Don,You’re fishing again and way off the fish.
My favorite Kato USA quote is from the Springfield (MA) show recently. An N-scaler asked them why they didn’t make more New England roads (for example, they did not make a single B&M RDC…even tho’ B&M had the largest RDC fleet). Their reply was that they do enough New England roads because they had just recently done a Pennslyvania RR loco. Duhhhh…
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
Had a problem with Kato too, I bought an AC4400CW on ebay and it arrived missing 2 parts, the fan shroud and the rear railing. The seller was willing to take it back with full refund including shipping, I should have taken him up on it. Instead I told him that I would contact Kato and I was sure they would supply these factory installed parts. 2 emails and a written letter to Kato USA and not 1 response, not even a “sorry no can do”, nothing. After 2 months of waiting I decided to try my luck with Kato Japan since that is where the AC4400’s are made. Sent a letter 3 weeks ago, nothing yet but still hopeing. Does anyone know these parts are produced by any other company?
[quote]
Originally posted by Don Gibson
My point,oungr, was the SD40-2 was an 'exceptional ’ unit. "Fry "the board’s? - how unusual. More than once? - Did you modify the unit or install a DCC module?
The units were direct and unmodified from Kato. I have not yet converted to DCC but hope to in the near future. I replaced the boards in all five units two or three times. The total cost to keep the units up exceeded the original price. On one occasion I installed a brand new circuit board and watched the unit run without the shell on to see if I could see anything shorting or some other problem. This did not work and I actually was burned when I checked the circuit board after a few minutes of running. Ultimatley the problem was that the Kato electronics are only designed for 12V DC and most systems in the US are designed for 16V DC. To me this is a clear defect that Kato could easily correct if they wanted to. Unfortunatly, it seem that there answer is a warning on the side of a box instead of a upgraded electrical system.
The real thing about Kato that I like is that they run great. I can appreciate your comments that Kato has not upgraded their products like Atlas and Proto as far as detail. They also made some poor choices of models at least for me to run if they wanted a large amount of sales.
Kato overall has been a good model and like any product, it needs to get more detailed to be competitive.