Extending the Kato Circus concept

[jmg123]

At this years Warely exhibition, I was intrigued  buy the Kato Circus layout, lots of little dioramas connected together with a loco traversing them all. I picked up some of the Kato diorama kits, as it looked like a fun way to be able to do short amounts of railway modelling with my young daughter.

 

We had a very happy afternoon assembling the kits, and using some Woodland Scenics learning kits, to put together a few dioramas. It was great fun, and each individual diorama can have it's own theme, connecting them together to create an every changing layout.

 

One thing led to another, and we decided we wanted to extend it beyond the 124mm straight, and 183mm Radius curves that Kato have turned into diorama kits.  I've started making 3d printable bases for different pieces of Kato track, including points, and other radius of curves, and different lengths of straights. The height is compatible with the official Kato ones.

 

I've added the files to printables in case they are useful to anyone.

 

https://www.printables.com/model/706888-kato-unitrack-n-diorama-extensions

 

We have been doing one each per weekend, so by the end of the year, hopefully will be quite the layout.

Below are a few pics of modules in there various states from assembled to finished.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by jmg123

[Irish Padre]

Lovely! Great work on making a turnout module. 

Edited January 15 by Irish Padre

[Mikkel]

That's a nice build and what a layout it will become. Thanks also for highlighting the kits, new to me.

 

I see there's a website here, and that Train Trax stock them.

 

 

Edited January 16 by Mikkel
Deleted irrelevant bit

[PeterStiles]

Awesome.

[ruggedpeak]

Excellent, loved seeing these at Warley.

 

Going to get expensive, I love pandas.....!!

 

https://www.kato-dioramakit.com/panda

 

The Steam booklet on N gauge dioramas is available via Kindle for anyone interested. Is really good intro aimed at school age children and covers topic like perspective, seasons, viewing angles as well as actual making things.

 

 

Edited January 16 by ruggedpeak

[jmg123]

9 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

Excellent, loved seeing these at Warley.

 

Going to get expensive, I love pandas.....!!

 

https://www.kato-dioramakit.com/panda

 

The Steam booklet on N gauge dioramas is available via Kindle for anyone interested. Is really good intro aimed at school age children and covers topic like perspective, seasons, viewing angles as well as actual making things.

 

 

Wow I hadn’t seen the panda one, I think we might have to get one of those.

[ruggedpeak]

1 minute ago, jmg123 said:

Wow I hadn’t seen the panda one, I think we might have to get one of those.

Sadly it appears they were in Japan only and are sold out 😪 but if you find some let me know!

[jmg123]

13 hours ago, Mikkel said:

That's a nice build and what a layout it will become. Thanks also for highlighting the kits, new to me.

 

I see there's a website here, and that Train Trax stock them.

 

 

Yes, I found train trax afterwards, and bought some extra bits from them. The service was good.

[jmg123]

I've been thinking a bit about controlling the model

 

Currently all but 3 of my 009 locos have DCC decoders, but none of my N Gauge locos do. 

 

Ideally I want to be able to drive DCC and non-DCC locos, from one of my DCC controllers, without the annoying whine you get when running analogue locos with address zero.  As an added bonus it would also be nice to have sound that can work on locos without a sound decoder.

 

My plan is to use a spare Hornby HM7000 Bluetooth/DCC sound decoder hidden in the slot beneath the diorama.  One of the outputs will be connected to a relay, to allow the Hornby decoder to switch the track feed between DCC from the controller, and analogue coming out of the motor connections of the HM7000 Decoder.

 

When running with a DCC loco, the relay switches track feed directly to DCC, and the HM7000 will be used in consist mode to still provide sound. Then when running an analogue loco, the relay switches the track feed to the motor output from the HM7000.

[jmg123]

I finally got the hm7000 wired up, the relay works a treat, allowing the switch between dcc and analogue.

 

Consisting the loco with the hm7000 sound decoder worked ok, just need d to tweak the acceleration and deceleration rate. 
 

Video here

 

the wiring job was not particularly pretty, as the surface mount pads on the decoder are tiny, but the speaker is surprisingly loud.

[ruggedpeak]

Whilst I don't understand the electronics (not my strong point!) that does seem a very neat solution and an imaginative application of the 7000 concept.

 

Extrapolating it and with provisos, if I've understood it(?) effectively you can run a layout, particularly a small or micro layout, with one 7000 decoder that allows allow existing DCC and DC stock to operate with sound?

[Steven B]

Nice ideas!

 

Be careful when powering the track from the HM7000. As the wires would normally be connected directly to the motor I'd be surprised if there much protection against short circuits

 

Steven B

[PeterStiles]

I had a try at this with powering a track through a DCC decoder - on a small layout (inglenook) - it didn't work for me.

Because you've got The Track (and its imperfections) between you and the motor, rather than direct wires, you add a point of failure that the technology wasn't really designed to cater for - you can't have a "stay alive" for instance, so you can't deal with imperfections in your track laying/cleaning capabilities.

 

it was a pity because I read about how it was the best way to set up Zero-1 modules!