Tomix chassis motor Tram: Can you fit to Kato portram body

[welshdodger]

 Can you fit Tomix chassis motors  to a Kato portram body, or any other chassis 

As i have major breakdowns with  kato motors i have 3 Kato portram chassis need replacing 

I tried  to buy replacements but that is proving to be a inposable task 

so if any member can come up with alternative chassis that would be great

Thanks

to all 

welshdodger

rognewton

[bill937ca]

I don't have the Kato Portram for this very reason, but I suspect the Tomytec drive is way too large.

[cteno4]

Rog,

 

While you might be able to cram it in there I'm betting things won't quite fit well. Basically I think you would need to gut the kato down to just the shell and then maybe do some carving and perhaps make some block stops I site to hold the chassis just right. I'm thinking this would be a bit of work, might prove workable but my guess is its going to take a lot of fiddling. If the Katos are dead and useless anyway I think getting a tomytec mech and giving it a whirl would be a good idea. If it starts to not pan out then just buy a tomytec shell for the mech, not that expensive.

 

I can take the calipers to my kato and tomytec and see if there are any clear gotchas if you want.

 

It's really a shame kato did not make more of the spare motorized trucks. It is a spare part with motor, truck, and circuit board for about 1800 yen (reasonable) but was sold out when portrams first were released I think because folks snapped thm up to motorize other trams and mow equipment. I've heard a number of folks now with blown kato portrams and they are super delicate mechs in the trucks to try to poke into yourself.

 

The newer version of the tomytec mech runs well and straightens well after curves. Older mech would sometimes not totally straighten, but with a little fiddling I was able to get all mine squirming correctly.

 

Let us know your results

 

Jeff

[brill27mcb]

Jeff, I was not aware that there are older and newer variations of the Tomytec TM-LRT01 power chassis. Is there a visual spotting difference between them?

 

Rich K.

[cteno4]

Rich,

 

Something changed there when it was not in channels maybe for 6 months. The early ones needed a little oil and working and also fiddling to get the shell just right to snap back straight all the time. When I got one a year or so later when the mech was back in circulation it worked great right out of the box. Maybe they just used some grease in assembly when re-released or I just had bad luck on the first 5 and good luck on the 6th! I thought I did read somewhere that some minor fixes had been done on the re-release.

 

I'm not sure now if I can go back and figure out which one was which. I do the shell game with them! But I can look to see if one has an obvious difference.

 

Jeff

Edited May 22, 2014 by cteno4

[cteno4]

Rog,

 

Meant to ask, do you know how/why the three kato portrams blew on you?

 

Jeff

[welshdodger]

Rog,

 

Meant to ask, do you know how/why the three kato portrams blew on you?

 

Jeff

Realy don't know why. I am  using kato controller just bad luck as it only one of the chassis on each tram

[kvp]

Realy don't know why. I am  using kato controller just bad luck as it only one of the chassis on each tram

It could be just mechanical fatigue if you run them too much or overvoltage (the red area on the controller is unsafe for N scale trains) or a sudden stop (collision), that disconnected a circuit. Imho, 1 bad bogie on each tram means you have a chance that you have at least 2 good bogies, so someone can combine them into a working tram. Or it could even turn out to be a just a slight misalignement that caused them to stop.

 

For modding, i think the tomix shells are so cheap compared to the kato that if you get a motor, you can get a matching shell too.

[cteno4]

They are extremely tiny mechs with a lot crammed in there. It could mean just pulling it apart and cleaning it. The tiny 3v motor and gearing I don't think are very powerful so a tiny but puzz or grit could gum it up. If you are handy with small stuff you could try and pull it apart, at this point probably would not hurt anything. There is a thread in the forum and a Japanese blog with lots of Picts showing how to pull them apart.

 

At worst as KVM noted you could kitbash one working one out of two with single trucks out.

 

Jeff