Cracked Tomix 300 Series Chassis

[JR 500系]

Amazing... I got a real shock while I was casually inspecting my Shinkansens on display in my cabinet... 

 

It's amazing, the chassis has cracked! It's not like hot or anything in the cabinet, and it certainly is NOT exposed to any direct sunlight at all, in fact, not even near any sunlight... I wondered how the motor has cracked to such a state... The older trains is have like the 100 series or the E1 are fine, but this one... strange.

 

Now I need to get another motor chassis for it... though it still runs... 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by disturbman

[Kiha66]

Looks like a classic case of Zinc rot!  Huge bummer, but nothing you could have done to stop it or know it was coming.  Luckily metal quality control is much better than in the past but it still happens.  At least it was a part which shouldn't be too hard to replace and wasn't like the most recent case I've heard where $500 bachmann steam locos were crumbling. 

[Ochanomizu]

Hi JR

 

Happy New Year.

 

Can you tell us manufacturer and product code of the set please?

[railsquid]

Ditto - Tomix? Does look like zinc/mazak rot.

On the offchance it's a MicroAce, E0004 is the replacement chassis part. Can be used for MicroAce 0 series with some minor modification, as I found out recently.

 

MicroAce 0 series Shinkansen - chassis issue by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[JR 500系]

On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 11:26 AM, Ochanomizu said:

Hi JR

 

Happy New Year.

 

Can you tell us manufacturer and product code of the set please?

 

Hi it's Tomix 92808, the earlier Electric coupler 300 series set. Got this off Yahoo Auctions from a Japanese seller sometime back, and was great when I last checked (which is around maybe a year ago?) 

 

2 minutes ago, railsquid said:

Ditto - Tomix? Does look like zinc/mazak rot.

On the offchance it's a MicroAce, E0004 is the replacement chassis part. Can be used for MicroAce 0 series with some minor modification, as I found out recently.

 

 

Didn't know Zinc rots... it actually cracked the chassis right through the metal parts! What's even more amazing, it still runs!  🙂

 

Hope that's a replacement part for the 300 series... it hurts me to see one of my shinkansen being crippled like this... (though most of my shinaksens never get a chance to run now...)

[railsquid]

56 minutes ago, JR 500系 said:

Didn't know Zinc rots... it actually cracked the chassis right through the metal parts! What's even more amazing, it still runs!  🙂

 

 "Rot" is figurative, AFAIK (not an expert) if the zinc mix ("Mazak") is off, the metal will eventually deform and possibly split. If you remove the outer frame from the chassis and give it a firm "thwock" against something solid, it might disintegrate into shards.

 

See also: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/123769-zinc-pest-mazak-rot-the-affected-models-list/

 

 

[Tuga]

1 hour ago, railsquid said:

If you remove the outer frame from the chassis and give it a firm "thwock" against something solid, it might disintegrate into shards

Not a good idea. 🤕

It's heart breaking when we spent so much money buying trains. 😡   

Wonder what Tomix would say about it if you contact them? 

[Welshbloke]

The infuriating part is that this was a known problem in the 1920s and 30s on early tinplate trains, where things like chassis castings and wheels would crumble. They fixed it then by learning the right ingredients and proportions of same. Now it's back because some con artist suppliers are fobbing the manufacturers off with whatever they can cram in the melt pot and call metal.

[railsquid]

On 1/4/2019 at 10:10 PM, JR 500系 said:

 

Hi it's Tomix 92808, the earlier Electric coupler 300 series set. Got this off Yahoo Auctions from a Japanese seller sometime back, and was great when I last checked (which is around maybe a year ago?)

 

 

Yikes - I have a 92808... Yup, does not look good :(

 

 

This too was a second-hand purchase from 2015, it's not one I get round to running much, but didn't notice any problem before. It looks like the chassis is deformed very slightly downwards; it still runs, but derails on Tomix curved points.

[railsquid]

Checking closer, that's definitely because the chassis is catching on the track.

 

A quick trawl of the Japanese internet doesn't bring up any reports of this issue, or the number of a replacement chassis :(

Edited January 6, 2019 by railsquid

[Ochanomizu]

Hello,

 

I don't have that particular model, but I will do an audit of my collection anyway ... just to see if any models have this problem.

 

Perhaps it is a good idea to create a list of models with this problem ... to avoid purchases in future.

[cteno4]

I too went looking earlier today to see if I had this or a later model! Luckily I don’t. I hope this is an isolated run issue. Never seen this before or heard of it in any other Japanese trains myself. I did have a very old 3 axle Lima switcher when I was a kid with a bit of it. Did not get as bad as exploding like this, more like a surface rot that kept coming back.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

I too went looking earlier today to see if I had this or a later model! Luckily I don’t. I hope this is an isolated run issue. Never seen this before or heard of it in any other Japanese trains myself.

 

Clearly you have not been following the " What did you order or the post deliver?" thread closely enough 😉

 

The MicroAce on and this Tomix one are the only examples of the issue in Japanese models I've come across or heard about. The MicroAce one is a known issue and I found several blog posts about it (and the remedy) easily enough, but haven't been able to dig anything up for this one, so it might be pretty rare and we just got unlucky.

 

[cteno4]

Sorry aging neurons, those two blended together! Hopefully rare since you have not found much on web in japan. Seems like something folks would squak about.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Just checked all of my Tomix Shinkansens, which cover a fairly wide production span from the 1990s to ca. 2014, all OK.

 

I will trawl the junk bins of Akihabara and see if I can find a replacement (or signs there are other affected examples out there).

[cteno4]

Good on you squid. Gee now I probably should look thru mine to sleep well... I do need to do a good inventory so maybe a nother reason to get me to do that...

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Oh so it seems like a production run issue... strange indeed... Now I just wish for a replacement chassis that I can order online but all I can find is the replacement chassis for the E2... Would the coming re-release of the 300 series introduce some spare chassis perhaps? 

[nah00]

You could always ask Nariichi-san, he's been able to help me with some parts I didn't think I could get. Only thing that's kind of a bummer is if it's the chassis for the power car you have to buy the whole motor unit.

 

I don't have a 300-series but I'll take a look at what I have that came out around the same time. 

[Yavianice]

• Micro Ace A8660 from 2010
• Micro Ace A0140 and A0141 ED71 from 2005
• Micro Ace A0250 0 series Shinkansen from 2002
• Micro Ace A5540 157 series from 2010
• Micro Ace DD50 line from 2006 (unknown of 2018 rerelease)
• Micro Ace C53’s
• Micro Ace A8144 and A8145 719 series from 2010
• Micro Ace A3699 Kuroshio 485 series from 2010
• Micro Ace EF57’s from 2009

 

 also have it. Poor alloys from China. Will update list when I find more. May make a google spreadsheet if I happen to find many. EDIT: Made the spreadsheet, can be found here

Edited April 19, 2019 by Yavianice

[disturbman]

Micro Ace A6071 KiHa140 Hayato-no-Kaze from 2010

It seems like a lot of problematic sets were released around May 2010.

[katoftw]

17 minutes ago, disturbman said:

Micro Ace A6071 KiHa140 Hayato-no-Kaze from 2010

It seems like a lot of problematic sets were released around May 2010.

Other than being navy blue instead of gloss black. What other problems arrose?

[Yavianice]

I have started keeping a list of model trains affected by zink rot in this thread:

 

 

[disturbman]

13 hours ago, katoftw said:

Other than being navy blue instead of gloss black. What other problems arrose?

I thought the context was self-explanatory, or did you just wanted to rehash this old colour problem?

[katoftw]

@disturbman Thanks for the confirmation.  I just hadn't seen any conversation about poor chassis on that set until you mentioned it.

[disturbman]

I can confirm first hand, I have one.

 

And as I noted, it seems that most (all?) Micro Ace sets releases around May 2010 are impacted. There are also a model from March and one from June 2010. Would be interesting to know how wide spread the issue is.