Bandai B-Train Shorty

[lukewang01]

1 hour ago, Klock said:

I saw the custom 3d printed chassis someone made with 2 holes. Do the little plastic clips on the truck insert into those holes? 

 

They fit pretty well. I'm running about 35 cars on those chassis now, haven't had any problems other than my Cassiopeia set.

 

The distance between the two holes are slightly shorter than the actual one piece chassis, if you're not going to run cars with low and long sides, you should be fine. The picture with the Chou line E233 was printed with that dimension and you can check if that's good enough for your standard. Cars with sides that go not much lower than the chassis run very well even on C-103 curves. I'm going to fix the problem some point this or next month.

 

One other thing is the fitment between the chassis and the car varies, some are tight some are loose depending on the cars, some mounting putty solve the problem perfectly. 

Edited November 30, 2020 by lukewang01
Formatting better for reading

[Welshbloke]

On 11/19/2020 at 3:48 PM, lukewang01 said:

Chassis.pdf 153.68 kB · 17 downloads

It's not intended for commercial purposes, so please don't use it for commercial purposes! If you see it somewhere else on the internet not from me, please help me taking it down. 

 

I have created a drawing of my 3D printed chassis. Some dimensions will seem odd for professionals due to the way I took certain measurements, and I apologize for that. It would help me a lot if I can also get some advice for my drawing from a professional perspective as I'm still learning these stuff. 

 

I need to think about whether or not to release the .STL file for printing as I don't want to get into trouble, so let me know what you guys think. 

 

Also, let me know if I missed any dimensions. 

 

Thingiverse is full of stuff designed to work with commercial/proprietary products, it doesn't seem to cause a problem as it's clearly not pretending to be an official item. I'll give it a go if you decide to upload one.

[lukewang01]

Thanks, I'll look into it. 

[lukewang01]

ChassisV2.0.pdf

 

It's not intended for commercial purposes, so please don't use it for commercial purposes! If you see it somewhere else on the internet not from me, please help me taking it down. 

 

This is an update to the chassis in response to my earlier post about the shorter distance between the holes. 

[Zeether]

I ordered the Kumamoto 5000 series off HLJ recently, got a couple of questions though: which pantographs will fit it and can I easily take the body off the B-Train chassis to put on the motor unit? Planning on displaying it with the stock chassis until I get the motor + trucks.

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Zeether

[roadstar_na6]

The chassis are plug and play basically, for pantographs I‘d check the Japanese Wikipedia if it has information on what type the prototype has and then check if Tomix offers them with two big center posts that attach to the roof.

Edited January 6, 2021 by roadstar_na6

[disturbman]

That configuration is usually more common to Kato. I haven’t had any Tomix panto with two central tabs. I used Kato pantos on my Shorties.

[Cat]

I've been fitting Tomix pantos.  Pin vice to drill out 4 post holes.  Testor's Contour putty to fill Bandai holes.

Bandai power units fit right in.  Kato ones will need a little fiddling.

[roadstar_na6]

Oh I didn‘t know you drilled out posts, @Cat. I thought some Tomix pantos just came with the two posts.

 

The Kato ones I fit to my Shorty ED75 had too thin posts, so I had to glue them in place.

[Zeether]

1 hour ago, Cat said:

I've been fitting Tomix pantos.  Pin vice to drill out 4 post holes.  Testor's Contour putty to fill Bandai holes.

Bandai power units fit right in.  Kato ones will need a little fiddling.

 

Are the Kato ones a little hard to fit or something? I know the Bandai units tend to be a little tough to find. Also it looks like the 11-405 pantograph will work, it has the two posts.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Zeether

[Cat]

On 1/6/2021 at 1:11 PM, roadstar_na6 said:

Oh I didn‘t know you drilled out posts, @Cat. I thought some Tomix pantos just came with the two posts.

 

The Kato ones I fit to my Shorty ED75 had too thin posts, so I had to glue them in place.

All the Tomix ones we've picked up have four posts.  I will glue them in after adding DCC chips to the motors.

Zeether, the Kato aren't hard to fit, but they're not designed for instant snap in place like the Bandai.  If you search the forum, others have posted their work.
 

[Zeether]

Will do. I got the 5000s in today and assembled them both. They look nice but the stickers are a pain...they're not pre-cut like Gunpla stickers and I ended up only applying one of them. I may have caught the bug though, these things are super nice! Maybe when shipping costs from Japan stop being such a pain I'll hit up Mandarake or something for more...

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Zeether

[EF57]

Wow, who’da thunk it?  MicroAce is producing shorty engines, first an EF59 with real panto and motor and the price is right!  Also two diesels.  Already among the best-sellers on Hobbysearch.

Edited January 9, 2021 by EF57

[jappomania]

4 hours ago, EF57 said:

Wow, who’da thunk it?  MicroAce is producing shorty engines, first an EF59 with real panto and motor and the price is right!  Also two diesels.  Already among the best-sellers on Hobbysearch.

 

well, it's not a really "news", the same locos has been produced 20 years ago (simplified), the engine was a really sh...t,  I'm curious to see the new one

 

http://microace-arii.co.jp/poster/img/99_11.jpg

[EF57]

Why so blasé, considering how Bandai’s gone down the tubes?  It’s sure the best thing that’s happened in this area since, since, since ...

[chinbeard]

 

Microace have these little locos due for January release, they appear to be shortened versions of large EF59 etc,  can anyone translate ?

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10751428/30/1

 

[roadstar_na6]

@chinbeard, the HS listings should have all information needed. If you still want that PDF translated, try this.

[Cat]

If the motors are good, those will be great!

[Dinosbacsi]

Hello guys, new here, got here because this forum got recommended to me in a facebook group.

 

Long story short, I have a 4 car JR 205 shorty set (pic attached). Used to have only one set with 2 cars, but got a second set recently so I can have a 4 car consist. Then soon after that I got a set of Kato compact oval track, so it has a place to sit on. But now that I have a proper consist and a set of track, I really feel like wanting to run it - but they are without motors and proper running bogeys.

 

So my question is, any tips on where to get proper chassis for them? I used to look on HobbySearch, but they're out of stock on the Bandai ones, but the power units and the unpowered chassis ones.They have Kato power units, but I havn't found matching unpowered ones yet, and 4 motors for a 4 car consist seems like quite an overkill and waste of money? I could find standalone Kato bogeys, but they are without a chassis. And my models have their bogeys fixed to the chassis (I suppose this is the awful 2-piece chassis I see being mentioned here?) - so I guess I would need ones with chassis, like the Bandai kits used to have, right?

[disturbman]

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10030555

The commuter Kato trucks. There is also one for limited express trains. Easy way to find them is to filter by Kato the "Parts" in the B-Train Shorty" section.

[Dinosbacsi]

Yeah, as mentioned, I found these as well, but these are just the trucks/bogeys themselves, that you clip onto the body/chassis, I suppose. But my models came with a chassis that has fixed, non-rotating bogeys that cannot be removed. So I don't think I could attach these onto my train. So my guess is that I would need a new chassis as well (the part which the whole body and the bogeys attach to).

 

So basically I would need something like these Bandai ones, which come with a chassis as well, not just the trucks/bogeys.

At least that's what I think. Should I post a picture of my model's underside to show what I'm talking about?

[disturbman]

Didn't you attached the fixed boggies yourself? In my experience, there should be a hole in the underframe where you can just clip the trucks in.

Edited January 12, 2021 by disturbman

[cteno4]

Thus came up earlier in this thread last year.

 

Some of the newer bandai chassis don’t have the hole setup for the Kato trucks to pop into. you had to get the working chassis for those with the wheel sets to just pop them in.
 

I’ll try to dig out the one I rigged by cutting off all obstructions and epoxying a metal washer where the truck would mount and a larger hole in the hassles under the washer. Nothing too hard to do and just required epoxy, hobby knife and drill bit.

 

Lukewang01 on the forum is working on a 3D print chassis that will accept the Kato bogies.

 

 

jeff

[disturbman]

Oh, I had completely missed that conversation. Haven't bought shorties in years, didn't know about the new chassis.

[cteno4]

Yeah it took me by surprise and when I went thru a bunch of unbuilt btrains I have I came across one that had the fixed only configuration chassis. 
 

Ugh it’s not where I thought it would be in the drawers of in progress stuff, I now have a vague memory of packing it back into the un completed train box and being good putting it away, so now it’s to go looking thru the unbuilt btrain boxes again! 

 

jeff