Thank you, I bet those work excellent in standard length coaches! Especially if they work anything like ESUs HO sized kits. On the Daylight there are only 4 standard length cars out of 18. 10 are double articulated, the kitchen a triple, and the OBS is effectively short also due to the boat-tail taper and OBS-truction. (I love puns, sorry) With the exception of this car, I’ve been extremely happy with cost ($5 per car for 18 cars) & the evenness and color of light from the kato 214 kit, when properly installed... anyone who says they are uneven has installed them “poorly”. And I want to say, where the light bar IS in this car, I am very happy also! The issue here is the car itself. No matter what kit, you will have this issue. Because of the tapered shape and the large black upper light guide that takes up most of the floor space, the light bar (of any brand) has to be snapped off well short and ends a little more than 1 inch before the end of the car. Add in the huge lightblocking effect of the light guide (there is only a chairs width of space on either side of it, floor to Ceiling), and Businessman Tom there in the first blue seat is the last to get any Illumination at all. See pic below: You can see a bit of Businessman Tom (well illuminated) in the upper left of this shot I took last week after painting and installing the light kit. Daddy (back to camera) gets just a tiny bit of reflected light on his face, and you can see how much room that light guide takes up! It was an accounting based compromise on Kato’s part, (parts reutilization and homogeneity) but in the other cars (even the triple articulated and full length cars) they work exceptionally well and are very very even through the car. No flickering, no dim spots, and very cost effective. My hyperspace motivator was on the fritz this AM after such a long night, but my daughter is 2 today so I have to hurry to finish the fl4... so I can clear the kitchen table for a party later. Have I mentioned recently how incredibly lucky I am to have such a great wife?
We have a working fl4. Downside is there is one output that doesn’t have automars (Edit... it is a JMRI issue, there is an issue with Lighting definitions for the fl4. Automars is there, you have to write CV 51 to 45 directly in the field.) Please note: The dimming still sucks for LEDs though. The frequency is so slow you can see an LED visibly pulse, so I reverted to tinted canopy glue as a dimming method. You could also increase the value of the resistor. I did take it apart again, I wanted to take more pictures at that time, but my wife was on the phone so I couldn’t shoot video or pics. I was in a bit of a rush to finish, sorry. I did have to grind a groove in the weight to accommodate the wiring below the floor though I thought I wouldn’t have to. Here’s a couple of pictures I did take, I used my pinvise and 80 bit to drill a hole in the Kato pick up strip. Then I inserted the red and black wires from the FL4 to be able to solder them more securely. Worked out nicely to grab track power for the FL4.
Finished, and shot a brief video. Audio is poor, sorry. But you can see the auto-mars in action. And the drumhead is a deep red now. Used my tinted canopy glue trick on it with dark red acrylic to fix the color and brightness. This ends the Observation adventure...
Richard, they also make a shorter version that is only 4 and 7/8 inches long for the smaller passenger cars
Had to adjust one of the Kato power pickups, I had soldered the wire aimed out the wrong side. While I was in there I took a couple more pictures. Next one to modify will be the tavern... they have color changing mood lights in the bar... should be fun.
Despite what the guides, and even spdaylight.net itself says about colors in the tavern, ie. blue floor etc, mood lights in the seating area, these photos would seem to disagree, so this is what I’ll be going with. I’ll do the mood light in the bar area, which isn’t really visible except obliquely anyway. I have found these pictures at https://spdaylight.net/Service.html to give credit where credit is due.
Ain’t that the truth... and as many interior redecorations as the Daylight had, what is written might be right for 37 or 39, but might not be what is in color pictures taken later on!
I’m working on filling the bar slot with canopy glue to start the tavern car. I initially tried Krystal Klear but it was TOO clear, and didn’t diffuse the light well. I also got more Kato caboose trucks, though the set I used fit perfectly and rolled well before I soldered to them they did not after. I think I distorted the set with the multiple soldering needed to tin, then attach and sometimes reattach wires. I’ll keep the current set for mockup and tests. I’ll do what I did on the light tabs and drill a very small hole. Then they will be easier to solder with out having to Tin them, and because it is a thru hole, also more sturdy so they won’t come loose. And these arrived. I’ve already begun disassembly. Got lucky and found the atlas already converted to MicroTrains. Got it for about the price of the coupler conversion, so that was a win. And I don’t feel bad about cutting it up either! The biggest hurdle is actually going to be getting rid of the Daylight paint, and trying to come up with something color matching for the bays and where the nubs will be removed from the roof. In this sort of thing I am very limited. Sorry if I am posting too much, I have no layout to run a train, so I spend my time building and modifying instead.
C-30-4 assembled. Filled in the roofwalk holes by cutting the pegs off the roofwalk and putting them back in the holes, then a dab of paint atop them. Still need to install the gold medal roofwalk, and the gold medal railings and ladders, but for tonight this will do! And yes, I did make it so the shell is still removable for adding interior glass and hopefully lighting later, and so I can paint the ends vermillion once the rest of the paint has fully dried. SP Gurus: did the c-30-4 have electric lamps by 53? I’ll start researching also on my end but you all have much better resources than I, I think.
Wolf, have you thought about stretching the wheelbase on yours? In the photo you posted it earlier it looked like it might still be the original concor frame. You’ve got all the shell and details done, the frame work isn’t hard. Cut on the outside of the crossmember for the concor, and middle of the crossmemeber for atlas... you also need to narrow the atlas frame along the sides to fit inside the caboose. You do have to trim the shell on the ends (basically even to the door opening) so it will sit down correctly as well. I cut a piece of styrene and glued it to one atlas subframe, then applied CA to the other and lined them up on the shell to establish wheelbase. Then it was a matter of trimming and trimming and trimming with my dremel on the atlas subframes and the center section until the center section fit between the subframes and could be CA’d in place. Mostly not all of the extra crossmember on the plastic atlas goes bye bye.
Yeah ** I think that should be in order. I noticed that after seeing Mike's caboose. And -- thanks, for the tip. Wolf
It’s not the prettiest thing underneath but I will take a picture of it, and hopefully it will help you to see what I did. Apparently I did mine a little different than the author Robert Diepenbrock of the Nscale Jul-Aug 09 article did. I just pulled the article out again and looked at it to get some pointers for the detail kit... He used a BAY caboose as the donor! Ignorance is bliss I suppose. In using a normal and more readily/cheaply available atlas cupola instead of a bay caboose as the donor, I wound up needing to narrow the subframe. While I did use more of the donor subframe than he did, i thought it was a lot easier to match up to the innermost crossmember than an arbitrary point on the con-cor. If you do it with a bay caboose donor, then you probably won’t have to shave the ends at all, but I did to get the shell down low enough. It’s a “looks right enough” representation for my needs. I didn’t bother moving the smoke jack to the other side for example. You know, I know, but who else would? Lol. I don’t even know what I will use this one for... the Overnight used a c40-1 in 53, and I have my MT stand in for that one, and my “rebuilt with wide cupola” wood c30-1 can be for a local, so maybe for a PFE? <Shrug> Either way I had fun doing it.
Yes, using a bay window "donor" does make things a little easier. When you say, "the Overnight used a c40-1 in 53", this is true since they came equipped with steel wheels. SP also used a 60' Coach (aka Rider Coach) as a "caboose" and, in some cases, both a C-40-1 and a 60' Coach. BTW, good way to describe that MTL SP caboose ("stand in"). That Bay Window would look right trailing a reefer "block" or drag freight.
Mr Mike, I’m sure you can explain it, what is wrong on the MTL steel side, and is it correctable? Or is there a better option out there? (Without going brass...) I painted the entire gold medal kit, and am letting it dry for a day before separating it from the sprue. Painting those roofwalks with out plugging them with paint was fun but not fun. The tavern car has its curved and mirrored bar now (curved a small strip of styrene with aluminum foil stretched over it), so hopefully it will pick up the lighting from the Slow Change RGB 3mm LED and give a nice effect, if you look in the car. The 5mm are what I am used to using (See my EPCOT model with 6 of them) and they are much brighter so we will just have to see how it goes. There just isn’t room for a 5mm hidden behind the bar. Wolf: I haven’t forgotten the picture, just haven’t been back to the kitchen yet to take one. Edit: I needed a snack... hope these help. If I ever buy any spot putty I’ll smooth the crossmembers back out. For now, they aren’t visible so it isn’t high on the list. A sneak peek at the bar mirror. You can clearly see the hole for the 3mm led reflected in it. Once I do the blue and yellow paint in the booths, I’ll add the colored circles to the bar front, and touch up the aluminum light stands (best stand in I can come up with for the clear glass) I also see I need to take a paper towel with some thinner and lightly wipe the sides of the flat car, as it came out overly dark. Or a couple of microbrushes... I was also playing with the trailers, getting the front wheels on them so I can park them at the whistle warehouse.
I've only now noticed and read this thread. I'm blown away. I'm challenged beyond changing a light bulb, so your expertise to me is over the top. Look forward to future posts.
Since radios didn't start getting installed in cabooses until '54, then there was no source of power for electric lights before that. And I agree: post away! Love what you are doing.
Thanks Blazeman, but no expertise here. Just do my best with what minor skills I’ve picked up in the last 6 months. Sometimes ignorance is blessing. If you don’t know it can’t be done, you find a way to do it!
