Kato Locomotive Lighting Question

[BN_Railfan]

Like many others, after a long time away from the hobby I have returned to find out that much has changed, and most of it for the better!

However, I am frustrated with a couple of things: my first locomotive's lighting and the difficulty in finding relevant information on the net.

In returning to the hobby I joined my local club and purchased a Kato SD40-2 locomotive to which a Loksound Select decoder was installed. I have had two nights to run the unit at the club, and I was disappointed to say the least at the lighting quality of this unit. The loco wears BNSF orange and green, and I can honestly say that the lighting output matches the shell's orange perfectly!
I suspected that the dealer did not do much programming when he installed the decoder, so I spent time last night programming CV values to ensure that the decoder was configured for LED output [CVs 263, 271, 279 and 287 all set to 128] however these changes had no effect on the light output/colour.

Based on my limited internet search skills, I have found rumours today that this may be a known issue with the light tubes that Kato uses in their locomotives. If this is the case, the only logical resolution would be to remove the factory light tubes and install separate LEDs for each output.

Does anyone else have any experience with poor lighting on Kato products? Unfortunately no one else at the club has Kato product so I have nothing to compare to. I appreciate any advice or assistance.

 

[Cjcrescent]

The only Kato locomotive I have is the Rs-1 which was imported under Atlas, back in the mid 1980's. When I installed a decoder into it, I completely removed the old board and did a hard wire install, as these locos weren't offered DCC ready.

I wired in separate bulbs for headlights, completely removing the light pipes. At the time there was no provision for separate forward or reverse lights as there was only one bulb and it was constantly on.

 

[Burlington Bob]

Welcome to the Forums, BN_Railfan. I have two N scale Kato F3's that I have installed Digitrax decoders in. Both units give off a "warm" light that is very bright but is not blue like some describe lights as being. These lights are nowhere close to being orange, however. It's more like the incandescent sealed beam headlights on older cars and not like the HID lights on new cars. Same with my TCS decoders, though the CN-GP decoders are a little more the color of halogen headlights. One is in a LifeLike and the other is in an Atlas. I think the color issue may be related to the led that Loksound used on the decoder rather than the result of the Kato light tubes. It will be interesting to hear what others have to say on this.

 

[bnsf971]

Kato's light pipes are pretty much clear, and will faithfully transmit whatever color light you shine through them. That being the case, you will probably have to replace the odd colored LEDs with something closer to what you might see in the real world.

 

[notabob]

As bnsf971 said, light tubes are clear. I've seen decoders equipped with very orangish LEDs. I would recommend swapping them out with sunny white LEDs, which would be more prototypical for a modern diesel. One other thing I would recommend for the Kato SD40-2 is putting some heat shrink tubing on the ditch light & headlight light pipes where they meet the LEDs, as well as the LEDs themselves (provided you don't have surface mount LEDs on your decoder, in which case just do the light pipes). This will prevent the headlight LED light from spilling to your ditch lights & vice versa.

 

[BN_Railfan]

Thanks for the info guys.

I think at this point my next step is to try running the loco with the shell removed to see what colour the on-board LEDs are (the DCC conversion uses the KATO factory light board which has surface mount LEDs) If the lights themselves turn out to be the issue, I'll swap out the light board in favour of sunny whites.

Unfortunately without a home layout I have no choice but to wait until our club's next run night, which is 3 weeks away.

 

[BN_Railfan]

Well guys, it looks like I'm going to have to replace the factory light board. I had an opportunity to check the unit without the shell at work night last night; attached is a photo of the result. The photo doesn't do it justice, but there's no question why my lighting is orange - the on-board LEDs are as orange as the BNSF paint.

What's interesting is I pulled another member's Kato unit apart and it would appear on his unit that the LEDs have had a "coating" scraped off them, as otherwise they appear to be tinted orange just like mine. When powered, however, his headlight shows a white colour.

I'm disappointed to say the least, but at least now I've figured out what I need to do to fix it.