The new Kato Pocket Line controller

[Welshbloke]

Mine arrived yesterday, and I've had a very brief play with it.

 

First impressions - the controller comes in a bubble wrap bag inside the usual cardboard box. The item itself feels well made, the controls move positively and the plastic feels slightly better quality than the standard blue Kato controllers. It's tiny but not so small as to make operations awkward, you will need to hold it steady with one hand while adjusting controls with the other but it's very usable.

 

No cables are included, but USB A to C or C to C are readily available as are mains adapters if you don't have an old phone charger or a power bank knocking around. Just avoid the cheap and nasty ones as they often have lethally bad electrical designs. If you buy from a large chain or get a genuine one from a recognised manufacturer you should be fine, they've got too much at stake to risk selling dangerous appliances.

 

I haven't tried it with an ammeter yet (I will do as I have a few of those USB test meters) but it seems to cope with USB-PD power supplies. It doesn't trigger the PD function (this was explicitly stated in the advertising - 5v input only) but at the same time it evidently has the components to trigger their delivering a plain 5v supply, some devices which don't do PD lack the ability to do this. So it should be fine with anything which has a USB-C plug on the end.

 

Amusingly it happily moved a Heljan O scale diesel loco at a reasonable pace for shunting, these are supposed to need big beefy controllers due to having two chunky motors and being seriously heavy! I can't comment on how long the little controller would have coped as I only have about two and a half metres of O track at home, but it coped with this very silly test. If a loco will move at a reasonable speed at about 40% of a standard 12v controller's output it should be quite happy with this little thing.

[kami_illy]

Got this controller some days ago too.

I was pretty excited since this one seems to check all the boxes: small, no extra power supply stuff needed (bc you have a ton of USB cables and plugs anyways in the house) and what seemed to be enough power to have some fun. 

When I tried it, I first put a Kato 700 Nozomi head car on the tracks, plugged everything in turned the throttle and.... NOTHING. Turned the throttle some more... and more... and then at 75-80% the lights turned on. Seemed a bit weird to me that it would need almost full throttle or 5V to turn on the LED head lights. Then i tried the Kato E235 and even at full throttle the (bulb) lights just glow very low, tail lights don't even show. Also neither of the power cars showed any sign of life with full throttle. I was pretty bummed out and went to sleep.  

 

Next day I tried a Shorty loco (Bandai No5 power unit) and again it started to show some signs of movement just well over 60-70% throttle. At full power it moves ok / fast enough to not look ridiculous. The same with a 4 or 5 car Shorty commuter. The speed seems to be ok for a tourist or excursion train but a bit slow for commuter or express train... I'll try with the loco and 7 car sleepers next. 

 

On 12/6/2024 at 11:32 PM, Welshbloke said:

... If a loco will move at a reasonable speed at about 40% of a standard 12v controller's output it should be quite happy with this little thing.

I might do a test, comparing to my other controller (European N-Scale, up to about 16V)

 

So to conclude my first impressions; the controller looks great, feels great, love the USB concept but power output -for now at least- seems a bit underwhelming. 

Edited February 11 by kami_illy
typo

[cteno4]

Hmm thats a little disappointing. I assumed this little guy has a buck up circuit in it to push the voltage above 5v. Anyone put a voltmeter on it? Im guessing amperage will depend on the input power supply. Bucking up the voltage will reduce the amperage out to the tracks. Im also wondering if its pwm. But it seems aimed at the little pocket trains really and no lighting presumably.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

From what I have read its only intended for Pocket Line trains with the new coreless  motor.

 

"The maximum output voltage is 5V, and the vehicles guaranteed to work are [Pocket Line with new power source] (coreless motor used) products.
- It may be possible to run some small vehicles equipped with coreless motors."

 

Very limited abilities. I'm not interested at that level of performance.

[cteno4]

Simple litte usb buck up circuit for less than a couple of bucks hooked to a pwm supply [another couple of bucks0 would do nicely and you could easily set the pwm supply input to the proper range for the train being run. All for under $10 with a dpdt reversing switch and nice knob and box.

 

jeff

[kami_illy]

10 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Simple litte usb buck up circuit for less than a couple of bucks hooked to a pwm supply [another couple of bucks0 would do nicely and you could easily set the pwm supply input to the proper range for the train being run. All for under $10 with a dpdt reversing switch and nice knob and box.

 

jeff

You mean to make a DIY controller? 

 

Makes me think if it was possible (with reasonable effort) to beef up the Keto controller. Increase the voltage a bit. Even 9V could be enough to make it fun. In one of the test runs I had two motors running at the same time and it didn't seem to slow them down, so overall power could be enough...  

[kami_illy]

Also just read that while input is 5V / 500mA, the output is limited to 0-5V / 200mA. (don't know how I am reading this just now)

So maybe there is a way of getting it to 9 or 10V and somewhere between 250-270mA (still low compared to the 1 or 1,2A of the Standard SX Pack). 

[cteno4]

Yep, i just ordered a beefier buck up board to try this with little pwm boards to get something closer to an amp and you could go up to 12v. This could run off 5v usb power supply or a 5v powerbank. The little pwm boards work well for small trains that ive messed with just susing 9v or 12v wall warts. Never tried them with bigger trains, but i will here. Should have the parts in a week or two and I’ll post the results.

 

jeff

[Welshbloke]

Kato were pretty clear at the start that it's 5v max IIRC. I agree they missed an opportunity to use Power Delivery and have it bump up to 12v when plugged into a suitable charger or power bank, but within its limitations it's decent enough. I've had an old Minitrix Ivatt 2-6-0 with a Tramfabriek coreless motor circulating on mine for hours with no problems. It doesn't have lights and 5v has it moving well beyond scale speeds, roughly half power looks about right to me.

 

I've acquired a power bank shell with a built in USB-C cable which has a 21700 cell (recovered from a broken fan) stuffed inside, it makes a good combination with the Kato controller. Incidentally, as the current draw is tiny you may find some power banks cut out (their circuitry assuming that there's nothing plugged in).

 

I've built PWM controllers which will take 12v from a USB C PD power supply, or as close as the power supply can manage (if it tops out at 9v then that's all the controller gets, but this seems fine). You need to wire a DPDT switch for reversing polarity, and to hook the wires up between the USB PD trigger board, the PWM module, the polarity switch and the track, but it'd be an excellent first electronic project as all the hard work is done for you. The most awkward bit is finding the smallest possible project box that it'll all fit into, especially since we lost Maplin (think Radio Shack for US readers). Being able to walk in and eyeball the enclosures was much easier!

Edited February 24 by Welshbloke

[kami_illy]

2 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

Kato were pretty clear at the start that it's 5v max IIRC.

True, the point that I was missing (though I think I just didn't read the specs properly at at the time) is that the output is at just 0.2A (compared to the 0.5A input). So the overall available power is not even half of the input. I had hopes that the max output equaled the input (at 2.5W). But the actual output at 1W is a bit disappointing. 

Didn't have the time to test a 4 or 5 car Shorty train on the layout yet. Power might not be enough to even get the train around the whole loop (which is not too big considering its a Shorty layout...)

[cteno4]

So i got a few little adjustable voltage buck up boards to test this week to see how they work with a small pwm board to make a mini 5v supplied power pack. I’ll bread board some up and test them with various equipment. For smaller trains i think the little 4w buck up boards will work fine and could be fit into a very small package. You would probably spend more on the case and knobs than the guts!

 

jeff