Tetsudou collection interior lighting

[VJM]

So I've bought myself the very nice Tomytec Tetsudou collection 201 Series Shikisai set, and I've added the TT03 upgrades and the TM-14 motive unit without too much trouble.  Looks great, but this is my first Tomytec train, so how do I go about adding interior lighting?  I can't seem to figure out what I need... I just want to add lighting with the minimum of fuss if that's possible.  Any pointers much appreciated.

[cteno4]

VJM,

well this is not going to be simple as the tomytec chassises and truck do not provide the contacts to pick up power from the rail like most tomix, kato, and ma chassises do. you would need to place some contacts on each side of the truck pin on the bottom of the chassis (like thin copper or ns srips, then find an appropriate truck with power pickup built in that would transfer power to your pickups. for the lighting units you could probably use kato or tomix units with some minor variation and wires leading down to your pickups.

there might be a tomix or kato chassis that has power pickups that match the Shikisai chassis (kato makes this set) as spare parts and just change out the whole chassis. may need a bit of modification to fit. also might be some $$ for the part and a bit hard to order...

not uber difficult, but would be some fiddling.

cheers

jeff

[VJM]

Thanks Jeff.

So it wouldn't be a matter of replacing the bogies with one of these
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10067363
or one of these
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10121315

I was hoping Tomytec did a standard interior light kit to go with something like those.

[cteno4]

VJm,

yep that is what you would need for the bogies (the second one is the style you need with that uses a bogie pin, not the clip in style of the first), but you will then need to make some little metal pickup plates to go on either side of the main bogie pin hole on the underside of the chassis that would pick up the current from the springs and transfer it to wires to your lighting kits inside. these rub against a metal plate usually on the inside of the chassis thru some slots cut on either side of the bogie pin hole in the bottom of the chassis.

you are in big luck! i should have just grabbed my tomytec 4 seasons off the shelf. turns out that they have the pickup slots already cut into the bottom of the tomytec chassis. wonder if they are using the bottom piece from a regular tomix model perhaps. the really odd thing though is that it looks a bit in between the two kinds of bogie to chassis connectors. there are two main kinds, the spring ones like the tomix bogies you linked and the ones with little metal fingers (usually used in the clip in style bogies on shinkansens and power chassises). the spring ones usually have pretty wide arcs cut as the springs are usually sort of squat so they dont fold over i expect. the metal finger ones have very thin slots.

in the picture below on the left is a tomix model with spring pickups with the big wide slots you usually see. in the middle is the kato 4 seasons that uses the metal fingers so the very thin slots and on the right is the tomytec 4 seasons with something thats sort of in between. in looking at tomytecs bogies that are pin/screw on, they all look to be spring ones. perhaps one of them has springs small enough to fit into these slots. problem is you need to find one thats thin enough and at the right distance. but i think you could probably easily carve the slots larger to fit the bogies you end up with.

then the only remaining trick will be to glue some metal strips on the inside of the chassis bottom over the slots and then probably solder a wire to the plates and run them to the lighting kits. the seats insert does not look like it has any of the usual holes for the lighting kit contacts to go thru and there is a little tab on the seat insert right over the slots that would need to be filed back some.

its pretty doable of a project. trick will be finding a bogie that fits well with the right style and coupler length and bogie pin connection. kato has a number of bogies that use the metal finger that could work and thus not require modification of the slots, but you would have to find one with the fingers at just the right distance out from the center to fit these slots.

it almost looks like they were thinking of doing the lighting kits. perhaps it was to be a new seat insert with an integrated lighting kit that then just sat right over the slots and new electrical pickup trucks. ive never seen this though for tomytec trains. they may have thought it would be too close to regular tomix stuff at a cheaper price. im sure they are trying to keep the two lines from directly competing too much.

not sure how economical it will be by the time you sink another $7-8 per car for bogies though. then i think lighting kits are around $5 ea. there are some fun little do it yourself lighting kits that have been discussed in the past here as well.

yell if you have questions.

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

ok after digging out the tomytec 4 seasons i though hey i need to finish this guy! so did that, all the upgrades except the pantograph (those aint out till march) are done.

one thing is that i have 2 parts im not sure where they go... its the two hilighted in yellow. one looks like a roof bit and not sure what the other is. its the two marked in yellow in the picture below.

i am amazed how nicely the interior detail is on a simple tomytec model. drivers compartment quite well done and waiting to plunk a driver into. i think these may be one of the first trains i fill with passengers. even the headlights and tail lights are very easy clear plastic parts a smd led could be put up against to light. also the sandwich roof design would work well to easily put in some smd leds in the roof for lighting the cars. it really does lend itself well to detailing up like this!

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

also noticed one other little thing with this just now. the bogies have small slots in them that line up perfectly with the contact slot arcs in the chassis bottom. im wondering if there is tomix part of metal strip that is folded to make the contact finger thru the truck and bend up and rest against the inside of the wheels (like is in most truck wheel pickups). i cant put my hands on my tomix parts catalog to see if i can find this. its odd as the pin/screw type of tomy bogies all look to use the springs, but this obviously looks like its finger type, not a spring type, from the thin chassis slot and also no spring holder there usually is on the top of the bogie.

maybe a little filing on a piece of copper might make the pickup. hey would save $8/car!

jeff

[cteno4]

matthew looked at the instructions and those two little parts are not used on this train. just the gps and radio antennas.

jeff

[cteno4]

so i looked at 4 other tomytec trains i have from earlier trains and none of them have the slots in the truck or the slots in the chassis. wonder if this is a new feature that they plan to add later with a pickup kit?

does anyone have any of the tomytec trains released after the 4 seasons train to see if they have these slots or not?

cheers

jeff

[VJM]

Thanks for looking into this in such detail Jeff.  I had assumed that since everything appeared to be in place for pickups etc there were already drop-in upgrades available.

[cteno4]

im wondering if it might be coming in the future.

i got excited at one point (before i found the older ones did not have them) about maybe making up some contact kits. would be pretty easy to make out of etched metal.

lets keep the fingers crossed about this! not sure how they would hold the chassis pickups in place though, there seems to be no real clips in there for that and the seat insert just drops on top so it would not provide good down pressure to hold it in place. perhaps some engineer doing the cad was in a hurry just grabbed his drawings from a tomix plan for this detail area!

thank you though for making me go and finish the 4 seasons, the pile of stuff was sitting there waiting for me to finish it!

jeff