Tomix N700-8000 Kyushu Shinkansen DCC with Digitrax DZ126T

[chadbag]

Tonight I did my second ever DCC install (not counting EM13).  I did the first as well tonight.  The first was a Kato 800 Shinkansen (10-865) using a D&H DH10-C decoder.  It was way easy thanks to some pages I found on the web a few weeks ago, and could not find again, but remembered enough to do it.  I'll make a topic and post some pictures.  It worked first try (except that I accidentally yanked the power cord on the track and caused the power car, sans body, to fall off the table and break a coupler -- an infamous Z04-2566).

 

That motivated me to try the Tomix N700-8000 Kyushu Shinkansen (Tomix 92411 / 92412 add on set).   I only had 1 of the D&H DH10C decoders, but I had a couple Digitrax DZ126T decoders.  I found a page here of someone doing DCC on a Tomix passenger train, non-Shinkansen, but it looked similar to my power car.   I worked a while to try and figure out how to take the power car body apart, and it turned out that the Shinkansen was actually different than the one I saw on the forums here, but it had inspired me to take it apart and there were some similarities.    This was bog stock simple.  No capacitor.  Everything pretty much isolated except the motor to the power rails through some springs.  I rigged some holes in the passenger compartment body at one end and put the two motor wires (orange/gray) through and I soldered them to the springs (I had the body turned around and it turned out I had the wires on the wrong side for traditional red/orange/right so they cross underneath).  I used Kapton tape to isolate the main power rails that go the entire length of the car underneath the passenger compartment, so that the spring does not touch it, to isolate the motor.  I then soldered  the two power wires (red/black) to the power rails on the top, and put it all back together.  Eventually I'll put interior lights in and hook up one of the light leads to those.  For now the extra leads are just bunched up inside the car.  I put it on a straight test track that had my NCE Power Cab hooked up and gave it some throttle forward.   It went forward.  I gave it some throttle backwards.   It went backwards.  It worked first time.

 

Since I was figuring it out as I went, I had to disassemble the power car a few times to straighten things out, re-do the wire layout (first time I had the flat metal power rail abrading the wire so had to take it apart and cut a channel out with a hobby knife), etc.  So the tabs that hold the top and bottom on got flexed a few times and a few places are not quite flush so the body has slight, very slight, bulges in a few places when I put the body back on.  You can't tell unless you really look and handle the wagon.  I need to do better in that regard next time.

 

While I have steered clear of Tomix trains due to their DCC "unfriendliness", I am hoping, after this experience, that recent Shinkansen from Tomix are similar to this N700-8000 and easy to convert.

 

I'll put some pics up of what I did soon.  Need to download them to the computer etc.

 

Edited February 1, 2018 by chadbag
spelling

[cteno4]

Nice job chad! The tabs may relax a bit with time. That’s always an issue pulling motorcars apart. They seem fine when I go back into them a year or two later even as I notice some bumping out when after reassembly for maintenance like you found. I wish there were a better way than the pop together tabs for them as it’s always a tad nerve wracking even after having done it a few hundred times. I now have about 20 different spudgers of various configuration and size that helps apply just the right amount of force in just the right way as there is a spectrum of tabs and forces, but not broken one yet! Now someone had me their gummie power car to clean and I’ll let me Murphy get me for saying that!

 

jeff

[katoftw]

800-1000

800-2000

N700-8000

500-7000

700-7000 Railstar

 

I have the above Tomix shinkansens and the all have similar inturnals as each other.

[chadbag]

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I'll get pics up this week (and commentary on what I would do differently the next time).  Busy with the day job and side job.    Good to hear that some of the other Tomix have similar internals.  I kind of like the 500...   We rode a real 500, but only a Kodama for a few stops, when my son was younger.  The 500 was all the first Tomica PLA-RAIL (blue track toy trains) he got as a baby (his collection now is huge even though he is more interested in the N-Scale stuff now; he was still looking to add to his Tomica PLA-RAIL collection on our trip in December -- E7, etc that are new that he doesn't have.  Unfortunately they did not have an E7 that was not part of a larger kit).

 

The Tomix Shinkansen was not all that hard, but the Kato 800 was easier, with the plastic clip holding the motor tabs over the power rails, and just using some heat shrink tubing to isolate.   Nothing to pull apart.  

 

The nice thing is both worked first time :)

 

[chadbag]

Here are the pictures.  and the process.  Hopefully it captures the essence of what I did.

 

This is the train (after the install, but it looks the same before -- the power car is the one hooked to the front cab in this picture -- not sure which of the 8 cars it is in the actual train)

 

 

Take the shell off the power car, and then take the top red/maroon part off the bottom.  You get this, with the black gasket-looking thing over the motor as a sort of insulation.   Take it and set it aside.

 

Those two springs are the electrical interface between the motor and the track power, which is on the underside of the large red/maroon piece you saw earlier in the form of two long brass strips.  You will see them below.  I used those springs as my conduit to the motor leads.

 

 

If I were to do this again, I would drill two small holes at the end of the red/maroon piece two feed the two motor-lead wires from the DCC Decoder down to where the motor is.  I originally just fed the wires in-between the brass strip and the plastic flange that holds the end of the brass strip.  But this lead to abrasion on the wire from the brass strip, so I ended up cutting out a channel for they pass through the red/maroon piece at the end of where the brass track power strips are.  Again, just drill holes instead where you see my wires are.  (In some of the following pictures you see the wire just forced between the plastic and the brass.  Don't do this.  Drill the holes.)  Choose the end of the power car that does not have windows, if possible, so that you can't see the decoder and stuff from the outside through the train windows.

 

 

I soldered the two motor lead wires (typically Orange and Gray) from the Decoder to the two springs that feed the electricity to the motor.  (Note that I accidentally swapped Orange and Gray and had to cross them over since I had already gone "too far".   Make sure you feed the orange and gray wires through the correct holes/side when feeding them down.   I used Kapton tape to insulate the track power strips from the motor lead springs.  Make sure you do not cover the track power strips where they contact the trucks and at the point where they get the track power from the trucks.

 

I then put the springs back in, layer that black insulating gasket-like thing back over the motor, and closed it up.  (Not shown:  I added another layer of Kapton tape to hold the two wires to the underside of the red/maroon piece)

 

I then soldered short red and black track power leads on the decoder directly to the track power strips.  There are access holes built into the red/maroon piece so it was simple.   For now, I left the aux lighting wires loose inside the power car as I plan on adding interior lighting at some point when I have time...

 

Nice thing is, it worked first time and there was no "magic smoke" to be seen.

Edited February 1, 2018 by chadbag

[IST]

Wow, thanks for the detailed post!

[katoftw]

What version of N700-8000 you got?  I'm pretty sure mine has tan coloured interior seating.  I'll have to pull it out to check.

[chadbag]

4 hours ago, katoftw said:

What version of N700-8000 you got?  I'm pretty sure mine has tan coloured interior seating.  I'll have to pull it out to check.

 

Tomix 92411

 

That is the basic 3-car set version.   I added Tomix 92412 to it to make it 8 cars.