How do the 2 power cars in Tomix n700 work together?

[Kiran]

I now have the full Tomix N700 Shinkansen 16 car set (92486 + 92487 + 92488). There is an extra power car in 92488. If I put both of the power cars in the formation, do I need to do anything to ensure that they are going in the same direction?

[Gryphr]

When running on DC analog all trains will always run in the same direction with a given polarity, unless they were mistakenly assembled with the motor the wrong way around (which shouldn't be an issue with a fresh from factory model). Just putting the cars on the track and coupling the train up should be enough.

[chadbag]

Also, the way the Tomix Shinkansen couplers work you shouldn't be able to put one in backwards.  They only work one way, unlike rapido couplers 

[Kiran]

Thanks for confirming. Putting together a temporary DC layout to try this beast.

[chadbag]

Once you have added decoders you can set up a consist of you want so that the two motor cars are matched.  Not necessarily required but more efficient. 🙂.      

 

Let  us know how the 16 car train works.  I have the KATO full 16 car N700A set but don't think I have every run all of them.  Need to try it.

[Kiran]

4 minutes ago, chadbag said:

Once you have added decoders you can set up a consist of you want so that the two motor cars are matched.  Not necessarily required but more efficient. 🙂.      

 

Let  us know how the 16 car train works.  I have the KATO full 16 car N700A set but don't think I have every run all of them.  Need to try it.

Is the Kato version DCC ready? I wish I had decided on DCC before I ordered the first half of this train already :)I don't think I have a big enough living room to run all the 16 cars to be honest.

[chadbag]

Yes the KATO one is using their EM13 and gang IIRC. 

 

You should be able to have hardwired decoders put in the Tomix one.  One of my first trains I put a decoder in was my Tomix N700 JR Kyushu / JR West.

[Yavianice]

I personally have bad experiences with 2 power car tomix sets. What I do is exchange the power cars to the center of the train, both of them coupled together, instead of with cars in between.

 

Note that I have an analogue layout.

[chadbag]

7 hours ago, Yavianice said:

Note that I have an analogue layout.

 

We'll that there is your problem.   If you used a simple *analog* system instead of that fancy analogue system it would just work.   

 

😉😉😉 

😇

Edited January 27, 2019 by chadbag
Dang auto correct

[Yavianice]

Analogies? I take it you mean digital, since using TNOS or CL does not make a difference. And DCC is waaaay too expensive for me.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Yavianice

[cteno4]

Actually I’ve never had much of a problem with my 2 motor shinkansens analog. Is only been when one motor car was much older than the other (this happened twice where I picked up extra Kato motor cars) and one Tomix motor car that just got gummed up. A good clean out, tune up and lube fixed it. But all were from just natural getting gummed up from crap or coming to me in different ages and conditions and all easily fixable.

 

btw we had a really nasty time getting the Kato n700 to run well on the club layout with two different sets. Best I could figure is it was the nicer looking diaphragm coupler on the Kato being cranky. It would derail all over the place and never found a systematic problem point. I gave up after a few hours on mine with it derailing every 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Tomix n700, although uglier diaphragms, troops along great. We had a bump put on the loop at one end with a bit of an S curve (186 in the middle of it), so may be fine on a straight oval.

 

The Tomix 16 car Shinkansens seem to derail less (although it was so rare it was hard to really say for sure, more of a feeling) with Long club runs at shows and I just guessed the all wheel pickup and two motor cars make for a smoother running. I’ve watched a few derailments happen when there is a momentary stall (usually dirty track spots) with kato 1 motor 16 car shinkansens running at speed. I think the momentum of the train may push things funny with a little power stutter. But again it’s pretty infrequent to really get any sort of real numbers, just a gut feeling.

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

When combining more than one motor car in a single shinkansen individual results will vary, even if both motor cars are brand new or equally well serviced. The motors themselves are not always equal. There's random variation in speed of motors even from the same batch. 

 

I wondered about this for  a long time, and finally had it confirmed for me by a discussion in one of those Rapido Trains "Chinese Factory" videos.

[Yavianice]

Because they run at different speeds even if serviced together and brand new, if there is space between them, it could be that the cars are slightly pushed at an angle between the two motor cars. That happened to me and it derailed afterwards in a rather spectacular manner. Since then I always run them with the motor cars in the middle and next to one another.

[chadbag]

6 hours ago, Yavianice said:

Analogies? I take it you mean digital, since using TNOS or CL does not make a difference. And DCC is waaaay too expensive for me.

 

 

No, it was a bad attempt at humor that was messed up by my phones auto correct system (I fixed the auto correction once but it snuck in again and I was on an ancient cell system in BFE Wyoming (Green River) at like old modem speeds so did not see what actually posted). 

 

It was about the "analogue" spelling vs "analog" 

Edited January 27, 2019 by chadbag

[chadbag]

If you have two motor cars that run at different speeds put the faster one first.  This will help avoid the problem yaviance mentioned 

[Kiran]

26 minutes ago, chadbag said:

If you have two motor cars that run at different speeds put the faster one first.  This will help avoid the problem yaviance mentioned 

If the 2 power cars have decoders, they could perhaps be speed matched?

[chadbag]

8 minutes ago, Kiran said:

If the 2 power cars have decoders, they could perhaps be speed matched?

 

Yes, if you have decoders in them you can tune each one to speed match, consist them etc.  If running on DC, put the slower one behind the faster one to avoid the rear one pushing the cars into the front one.  Less chance of the situation that yaviance describes happening.   (I won't claim first hand knowledge of this myself, but happened to read someone else describing a similar phenomenon a few months ago)

 

[JR 500系]

While I haven't ran a Full 16-car shinkansen consist with 2 motors, I have ran consists with 2 motor cars, i.e. Shikoku 2000 series and N2000, or Kintetsu Vista EX coupled with ACE, etc. and haven't ran into much problems with the motors acting otherwise. For the case of Kintetsu, it is a Tomix motor (Vista EX) with a GM one (ACE 16200), and they both still ran in unison without much issues ~  🙂

[Welshbloke]

My experience of twin motors on DC is that once moving at a reasonable pace they generally stop fighting. The tricky bit can be moving off in realistic fashion, where one will often start up and wheelspin until the other moves. Mostly have that when using powered KuMoNi/KuMoYuNi units with Kato EMUs. I have a 14 car Tomix 500 Series with both motors which runs well once up to a scale cruising speed.

[gavino200]

FYI, “speedmatching” DCC locos is far less perfect in practice than in theory. It can help but It’s a relatively difficult process and rarely gets rid of the problem at all speeds and track grades.

 

Even with speedmatching it’s still wise to pay attention to the principles and strategies discussed in this thread.