Kato SD40-2 & DCC

Does it use copper strips that provide a press-contact to other copper strips on the chassis? If so, the shell may be impeding the contact in some way. I had this problem with an RSC2, and I finally soldered the vertical strips to the horizontal strips. Don't have a problem any longer...

There are copper strips that run parallel to the chassis under the walkway. By soldering them exactly how and where did you do this?

Dan, There are actually three trouble points on the Kato locomotives that use the copper strips. One is where the truck pickups contact the "walkway" strips, the second is where the walkway strips contact the vertical strips, and the third is the tops of the vertical strips.

The Kato web site has a fix for the top of the vertical strips (bend the tab the other way), but they don't address the other two issues. Those strips tend to warp and lose contact at those other two spots, and there isn't really any effective way to fix them other than eliminating them altogether and hardwiring the pickups.

Basically what you have to do is remove the trucks, disassemble them so you can get to the sideframe pickup strips, and solder pickup wires to them. Those wires are then routed up next to the gear towers to the board/decoder/whatever. Do NOT rout them through the holes the original pickup strips used or your trucks won't pivot.

There was an extensive posting on the Atlas forum a couple years ago on how to do this hardware conversion, including some very good photos. I'm not sure if it's still in their archived forums or not, but you might want to try searching for it in case it is. It was a really great tutorial.

HTH, Stevert

Hello,

Dee Gilbert at Kato Repair Service, snipped-for-privacy@katousa.com, talked me through a work around and everything works great now. Thanks to all that helped.

Dan

I'm curious to know what he recommended...

...as am I. If there's an easier way than disassembling and hardwiring, that's equally effective, I'd sure like to know.

Stevert