Does anyone have the new Kato E5 (Silver Streak) ? I received one for Christmas with the TCS decoder installed & it is very noisy. Out of the box it runns with a loud whine. The faster I run it the louder and higher pitch the whine is. I have several Kato locomotives and all my others are extremely quiet to silent. This one is very disappointing & I wonder if anyone else has noticed this problem. Any suggestions on solving this problem other than sending it back? Thanks for any suggestions.
I'm in the same boat you were and thought it was just me. This new E5 is a lot noisier than my older E8/9s and it also runs twice as fast, which really surprised me. I thought manufacturers were starting to slow them down closer to more realistic speeds unlike the early Atlas diesels that ran almost 200 scale mph!
The E5 mechanism is the same as the one used in the E8s (and, as such, should run the same). The E5 I tested was very quiet, so it sounds like yours might have a problem. Kato has yet to dip their toes into the "scale speed motor" thing - all of their engines have very high top-end speeds. As such, my E5 didn't seem any faster than any of the rest of them. -Mark
I just fixed a Kato AC4400 that was a whiner - unlike all my others. It turns out that a little light oil to the bearings holding the worm gears did the trick. Now it's just like the rest. That might work for you.
Its what I do when I get any new locomotive. I put one small drop of oil on each gear where they stick thru the slots in the truck bottom. Run it around the layout forwards and backwards a few times and the oil will work its way up to the bearing blocks etc.. ;-)
Even Kato's can use a breaking-in period before they eventually quiet down. For many, this is the first brand new locomotive they have obtained in years. They may have forgotten how an un-run machine sounds out of the box.
The silverstreak after you get her slicked up any chance of some video of her running…. Ijust love the look of that train!
I have one of these. It had a little bit of a whine until it got a good hour or so run time. Mine has a Digitrax decoder I installed myself.
All my other Kato engines have Digitrax decoders that I installed. All are extremely quiet. This is a TCS. Can the decoder make a difference?? Sorry, right now I don't even own a camcorder.
The decoder used wouldnt make any difference on mechanical noise. Frame halves to tight together ? Worm gear not meshing right ? Drive gears with 'flash' on them ? Debris in the gears ? Dry bearing blocks ? ALL these can cause noises....but a decoder wont.
I have one that does not have a decoder and it is noisier than my other locos. The headlights are super bright and yellow.
I just returned from Salt Lake City where I fixed one of the new Kato E-5's for my friend Nate. He has three of 'em, and each one sounded differently, with one being quite loud (whining). I just assumed that breaking it in would fix the problem, but a tiny drop of light oil (LaBelle) would probably do the trick. Cheers! Bob Gilmore
Thanks to all. I have returned the "whining loco" for an exchange from the vendor. Hopefully my new one will be quieter.
I received my new Silver Streak E5 set today. Huge difference from the first one. Still a slight whine but nothing like the other one. When the train gets to clickity clacking down the pike the whine on this one is barely audible. On the other one it screamed. Obviously something wrong inside the first one. I'm glad I didn't start messing around with it and risk being stuck with one I would not be happy with. YCDBSOYA
