So you want to try Tomix FineTrack?

[mannybrown1]

Yes that is good to know, I was looking for some guidance on navigating the track center differences between the two systems. I have Kato double track coming into the terminal (33mm spacing) and then I will need to transition to the tomix spacing (37mm) at some point. Wasn't sure if the coupled mm difference is too small to require any special treatment or not.

[cteno4]

Manny the 4mm track spacing difference is a pain. it’s going to make a little kink if you try to fudge it along some straight track. You can make your own sort of flex track piece to do a tin bit of an s curve by cutting slices in the bottom of Unitrak (between the ties) on like every other tie or so all the way Thru the roadbed. Then you can gently deform the piece of track to do a little tiny, gentle S curve. I experimented with this a very long time ago to do a similar fudge and it seemed to work well, very tedious though to do, but I abandoned that track plan to keep all regular geometries, so I never ran a bunch of trains across it but it’s such a small S curve I doubt it would cause issues. Of course you will have to try to reballast all the slits in the roadbed so best try to hide that track visually as it may end up looking a bit different.

 

If you are doing all Tomix sidings or passing tracks off a Kato main line  the you may be able to get away with never having to convert between track spacings and just have to cut some custom straights for length to deal with the length differences.

 

if you have track planning software you might try and play with some designs to see if you can get it in w.o changing track spacings.

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[KateM]

If you have space for some curves at the Kato-Tomix transition, you can use various 15° curve pieces to change the track spacing. Here's how to do it with Tomix curves, it should be somehow similar with Kato curves.

 

 

📐 AnyRail file here

[katoftw]

Tried Tomix today. Wide tram really.

 

 

Made a hybrid feeder using a terminal block. Tomix power feeder cables are pretty small/thin compared to Kato. Took a few goes to get the screw clamps to hold.

[cteno4]

Good solution. For finer wires you can always tin the ends with solder then use some non grooved pliers and mash the tinned ends flat a bit and they will make better contact and not snap strands as much. But with finer wires do take care that any wiggling will tend to start snapping strands at the start of the insulation.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Tomix generally runs on lower voltage.  There are 9 volt Tomix controllers.

[bill937ca]

Play time.

 

 

[ATShinkansen]

So I finally have the Tomix half of my MU yard connected up.  Has anyone else had issues with electrical connectivity with the rail joiners?  I have two tracks in the yard where power cuts out unless I’m pressing down on the section of track ahead of the turnout that feeds these two tracks.  I’ve pulled the rail joiners off all the sections of track in the affected area and tightened them, but that hasn’t fixed the problem yet.  I really don’t want to do any soldering to the trackwork (that part is actually over a joint in the benchwork), but I am considering wiring up track feeders as jumpers if I have no other way around it.  Any thoughts?

[disturbman]

Never seen that before, maybe there is an issue with that particular turnout. I would try swapping it with another and test again.

[cteno4]

i agree it sounds like something with the power routing in the point and pushing down the track just warps the point to make better contact internally.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

Yes, that would be my guess as well.

[ATShinkansen]

Thanks, I’ll try that (again).  That was my first suspicion, before the rail joiners; I did dismantle that turnout to see if I could find anything.  It’s easy to do, and simple inside.  I think it has something to do with the contacts directly under the rails.  I want to see if those can be pushed further up through the roadbed.

[ATShinkansen]

Fixed it!  Sure enough, a little extra force on one of the contacts from the underside was all it needed!

[Sam Jameson]

Hello Everyone,

 

I am located in the US and have several Tomix Fine Track sets in N scale. I would like to connect them into a power hub or bus that I can use the power pack (currently DC, hopefully DCC in the future) to control the entire rail system. Currently, I cannot power the entire layout. Please let me know where I can get a plug into a hub or bus system to connect my sets.

 

Thank you,

 

Sam

[katoftw]

Any of the retailers in the suppliers section of this forum.  OR cut wires and make your own.

[cteno4]

@Sam Jameson,

 

Tomix only sells a splitter cable so you would need to keep doing Y splits to do multiple feeds.

 

other option is to use a little terminal block and run the plug for the transformer in one side and all the wires from your feeders/extensions into he other side. You can bundle a number of wires from feeders into one slot and if you need more just get terminal block with more and use some short pieces of wire to jump the input transformer wire to a second terminal strip. Just snip off the plugs as needed and strip the wires some. Tin the wire ends with a soldering iron to help keep strands from being broken off when you clamp them on the terminal block
 

these little terminal blocks are nice as you just have little pressure levers to clamp down wires. This one gives you one input pair of terminals and 3 pairs of output terminals. you could probably do 2 or 3 Tomix feeder wires per output terminal, this would give you 6 or 9 feeders to a single transformer input cable.

you could of course just solder a bunch of feeders to a single transformer plug as well. Terminal block is nice as you can detach feeders easily if needed and easy to ass more,

cheers,

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

You can get a small terminal block from ModelTrainStuff aka M.B. Klein.

 

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Circuitron-800-6301-Smail-Terminal-Block/

[cteno4]

Those blocs are meant to solder to a circuit board and they are tiny, handling 1 or maybe 2 wires each terminal max. You could use them to make your own terminal block by soldering them on a blank pc board and solder a wire across all the terminals and use one terminal for an input and the rest for output. Would need a pair of these Terminal bock strips to do both dc inputs.

 

you can find these much cheaper on ebay

 

You can also get them in 2 or 3 terminals and just gang them together very easily to make a Terminal strip as long as you want.
 

I can pop some of these on a pub board to mock it up to show you what I’m talking about if this all does not make sense.
 

Lemme know if you want me to send you a dozen of fhe 2 pin ones and a pcb board. I have a bunch laying around here, happy to pop them in the mail to you.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Sam Jameson]

9 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Those blocs are meant to solder to a circuit board and they are tiny, handling 1 or maybe 2 wires each terminal max. You could use them to make your own terminal block by soldering them on a blank pc board and solder a wire across all the terminals and use one terminal for an input and the rest for output. Would need a pair of these Terminal bock strips to do both dc inputs.

 

you can find these much cheaper on ebay

 

You can also get them in 2 or 3 terminals and just gang them together very easily to make a Terminal strip as long as you want.
 

I can pop some of these on a pub board to mock it up to show you what I’m talking about if this all does not make sense.
 

Lemme know if you want me to send you a dozen of fhe 2 pin ones and a pcb board. I have a bunch laying around here, happy to pop them in the mail to you.

 

cheers

 

jeff

Jeff,

 

Thank you so very much for your wonderful suggestions! I will start combining those Y splitter cables into terminals, and hopefully those terminals will provide an elegant solution. 6/2 Mini Fast Wire Connectors seem to be also a neat solution.

[Sam Jameson]

17 hours ago, bill937ca said:

You can get a small terminal block from ModelTrainStuff aka M.B. Klein.

 

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Circuitron-800-6301-Smail-Terminal-Block/

Thank you! I will look into this solution!

[Sam Jameson]

On 7/8/2023 at 8:27 PM, katoftw said:

Any of the retailers in the suppliers section of this forum.  OR cut wires and make your own.

Absolutely! I will look forward to perusing that section. Thank you for the suggestion!

[Rod.H]

I found this page http://jw-cad.fukurail.gozaru.jp/pattern/TOMIX_index.html from a link a small Japanese model train youtuber had in one of their video's description field. Some of what's there should be familiar, especially if you've visited R. D. Kerr's English Tomix page. However, I don't think I've come across this http://jw-cad.fukurail.gozaru.jp/pattern/TOMIX_bunki.html dual track to single track junctions being mentioned anywhere before. Going through the designs discussed I'm certain some feature spots where the tomix trap points can be added in.  

The same site even has ideas for Unitrack.

 

And yes I was in the mood to play with track, so I did. I took their "Using XL (R) 140-15 to branch a single line from a double line spacing of 37 mm Part 3" idea, flipped it left and swapped out the LH point for a LH double slip.

 

I like this arrangement for some reason, though whether this fits in with what I want to do. Guess it's another slice of the sausage.

 

Edit: Forgot, as I don't have any Tomix S99s (I think), I used 2 S70, a V70, a S18.5 & an S33 for the straight path to the top track. Yes I'm aware of the stagger on the siding throat, as this is currently a thought experiment and I've limited space, I'm ignoring it 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Rod.H
left out an explaination

[DAG]

New to forum, so not sure what am doing. Old man deciding to try small layout with tomix track. Want point-point section with reverse lops each end. Seem easy with points/reverse switch. Can do manual, but think I recall comment can make automatic using tomix sensors. Don't understand how sensor to actuate points/reversing switch. Visiting tokyo, went to Tomix World to ask. They said impossible with tomix system parts. Perhaps my recall is fantasy. Can anyone help?

[brill27mcb]

One thing you could do is power the loops directly from the power pack, and then let the throwing of the points power (and determine the direction on) the single track between the loops. You would just need a Tomix #5532 Point Control Box N-W, which would throw both points at the same time and handle the whole thing for manual operation. All you have to do is make sure the entire train is within the loop when you use the control box. I don't think automation can be done within the Tomix system, short of finding and investing in a TNOS train control system, along with the required cables and sensors.

 

There is also the possibility of using the old low-tech, wiring-only trick of using a very short length of a single insulated section of rail located near the end of each loop. When the bogies of a metal-wheeled loco or car bridge it to the rest of the rail on that side of the track, it completes a circuit that throws both points. Think of this as the train throwing the points, instead of you using the Tomix #5532. The downside of this method is that the coils in the points can cause a small but quick burst of power that can pit the rails and wheels when that bridging happens. This is how it was done back in vintage Lionel days.

 

What the world needs is someone to come up with a simple "black box" that takes Tomix sensor inputs and adds the power (current) and polarity needed to throw Tomix points. My electrical knowledge is insufficient for this and probably too old fashioned (think large relays from Radio Shack) - the Tomix (and Kato) points are not very high-current and these days it can probably all be done with a small solid state circuit board, Arduino, or something like that. Any volunteers?

 

Rich K.

[katoftw]

@DAG Can you draw a picture of what you are trying to do?