Bandai B-Train Shorty

[defor]

Thanks everyone! 

I ordered some lead sheet to see about adding some weight, a few more DE10's and some power unit 5's

Already looked into the DCC conversion and it looks messy, but at least doable!

Been putting the finishing touches on the track plan (7'x1' shelf layout for my desk at work), and will probably be posting about it soon.

[chadbag]

On 6/27/2018 at 7:04 AM, defor said:

Thanks everyone! 

I ordered some lead sheet to see about adding some weight, a few more DE10's and some power unit 5's

Already looked into the DCC conversion and it looks messy, but at least doable!

Been putting the finishing touches on the track plan (7'x1' shelf layout for my desk at work), and will probably be posting about it soon.

 

I've not played with the Bandai B-Train Shorties, but if you need a really small decoder, look at the D&H PD05A.  It is about 5mm x 7.9mm x 2.5mm (chips on both sides)

 

 

[EF57]

is bandai uninterested in new shorties?  if they don’t announce a hello kitty 500 series, the answer would be yes.  — Although it would of course just be the same old mold, just like for the eva paint, so maybe even that wouldn’t prove much.

 

 i must say, i hate hello kitty but i do like that train!

[defor]

22 hours ago, EF57 said:

i must say, i hate hello kitty but i do like that train!

☝️ Definitely planning to order this if they release- seems almost impossible that they wouldn't though!

 

On another topic, were the Yamanote line History 7 full sets special order only, or can they be assembled using multiple normal boxed releases?

I'm a little lost on the way that the full train is assembled.

Edited July 2, 2018 by defor

[defor]

On 6/30/2018 at 6:38 PM, chadbag said:

 

I've not played with the Bandai B-Train Shorties, but if you need a really small decoder, look at the D&H PD05A.  It is about 5mm x 7.9mm x 2.5mm (chips on both sides)

I was considering the Digitrax DZ126T as, although it's a little larger, also supports transponding which I've been investing in pretty heavily recently.

either way, there's so very little room in the DE10 shell, this is going to be rather challenging- at present I've lined the inside of the front and back 'hood' covers with lead to increase weight, so this leaves the driver's cab as the most likely location to put a decoder, although the roof mounting pins will need to be removed in part or whole.

[chadbag]

1 minute ago, defor said:

I was considering the Digitrax DZ126T as, although it's a little larger, also supports transponding which I've been investing in pretty heavily recently.

either way, there's so very little room in the DE10 shell, this is going to be rather challenging- at present I've lined the inside of the front and back 'hood' covers with lead to increase weight, so this leaves the driver's cab as the most likely location to put a decoder, although the roof mounting pins will need to be removed in part or whole.

 

OK.  Note that if you are interested in RailCom type "transponding" that most D&H support RailCom.  Good luck.

[defor]

Not gonna lie, for computer automation, nothing seems to support loconet-at least with a simple to use interface, which is a bit disappointing, so I've been rolling my own automation daemons designed for my own layouts just with basic message handling over loconet.

 

Perhaps I should have looked more into Lenz and other systems, but I was already buying and modifying a number of digitrax decoders for my non-shorties...

Edited July 2, 2018 by defor

[Welshbloke]

To give an idea of how well the Bandai bogie chassis can run, here's one of my DD51s with four tankers:

That's plain DC with a Kato controller, chassis has a few shreds of lead added and bearings lubricated.

[defor]

6 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

To give an idea of how well the Bandai bogie chassis can run, here's one of my DD51s with four tankers:

That's plain DC with a Kato controller, chassis has a few shreds of lead added and bearings lubricated.

Interesting... I've had a lot of improvement in reliability just by readjusting the axle widths on the Bandai bogies. As you say, adding some weight by way of lead also helps a lot to reduce bounce and wobble.

That said, I've been less than thrilled with the visible wheel "wobble" due to the somewhat flexible wheel "joiner"

Edited July 3, 2018 by defor

[Welshbloke]

The bogie chassis are a lot better than the four wheelers, not just because of the extra pickups.

 

One slight snag with Bandai trailer bogies is the inside bearings, which generate a lot more drag than pinpoint ones. This limits train lengths to four or five items before you need more power. In the case of my eight car Hokutosei it has an extra bogie motor chassis tucked under the KaNi. I do wish I'd grabbed one of the bogie electric locos they offered a while ago and bashed it onto the diesel chassis. It was designed to take a couple of the freight bogies as a dummy.

[chadbag]

Just say No

Just say No

Just say No

Just say No...

 

Be strong

 

Just say No

 

[Welshbloke]

The main reason I stopped buying them is that I found Tomytecs. Bandai prices were going up and Tomytecs are a similar price when all parts are included, but scale length. Still occasionally check for Pack A of the original livery 500 Series as I have a slightly ersatz one made from two Bs, but prices have got silly.

[defor]

6 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

The bogie chassis are a lot better than the four wheelers, not just because of the extra pickups.

right... but can the bogies be swapped onto say, shorty koki 106/107's?

 

right now I'm using https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B009JWM594

 

you're suggesting I can switch to the bogies pulled from: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00K4N7D9E/

 

or am i mistaken here?

[defor]

4 hours ago, chadbag said:

Just say No

Just say No

Just say No

Just say No...

 

Be strong

 

Just say No

 

lol!

 

are you implying it's a drug?

 

 

 

 

because it totally is.

[cteno4]

We have a 12 step program...

 

jeff

[chadbag]

48 minutes ago, defor said:

lol!

 

are you implying it's a drug?

 

 

 

 

because it totally is.

 

I can't speak to the shorties being a drug, as I have no experience there...   (Just say No...)

 

But look at my Instagram for the effects of the Nscale drug.

 

Speaking of the B-Shorty, these look to be?   

 

https://zenmarket.jp/auction.aspx?itemCode=l451556478

 

 

[cteno4]

Yep they are with some other regular containers mixed in,

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=104&cat=&state=&sold=0&sortid=0&searchkey=Bandai+container

 

step then sub groups for each particular vice, I think many of us may have to go to many different sub group meetings...

 

jeff

[defor]

Actually I think those are the stock containers from the koki 'assortment' pack (set 3?) which those cars definitely are from.

Edited July 4, 2018 by defor

[cteno4]

Might be, I didn’t look thru the new sets totally. I have the first two sets that came out. Nice and containers will go on regular cars and visa versa.

 

jeff

[Welshbloke]

8 hours ago, defor said:

right... but can the bogies be swapped onto say, shorty koki 106/107's?

 

right now I'm using https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B009JWM594

 

you're suggesting I can switch to the bogies pulled from: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00K4N7D9E/

 

or am i mistaken here?

Those are both the inside frame Bandai bogies, I think the only pinpoint bearing bogies for the Shorties are the ones Kato sell. Which obviously have a limited selection of frame designs.

 

I meant the bogie loco chassis vs the four wheel loco chassis, not sure if the latter is currently available but it looked much like the chassis Kato use on their Pocket Line range.

[EF57]

on the kato vs. the bandai bogies/trucks see above p. 32

[nickhp]

So with a little more life on the subject of B Train Shorties, how about doing something that takes advantage of the size of these trains?

 

It would be interesting to see what people can come up with to take advantage of the size and small radius capabilities.  I have built a 4x2 and an even smaller layout with 6 loops (34” by 21”).   I am thinking of building a 1x2’ layout to push the size even smaller.  Anyone else interested in seeing what they can do in this space?

 

Nick

[kvp]

1 hour ago, nickhp said:

Shorties, how about doing something that takes advantage of the size of these trains?

Considering that they are half the length and some Tomix/Tomytec full length trains could go down to 140mm radius, the shorties could potentially take up half the length and with curves quarter the space, but that would mean 70mm curves. Or by keeping 140mm curves since these are the smallest off the shelf turnouts, you can have double the amount of cars than with standard uncompressed 20 meter cars. The design logic is pretty much the same as with short full scale (10 to 12 meter) cars that are mostly made by Tomytec.

 

ps: i'm thinking about the scenery: Should the buildings be compressed sidewise too to look scale sized to the trains? Japan has quite a lot of small buildings that are vertically normal but have small footprints...

 

[MichiK]

 

3 hours ago, nickhp said:

So with a little more life on the subject of B Train Shorties, how about doing something that takes advantage of the size of these trains?

 

There's a (at least one) dedicated B Train Shorty "club" in Japan, who has a pretty big website. One section is the layout gallery, ranging from minuscule dioramas to extensive module arrangements: http://tokkou-b-team.net/exhibition.html

 

This gives quite a good overview about the possibilities with shorties!

 

Michi

[nickhp]

I guess I wasn’t clear.  I know what can be done with B Train Shorties, I was looking to see if anyone else would be interested in a mini project “challenge”, a 1x2’ b train layout, say by the end of the year?

 

Nick