Tomix 92606 Series 181 DCC Conversion

[Spaceman Spiff]

Gday Gang,

 

For my next conversion, I would like to convert a Tomix 92606 Series 181 to DCC using a Digitrax DZ146 (or similar).  It has a board that I haven't seen before. Any suggestions on how to do this?

 

Any idea what the circuitry is for a the top end in the front of the car?

 

Thanks

 

Spiff

[katoftw]

The 2 contacts on top of the motor are your + and -. they make contact with the gold strips with the board is placed on top of it.

 

So the decoder need to be installed in between the contact point. Red and Black to the board, orange and grey to the motor. Place some of the yellow/orange isollation tape between the motor tabs and the board or cantact cannot be made.

 

Is this model a CL installed model? Not 100% sure what the thing on the end is. But if going to a DCC decoder, it probably will be moot and can be removed.

Edited February 13, 2015 by katoftw

[Guest keio6000]

I was going to say that the solution is to sell the 181 and buy the re-released Kato 181 which takes plug-in decoders.  But then i see that your 181 has some regional livery not available from kato..  Still I can't help but thinking a solution may be to just buy the kato motor unit and try to fit the tomix body shell onto it.

[Melandir]

The 2 contacts on top of the motor are your + and -. they make contact with the gold strips with the board is placed on top of it.

 

So the decoder need to be installed in between the contact point. Red and Black to the board, orange and grey to the motor. Place some of the yellow/orange isollation tape between the motor tabs and the board or cantact cannot be made.

 

Is this model a CL installed model? Not 100% sure what the thing on the end is. But if going to a DCC decoder, it probably will be moot and can be removed.

 

The steps katoflow told you are correct

That small thing at the end is a capacitor and you need to remove it, capacitors are not digested well by DCC decoders

[Martijn Meerts]

To be honest, I probably would skip converting it, looks like it has the dreaded spring worm drive .. 

[HantuBlauLOL]

You might need some resistors as Tomix's old motors are very sensitive to high voltages..

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks for the replies. I'll follow Katoftw instructions and get rid of the capacitors as per Melandir. Had I know it had worm gears, I wouldn't have bought it. My only experience with worm gears was with a Graham Farish model and it was junk. Hopefully the tomix will be better.

 

 

Spiff

Edited February 13, 2015 by Spaceman Spiff

[Spaceman Spiff]

Looking at this conversion, I will isolate the motor and solder the appropriate contact leads to it and remove the circuitry in the front of the board. Is there any reason I couldn't solder the power leads of the decoder to the top part of the board where the circular holes that open up to the metal tabs below.

 

Spiff

[kvp]

That's the place for the connector of the interior light board.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks for the info KVP. Being that's it a light board source of power, would it not work for decoder power source.

 

Spiff

[kvp]

As far as i can tell, after you remove the capacitor at the end of the board, you can connect the decoder track wires in its place. Then the decoder motor wires have to be connected to the motor tabs and they have to be isolated. (i would use shrink wrap tubing for the motor contacts) The track conctacts would be isolated by the board without any extra and the decoder can be fixed on top of the isolating plastic covering the circuit board. This way it's only 4 soldering points and two shrink wrap tubes.

 

For installation order, i would remove the capacitor first, fix the decoder on top of the plastic (and take care to clear the contacts for a future light board). Then solder the track picups to the capacitor pads. Route down the motor wires on both sides of the board and solder to the motor contacts and cover them with shrink wrap. Assemble the whole thing and you are ready.

 

ps: You can even glue a 6 pin decoder socket with wires on top of the plastic plate, route the wires from there to the 4 soldering points as above, and then you will have a DCC ready motor unit that can be switched back to analog mode with a dummy plug.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks again for the info kvp. In the past I've drilled 2 small holes in the board where the motor contacts would pass thru and use shrink tubing. I'll solder the power leads to where the capicitors hook up to.

 

 

 

Spiff

[Spaceman Spiff]

I was going to say that the solution is to sell the 181 and buy the re-released Kato 181 which takes plug-in decoders.  But then i see that your 181 has some regional livery not available from kato..  Still I can't help but thinking a solution may be to just buy the kato motor unit and try to fit the tomix body shell onto it.

 

If I go this route, any suggestions on which kato model would fit easiest with Tomix shell?

 

 

Spiff

[katoftw]

It is a kit bashing affair. And most likeyl will end up in fail-land. Probably easier to sell the Tomix train set and buy the Kato train set if you really wanna go down this route.

Edited February 19, 2015 by katoftw

[Spaceman Spiff]

You're probably right, I'll get a kato motor car and paint it too match.

 

 

Spiff

[kvp]

That would look worse. The suggestion was to sell the unmotorised set an buy a fully motorised set. Since you can't get a kato one in the same color, you should get a tomix one.

 

On the other hand getting tomix motors for this type should be possible.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Hi Kvp,

 

I would get the Kato painted to match so I don't think the difference would be noticeable. Any specic tomix motor you think that might match up ok?

 

Spiff

[kvp]

I'm not speaking about the paint, i'm speaking about the forms. There are noticable differences between Tomix and Kato shells. For the motors, i think any 20-21 meter motor would work, even some of the Tomytec drives. I would look for ones with DT40 or DT36 bogies, but if you are less picky, then the DT32 boiges would look ok too. Of course as a first try, you can look for the official motor meant for this set by looking at the parts sheet of the motorised version.

 

You mentioned two different couplers. Since your motor unit has rapidos, i assume the unpowered set uses Tomix shibatas. If your second (unpowered) set uses body mount couplers, then move these over to the new motor and you don't have to adjust (or use) the rapido couplers. I assume that you want to motorise a middle car, so no extra equipment is needed from the unmotorised car, just the couplers, the shell and maybe some of the underfloor equipment if it's not already present on the motor unit.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Just a quick update, the tomix shell fits reasonably well on to a Kato RDC4. I hard wired a dz decoder (no point in using the regular expensive digitrax decoder) on it and runs well. I need to paint the the silver trucks to match the black Tomix trucks.

 

 

Spiff