I have been wanting a kato SD80MAC for a while, a long time, years, and now i finally have enough money to get one. so, I want to know anything that anyone that owns one can tell me, for instance. how does it run, how does it look, how does it perform, are the ditch lights bright, is it reliable, is the speed closely matched to other manufactorers deisels, is it DCC ready, about how many cars can it pull, is it loud, is it sound ready, and anything else that anyone who owns one can tell me would be great
depending on this answer will make my decisioon on weather or not I get one, so please be very specific.
Can’t go wrong with a kato. Silent runners. Dcc-ready with a 8-pin socket ready for a decoder. VERY reliable, and will pull a ON. Looks are great too, but you have to install some deail parts. I say, go and get it!!!
Well I have a Kato SD-90MAC which is essentially the same and I assume they used the same driveline in the 80. So from my experience I can tell you that it is pure Kato. Super smooth, super quiet and looks awesome. Kato makes the best diesels around discounting maybe some high-end brass. I almost always cut out at least some of the manufacturer installed lighting and circutry. The engine comes with a piece of clear plastic that goes from an LED mounted inside the hood to the headlight and ditch lights. I installed my own super bright LED, I dont know how bright the original one is but the potential is there for nice lighting anyway. On its own I dont know how much it will pull because I usually run it in a consist of 7 big 6 axles. The whole mess of them pulls (and pushes) 200 cars without breaking a sweat though. Just remember that it is a huge locomotive. It will take an 18" radius but the swing at the ends is so big on that tight a curve that it wont stay coupled to anything. Oh, and it is DCC ready, it will accept an 8 pin NMRA plug.
My CSX SD80 is my smoothest running diesel.[:D]
It looks great, and has as many detail parts as an Atlas diesel. They even included the rarely done underframe detail.[:D]
It performs very well, running at a constant smooth speed, and draws very little current.[:D]
The ditch lights are very bright, but are unfortunately blue like the rest of the lights.
Mine’s been pretty reliable. I ended up with one of 2.6 in the entire world with a noisy motor, but it’s been getting quieter as I run it.[:)]
The speed matches other high quality diesels pretty well. Mine runs around 75 scale MPH at 12 volts.[:D]
There is a DCC socket in the PC board. Make sure you check the motor strips going to the board, because older production SD80s would sometimes have the motor strips contacting another part of the board, which would blow the decoder. Kato tells how to fix it on their website.
My layout’s not big enough to test its power, but I’m pretty sure it can pull over 65 cars.[:D]
The mechanism is completely silent, except for the noise of the drive shafts on tight curves.[:)]
It’s not designed to hold sound like the newer Katos, but you might be able to fit a speaker in the back.
Now for the anything else I can tell you part.[:)]
The grab irons for the CSX version are all gray, instead of the proper yellow, and are also thick and undersized. They look fine once they’re painted flat yellow.[:D] It does have a lot of detail and nice paint, but it’s not as good as what you get on Genesis diesels. I’d put the detail and paint between Spectrum and Proto 2000. Bu
Here you go. I dont run them like this though, usually 3 up front, 2 in the middle and 2 at the rear to help avoid stringlining and breaking couplers. I certainly cant run huge trains on my small layout but at the club its quite a sight. If you have pusher locomotives you have to be very good about speed matching. Otherwise you will either be dragging badly or threatening to make an accordian out of the train, so I have spent some time getting all these locos to run at the same speed all the time.
In the last pic, the SP dash 9 way down at the end is the last loco.
Ah yes, I used to have 3 Genesis SD70MACs in CSX and boy do they look great, but they are dissapointing mechanically. They are noisy and wont stay on the track out of the box. Of the three I had, all three had bent brass pickups so some wheels werent touching the rails. Its a tedious fix mostly trial and error but I did get them running reliably. Of course when I decided to start installing sound they had to go because of the grinding racket they made.
In the SD90 there is not a lot of room for a speaker, you could put one in the cab but that would mean losing the great interior. Ah well, I just run it along with other sound equipped locos. no problem since its so quiet.
I know what you mean about the Genesis SD drives not being the best. My SD75M doesn’t wobble, but it has a constant jerking motion when it’s running, and grinds constantly.[:(]
After doing a little experimenting, I found that Kato SD trucks, minus the retaining clips, are perfect fits in the Genesis SD70s.[:D] You have to replace the entire trucks though, including the sideframes, worms, wheels, and retainers. But if you can do that, you’ll have a diesel that runs like a Kato and looks even better.[:D] I’ll have to do that sometime, when I have money to burn.[:D]
I like the idea of changing out the LED in the engine to make the lights brighter, never thought of that. what LED would you change the one that is already in teh engine with?
I dont know what manufacturer or type I use because I buy in bulk, its super cheap that way. I get 100 LEDs, 100 appropriate resistors and free shipping for $11.95. The one I put in my SD90MAC was a 5mm, I dont recall the MCD but if you arent happy with what comes in the engine just buy something brighter. Oh, and if you want to get rid of the blueish color you can dip it some special translucent paint. Again I cant remember where I got it. Im not being much help here am I[:)]
I have a Kato SD90MAC and it runs well and pulls very well. It easily out pulls a Tower 55 ES44AC and will out pull KATO AC4400’s. The lights are bright but are blue-white as mentioned earlier. Yes it’s DCC ready but there is not a lot of room under the shell, surprising for as large as it is. I was planning to put sound in mine but haven’t due to space limitations. I rather think removing of some body weight may be necessary for a good sound installation. Perhaps you could find a sound decoder to replace the existing board, eliminating the need to modify the interior. And yes there are a lot of details which will take a lot of time to add properly.
A Loksound decoder would fit indeed, but the only place I see a decent speaker going is in the cab, which could mean losing the great interior in there.
Oh man as these guys say you cant go wrong with a kato. But heres some advice dont get the 1st production of the SD80 there were some problems. I have as it says in my name i have BNSF 5608 from kato and recently put Digitrax sound in it cant go wrong with a sound friendly kato and it sounds and runs great. If you get a SD80MAC go with the CSX one if you know how to you could modify the engine so it will have working markerlights. But thats just me. I hope to get the Kato sound ready F40PH someday but I sadly dont have the moner yet.
I own 4 Katos, 2 SD80MACs (in Conrail Quality) and 2 SD70MACs (in CSX YN2). The SD80MAC is my favorite engine and nothing beats these brutes in the pulling department. I’ve pulled around 30 coal hoppers (w/ loads) up a 2.5% grade with my two 80MACs. They look great and run awesome on DC, but on DCC they are even smoother and make virtually no noise. Someday I will have sound installed in them, as well as working marker lights.
What road name will you be getting? Conrail (very rare), CSX (rare), or Norfolk Southern (easier to find than the first two).
instead of a Kato SD80MAC, i whent ahead and got a differnent engine. its made by ford, it was made in the year 1968 and it has a 289 motor. I got a 1968 Ford Mustang! for those who are interested ill email you pictures when I have a chance, just tell me that you want to see pics.
i still have $180 left, so, just to please my inner need, i might still go ahead and get it. i really dont know what is going to happen. we shall see, ill let you know what I do later.
