Kato 10-382 series 500 Shinkansen - DCC removal

[Iain]

Hi, I’ve bought this model but it has been modified for DCC.  I want to run it on DC track, so my question is how do I uninstall the DCC chip?  Is it as simple as cutting all 4 wires or will that ruin it?

Thanks!

Edited October 31, 2022 by railsquid
Clarify title

[railsquid]

Hi

I've moved this topic to the DCC subforum in the hope it will attract more interest.

 

2 hours ago, Iain said:

... how do I uninstall the DCC chip?  Is it as simple as cutting all 4 wires or will that ruin it?

 

I think the answer is "no, and sort of", as AFAIU that will break the electrical connection to the motor, which passes through the chip (hence the need for blanking chips in models which have a DCC socket but run on DC).  I suspect you could cut the wires then solder the ones on either side together to re-establish the electrical connection for DC, but I don't dabble in DCC, so don't quote me on that.

[Wolf]

3 minutes ago, railsquid said:

I think the answer is "no, and sort of", as AFAIU that will break the electrical connection to the motor, which passes through the chip (hence the need for blanking chips in models which have a DCC socket but run on DC).  I suspect you could cut the wires then solder the ones on either side together to re-establish the electrical connection for DC, but I don't dabble in DCC, so don't quote me on that.

Technically, you are OC right.

When the Motorcar has been converted to DCC, the initial owner isolated the Motor Pickups from the rest of the train, and soldered two cables to the decoder. At the same time, he soldered another two wires from the decoder to the actual pickups (wich in the case of that car is the large copper bar that runs from the front to the back, one on each side).

So, to undo it you either go all the way back and make sure the motor connects to the copper plates again, or you simply cut the 4 cables from the decoder, and connect the corresponding two to route the power again to the motor.

I would assume from the picture, no guarantee, that you need to solder them according to their placement, being left and right. Technically, the two cables from Track Pickup to the decoder "should" be black and red, the two cables that go to the motor "should" be orange and grey. that is oc if the previous owner kept to standards. If this is the case, Red goes to orange, and black goes to grey.

ANYWAY

Have you actually TRIED running it in DC ? Many DCC decoders have a DC Mode and can actually run fine on DC track. Personally never tried it myself, I even voluntarily disable it on the decoder in the first place, but maybe you could try this. Someone else might please give a statement about safetey on that one IF the decoder does not have that feature.

ANYWAY 2

open up the Head and Tail car as well. It is likely that there are additional DCC decoders installed, that are meant to switch the lights appropiate to the heading of the train. if this is the case, there would be more to check to reconfigure this to dc (or/and again, these decoders might work on DC anyway)

[Wolf]

Addition:

It might actually be fairly easy. Attached find picture of opened up UNCHANGED 500 Series Motorcar.

Seems previous owner just soldered wire to the motortabs. Remove wire, clean the copper "pins" and bend them back onto the copper connectors (and remove the isolation tape before), should work easy.

 

[Iain]

Thanks for the replies!  Yes I’ve tried it on DC - in fact I thought it was just dead until I opened it up today and found the decoder!

 

That pic of an unmodified unit is very handy.  I’ve never soldered before (aside from decades ago at school - which was not very successful!) I’ll see what I can do and report back!

[katoftw]

I am no expect on dcc. But:-

 

1. Cut the wires right at the solder.

2. Removed yellow isolating tape.

3. Maybe bend motor tabs back down.

 

The problem is the missing white rectangular clip that holds down the motor tabs. It's just the as a secondary precaution to keep the motor tabs from moving off the longitudinal copper strips. Pretty much standard accoss most Kato models, so should be able to find a spare somewhere.

 

This advice is all dependent on the fact all original part are unmodified.

Edited October 31, 2022 by katoftw

[cteno4]

3 hours ago, Iain said:

That pic of an unmodified unit is very handy.  I’ve never soldered before (aside from decades ago at school - which was not very successful!) I’ll see what I can do and report back!

Lain,

 

before you solder this up, practice your soldering and watch a YouTube video on soldering. Really helps. Soldering is all practice practice practice! If you have any paste flux it also helps when soldering to the metal strips as they usually have a good layer of oxidation on them and the flux helps solder get around that. Many times even rosin core solder will ball up on a strip of copper, brass or nickel silver due to the oxidation layer. 
 

newly stripped wires don’t hav much in the way of oxidation due to being sealed up in the insulation.

 

pre tin the strip and your piece of wire then all you need do is put the pretinned areas together and touch with soldering iron tip too fuse them quickly. This way you don’t need three hands for holding iron, solder, and wire!

 

cheers

 

jeff