What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[railsquid]

I haven't done a scientific study or anything, but my impression is it's mainly early/mid 2000s stuff (typically with the grey case; this model has a blue case, but the website lists it as 2005). I have acquired some older Kato and Tomix models which have also been a bit on the screechy side, but the chances of acquiring a second-hand multiple unit from the House of Arii which sounds like a banshee trapped in a bucket of spanners are much greater. In my experience.

 

I suspect the problem is mainly with the "O" rings which hold the bogie worm gear; possibly they are a little tighter than they should be, or the plastic is too hard, or has changed with age. A dab of grease works wonders. Sometimes the motor bearings need the tinsiest dab of oil too.

[Steve]

Finally, I got those Pre-War Steel Passenger Cars. I was waiting for their release since I missed the Chuo Line Set.

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Steve

[railsquid]

Today's entry into the "Inappropriate Street Running Contest" is this Bandai B-Train Shorty 201 series which I picked up  while back as an N-gauge completed unit for a bit of fun, but sadly the motor unit which came with it never worked properly, and I only just got round to acquiring a new one:

 

]

Bandai "B-train shorty" 201-series (Chuo Line) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

To my delight it runs very happily around the 103mm Tomix mini-curves :D. Adding some weight to the motor unit seems to improve the running quality quite a bit.

 

Bandai "B-train shorty" 201-series (Chuo Line) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[JR East]

On 10/12/2021 at 3:40 PM, Yavianice said:

I have equipped mine with Light Bulb lights in the Premium Green Car, and the Lite Yellow in "ordinary" green car. On interior images it looks like the difference is not that big, but, the interior is more "woody/dark" in the premium green car, which (in my opinion) makes the light bulb lights a bit more appropriate (like in the video below, premium green car is at the end of the train).

 

 

 

 

@Yavianice  I just installed the X-Lite on 2 cars of my Saphir Odoriko (I know that there is a light temperature difference between before, / after but I'm too lazzy tonite to go to Lightroom and balance it correctly)

 

 

 

Two things to keep in mind :

 

- As of a couple of volts, the X-Lite  led is delivering a full lighting whereas the Kato ones are delivering the lighting as the volts increases

- I'll order definitely the "yellow bulb" at least for the Premium first car

 

not that easy to decide where to really put the yellow bulb led, depending on plenty of parameters as below

 

• https://www.jrpass.com/fr/blog/the-saphir-odoriko-luxury-excursion-train-from-tokyo-to-izu-peninsula
• https://www.jreast.co.jp/saphir/en/

 

 

Anyway, these X-Lite in lite yellow can easily be recycled into my NE'X or in my coming E257-2500 which should be delivered end of the month, beginning of November. It seems to perfectly match the lighting ambiance. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by JR East
add. info

[Yavianice]

@JR East yeah that’s why I always look at night YouTube vids (with somewhat ok light balance) to judge which light goes where. But as mentioned before by @disturbman the filter of the windows and the interior color tend to mess things up a lot. For example the dark blue interior messes up the light color for the E4 no matter what you do, and the heavy tinting of the E353 windows change the appearance of the interior light significantly.

[JR East]

29 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

@JR East yeah that’s why I always look at night YouTube vids (with somewhat ok light balance) to judge which light goes where. But as mentioned before by @disturbman the filter of the windows and the interior color tend to mess things up a lot. For example the dark blue interior messes up the light color for the E4 no matter what you do, and the heavy tinting of the E353 windows change the appearance of the interior light significantly.

 

 

@Yavianice From a photographer point of view, pictures (and videos too) at night or at daylight are very different, esp. when it comes to light temperature. At night, what is light orange becomes far more orange (look at a sodium light for example). The sole way to make it comparable is to have a grey 18% card to align the white balance, but even with such a correction, daylight "white reflection" compared to night "black absorbtion" doesn't ease the comparison. 

 

@disturbmanis right but what cause also (an mainly a side-effect) is the plastic itself. Exactly the same color (pantone) but in leather or tissue completly changes the light thus teh final look &feel. I started to understand that when I've had my photo studio level 1 at my photographer's club

 

Meanwhile, it makes me consider painting the grey layout of the premium first into something more realistic and reconsider lighting afterwards. 

 

In a nutshell, the most appropriate light is ... the one you love for the ambiance, even if it can be different in real life. 

 

JM

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by JR East

[disturbman]

26 minutes ago, JR East said:

In a nutshell, the most appropriate light is ... the one you love for the ambiance, even if it can be different in real life. 

Exactly.

 

But the one you love might be one that is, or you think, is the most prototypical.

Edited October 15, 2021 by disturbman

[Yavianice]

There is one final thing to consider (something that confronted me many times)

 

Time specific mood lighting. Something which is featured on most modern trains nowadays, both limited express and local trains.

[Rod.H]

I've lost track since I last posted here. Picked up some more track, more containers, more Kiha1xx's and filled that 20D printed folding crate up with trainbook cases and loose Kato stock. Though a big thing I recently acquired is an actual Tomix Starter Set (90181) which means I now have a fourth oval of track and a controller that can power the Tomix signals I picked up sometime ago and trip the powered points, which resulted in the ordering at the same time of some Tomix N-W & N-S control boxes.

And yes like a bunch of people I also picked up the Rolling Stock Yard set (91016), the yard extension (91017), Engine Yard (91036) - that supplied me an answer on how to do a container yard with Tomix track, use tram track; a recent bit of infamy the Tomix 3266 upside down truss bridge which then resulted in shortly there after picking up two 3028 girder bridges and a batch of 3228 embankments and 3229 embankment extensions that then turned into a head-scratching session triggered by "I think this bridge needs approach signals" & "how do I power them?" and that circles back to the 90181 starter set. Thankfully the power adaptor Tomix includes in that set is multi-voltage so all I needed to make it work was an appropriate socket adaptor.

.

 

And no, I'm not the reason for the shortage of  Tomix wide track 3 colour signals, I've only ever bought six of them...so far

[cteno4]

On 10/15/2021 at 4:37 PM, Yavianice said:

There is one final thing to consider (something that confronted me many times)

 

Time specific mood lighting. Something which is featured on most modern trains nowadays, both limited express and local trains.

A string of regular rgb leds in a car and a custom Dcc chip could make this so for sending info like color and brightness to the decoder to set the light just right. There are some quite sophisticated rgb leds that take are individually addressable and controllable so you could even have different lighting in different parts of the car or the party/dance car!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

An unusual find - what appears to be a professional kit build by a now defunct shop ("麻布ホビー" / Azabu Hobby).

 

"Azabu Hobby Original" Minobu Line by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Old-skool growly Greenmax mechanism, but excellent paint job and working directional lighting. Interestingly the price label on the box says "¥55000" (a bit more than I paid for it 😄 ).

[Rod.H]

Oh I also forgot to say that last year I had my first every SAL shipment destroyed, it was my first ever Tomytec Railroad collection order, the KRT8000 and the parts needed to make it go. When got to me the outer box was dry but the entire contents was soaked in water, theoretically as most of it was sealed in plastic, it was technically fine but water had made it's way into the motorised chassis and while it ran, it ran very poorly. Reported it Auspost, they wrote it off as destroyed, passed that info back to Hobby Search and they refunded me. And then the fun of locating another and reordering the needed parts began.   

 

I also now own E217's from both manufactures, which mean four car sets from Kato and Tomix as I don't need the full train just the bit they broke off for branchline use. That's led me to pre-ordering another Tomix 209-2100 4-car set,  and the E231-0 Narita line anniversary set.  Another thing I've decided to pre-order is the M250 though only and 8-car length (base + one add on)

[cteno4]

I had one Sal come to me like that, completely soaked inside and still some outside so I think it happened on our end of the pacific in general parcel movement. Luckily the 3 Tomytec mechs were dry. Even though they were in seal plastic bag some moisture got in and soaked the Tomytec boxes pretty well but no apparent moisture (other than 100% humidity in there I’m sure) in the mech plastic insert. Ran fine and hit all the contacts with contact cleaner.

 

I figure with saving there use to be with Sal I could loose every 10th box and come out ahead still and really not lost anything yet in a few hundred. Some knocked around but never any real damage. But of course loosing something irreplaceable would be bad, but again they have all come thru! So I’m super self insured at this point and I’ve had EMS, FedEx, and DHL come thru with very bashed up packages and a couple go missing for a few days in transit, so I’m not sure they get much better care than Sal here to the us.

 

jeff

[Englehart]

some series 24 and 1 Kihayuni 25 ordered it from YA 🙂 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Englehart

[AbaZ33a]

MicroAce 100 9000 X1 “Late Years” accompanied by KATO 100 3000 V9. These two compliment each other rather well. Pity MA does not make a standard 100 X or G, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. One of the pantographs is slightly bent and broken, but it can still raise and lower somewhat and it’s not very noticeable. Anyone know if there are replacement parts available and if so what too look for? Not the end of the world but I don’t want to break it further. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by AbaZ33a

[Englehart]

32 minutes ago, AbaZ33a said:

MicroAce 100 9000 X1 “Late Years” accompanied by KATO 100 3000 V9. These two compliment each other rather well. Pity MA does not make a standard 100 X or G, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. One of the pantographs is slightly bent and broken, but it can still raise and lower somewhat and it’s not very noticeable. Anyone know if there are replacement parts available and if so what too look for? Not the end of the world but I don’t want to break it further. 

 

 

 

have you tried checking on 1999?

 

really love those 100 series

Edited October 23, 2021 by Englehart

[disturbman]

I don’t suppose you bought it from a shop?

 

Otherwise, they are two possibilities, find a MA donor car from which you can lift the replacement pantograph, or check Tomix and Kato assy parts for a similar pantograph and make the changes necessary to it or the car to make it fit.

 

How is it broken?

[AbaZ33a]

14 minutes ago, disturbman said:

I don’t suppose you bought it from a shop?

 

Otherwise, they are two possibilities, find a MA donor car from which you can lift the replacement pantograph, or check Tomix and Kato assy parts for a similar pantograph and make the changes necessary to it or the car to make it fit.

 

How is it broken?

One of the arms from the bottom half of the diamond is severed from the top arm and the diagonal contact bar section is also slightly twisted. Hard to explain but I’ll try and take some pictures when I have a chance. It was a Yahoo purchase and I although I didn’t pay a lot from what I’ve seen this set sell for it also wasn’t cheap either. I just wish I knew if there was an assy part for it so I could possibly replace it. Not a huge deal but I don’t want it to break more if I need to lower and raise it in the future. Finding a donor car would prob be hard as it would have to pop up all by itself and I haven’t seen any cars from this set singularly. I guess the best bet would be to try and find a KATO 100 Series Pantograph Assy but last time I checked I had no idea how to decipher what part was what or what number it is in the Japanese manual. I’ll have to look again though. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by AbaZ33a

[disturbman]

The donor car does not have to be from this set. From what I can see, you probably can use a pantograph from another 100 series, from a 0 or even a 200. I can't see any difference between these with a quick look. I'm sure you can find one of these as a singles, or buy one of the older 200 series 4-car add-ons. They sell for 3,000 to 5,000 JPY.

If you have other MA shinkansen, it would be easier to check if they are actually similar than to do a search in Japanese for images.

Those 100 series are magnificent.

Edited October 23, 2021 by disturbman

[Szdfan]

So I ordered these from Hobby Search back in July, but my Kato Suha 32 and Suhafu 32 finally arrived. These are my first Japanese passenger stock.

 

 

Incidentally, MB Klein has some of these in stock in right now for about $20 a pop. It’s tempting, but I was shocked to see that basic shipping for me was over $12, which still makes ordering from Japan (and waiting) cheaper. 

[beakaboy]

some more recent deals through Plaza Japan. good prices on sale.  The Chuo Line E233 was the Kato 6 car set as I already had the 4 car add on set. 

[beakaboy]

Some additions to my Z scale collection from Plaza Japan. The lighted Tokyo Marui Pro Z  E231-0Joban Line 7 car set for JPY9969 and the E231-500 Yamanote Line 7 car set for JPY8203.  They run superb! 

Also got the Rokuhan Taki 1000  2 car sets for JPY2200 set.  

The rest is previous orders from some time ago as well as auction wins on a national  site in New Zealand. 

No set layout plans as yet. Just test track.

[Englehart]

1 hour ago, beakaboy said:

Some additions to my Z scale collection from Plaza Japan. The lighted Tokyo Marui Pro Z  E231-0Joban Line 7 car set for JPY9969 and the E231-500 Yamanote Line 7 car set for JPY8203.  They run superb! 

Also got the Rokuhan Taki 1000  2 car sets for JPY2200 set.  

The rest is previous orders from some time ago as well as auction wins on a national  site in New Zealand. 

No set layout plans as yet. Just test track.

 

 

if only z scale was cheap 😄 I would get one as well

Edited October 25, 2021 by Englehart

[Rod.H]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:56 PM, AbaZ33a said:

MicroAce 100 9000 X1 “Late Years” accompanied by KATO 100 3000 V9. These two compliment each other rather well. Pity MA does not make a standard 100 X or G, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. One of the pantographs is slightly bent and broken, but it can still raise and lower somewhat and it’s not very noticeable. Anyone know if there are replacement parts available and if so what too look for? Not the end of the world but I don’t want to break it further. 

this part from Kato maybe https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10085133

[Kamome]

Interesting they produced the Yamanote with the 6 door car. These were used on cars 7 and 10 during the E231-500 Yamanote rollout in 1998 and were gradually phased out to the standard 4 door as platform gates started appearing on stations. Those 50 series coaches are very nice too.