NMRA British Region Forum

I've just received a pair of Kato P42 locos. They came with a Loksound decoder, sounds really good, I have changed the functions to suite my standard arrangement. One disappointment is that the ditchlights are not separate from the headlights, although the decoder is programmed to use the last two functions for them. So that means fitting and connecting two LEDs. The red lights at both ends are wired separately and once directional lighting is programmed out all lights are independent.
Interestingly the decoder has acceleration and deceleration programmed in, although not enough for me, it might catch out those who expect their locos to react instantly!
When idling in non-HEP mode the engine revs as the compressor runs. HEP modes give constant revs.
The new drive seems really smooth, only on the test rollers so far, it has a coreless motor in each truck, no central motor. The front truck starts slightly before the rear, can only be seen on rollers, this might prove interesting on my steep grades, will one truck slip before the other? Mind you it weighs a ton so may never slip.

Be great to see a video of them in action, once you've programmed the decoder.

Worth pointing out to any DCC folks that you may be better off saving up for the sound version if you don't like involved decoder installs - this is on the fiendish side! http://www.katousa.com/HO/P42/maint/DCC-install.html

Kinda surprised they didn't do what Intermountain has and fit *everything* with a dual-mode decoder as standard, sound or not...

Hi Mike, yes love to see them in action, I really like the concept of the new drives, and glad to see a big name mfg starting it off, hopefully triggering others to follow suit soon(ish).
The center motor etc has served us well, but with the new advances, the truckmount should be best, it will provide room for better sounds, more interior details etc etc.
(Those Walthers/Proto BUD RDC's would really benefit from this type of drive etc).

Koos

The price of loco plus a sound decoder is about the price of the loco ready fitted, so unless you don't want a Tsunami or Loksound it pays to buy it fitted.

The motors are partly in the body, they take up about the same space as a normal centre motor truck with it's gear box, so the space of the centre motor and flywheels is freed up.

I have finally done some testing on the new Kato power trucks.

The two power trucks do cause one problem, when doing the speed curve on my rolling road I had problems with the two trucks running at different speeds, especially at slow speeds. I found if the rear truck stopped the front runs faster, I ended up using some small wood wedges under the rear pilot to take some weight off the rear truck so they both ran at the same speed, if too much weight is taken off the front truck stops! Trying with and without the wedges at speed still affected the the truck speeds, so I kept them in.

On the track even when slipping both trucks stay at the same speed so it works well. I've speed matched the pair, but have yet to run them around the layout.