like new…for about 2 minutes, then it picked up the same problems where the old motor had left them off…and then proceeded to make them worse. So, thinking I had just put a new motor in for no reason, I checked and double checked everything else again: Trucks had no binding (in fact, they’re probably the smoothest rolling ones I’ve ever seen. I should also note I replaced the axles that had traction tires with new tire-less ones for better electrical pickup. I have no need for them because I don’t pull long trains, or have any gradients on my small layout) Worm gears and drive shafts seem to be in perfect shape as well. Then I got an idea from another problem. A few days before, I was running my Tomix EF66 and noticed it was stalling for a split second whenever it went over my single crossover. So I ran it over very slow, and it stalled completely. Not only that, but the tail lights on the last car wouldn’t light up either. What was happening, was this: http://my-miniature-worlds.blogspot.com/2015/04/kato-turnout-4-short-circuit.html So basically the wheel contacting the two rails at once was shorting out the whole track, causing even the rear lights to stay out. This got me thinking, if something in the DF200 is shorting out, then other things on the track will stall or dim as well. So, to check for this, I removed the motor, driveshafts, and worm gears so the unit would be a free rolling dummy with working headlights, hitched it up to one of my DE10’s, and towed it around every inch of my layout multiple times to see if the lights would flicker or dim. And they flickerlessly burned bright over every millimeter of it, even over the #4 crossovers, so no problems there. Then, I put the motor back into it, but not the driveshafts or worm gears, so it was still a free rolling dummy, and then pulled it around the layout with the same DE10. But this time, there was a problem. Not only did the DF200’s motor hesitate and stall, but when it did, the DE10’s would as well, just as the tail lights did with my EF66 on the crossover. So it would seem that something in the motor is shorting out. So, I got a bad motor, right? Has this happened to anyone else? I mean, I know it sounds improbable that the new part would be bad as well, but then again, the last time I tried to replace the alternator in my car, I had to buy 3 or 4 before I got a proper working one. Is there something in these motors that can internally short out? I found a motor on plazajapan for $13, but wanted to get some second opinions before ordering…again, lol. So any ideas or advise would be helpful, thanks!

Hi guys, need a motor for the kato n700 (10-547) motor car, any advice?