DCC for Kato Japanese Trains
Kato’s newer Japanese passenger trains, those made since about 2005, are “DCC Friendly”, which means they can accept a drop-in decoder. For some this means that they have little hatches on the motor and cab cars. Installing the decoder for interior lighting is less easy as it attaches to a bracket on the lighting itself, so the body shell needs to be removed and the DC lightboard replaced. Kato has reportedly said that the DC lightboard can safely be used with DCC (you lose the ability to turn the lights off, however, if you don’t use the FR11 DCC lightboard, and the lights are quite bright since DCC means full voltage all the time).
Decoders for EMU/DMU Passenger Trains
Kato sells three decoders, made by Digitrax, for use in their “DCC Friendly” passenger trains:
- EM13 (Kato 29-351), motor decoder for motorized cars (max sustained current 1 Amp, peak 1.5 Amp).
- FL12 (Kato 29-352), two-functions (up to 125 ma each) for head & tail lights in cab cars.
- FR11 (Kato 29-353), single-function (65 ma max) for interior LED lights only. (I haven’t used these)
Note: 60 mA is the current normally associated with a single 12V bulb light, so it’s a bit odd that the FR11 is explicitly noted as only being for the LED lighting kits, which use less than 20 mA, and yet is rated to support a 65 mA output.
English-language documentation for these is available as PDF files on Kato USA’s N Scale Accessories page. These appear to be simple translations of the Japanese instructions that come with the EM13 (at least this comes from some distributors; from others I’ve received decoders in a plastic bag, instead of the plastic box with anti-static foam, and those were not accompanied by documentation).
Note: all of these decoders are apparently of the Digitrax FX3 family of decoders, and essentially the same as their DN163 products. Since JMRI doesn’t presently have a Kato definition, if you use DecoderPro you should select one of the Digitrax DN163 models (any of them). It’s unclear if they implement the full DN16x feature set, or only the subset documented by Kato.
According to Kato USA’s English-language documentation, all three support Digitrax Transponding, and are compatible with operation on DC track. The EM13 supports back EMF (see below) and controls related to the motor, and the FR11 works with the 11-209/11-210 white LED interior lighting kits.
The EM13 and FL12 are double-sided circuit boards, with one side designed to contact the brass pickup rails that run between the trucks of the car, and the other side having outputs for the motor or lights. The FR11 is simply a replacement for the light board used in car lighting, which has contacts on one side (which connect to the pickups through some additional brass strips, the same as the normal DC lightboard. Kato has reportedly said that the normal lightboard is safe to use on DCC, so I don’t have any experience with the FR11. The one benefit it would bring would be the ability to turn the car lights on and off. But I have nearly 100 light-capable cars at present, so the cost of a decoder in each would be prohibitive. Just adding the lighting kits is a lot of money.
EM13 Motor Decoder, L: pickup side, R: motor side
The FL12 is reversible (front to back, not top to bottom), and should be installed in opposite directions in the head and tail car, so that one lights the headlights when the other lights the tail lights (you also need to make sure these match the direction the motor moves in, so the headlights are on the front of the train; if not, reverse the motor car or reverse both FL12’s, reversing the motor car is easier).
The FL12 has two sets of contacts on its upper side (photo on right below), one each for the taillights and headlights, and is reported to sometimes fail to make good electrical contact, i.e., fail to work, when installed. Sometimes adjusting the position can fix it. I thought I had this problem, but it turned out to be “operator error” instead.
FL12 Cab Light Decoder, L: pickup side, R: light side
My “Operator Error” was in forgetting that the FL12 is a DCC decoder, and on a decoder Function 0 controls the status of lights. If F0 gets set to “off” somehow, both the head and tail lights will be dark, although they’ll flash briefly when the decoder is powered up, or when it loses and regains track voltage, which can be confusing (see Adding DCC to a Kato for a more complete description).
This is a useful feature, as it allows the decoder to be used to turn off the lights when two trains are consisted together. But you’d need to program the decoder to “off” on the programming track, otherwise all decoders on a train with the same address would be turned off. You need to use the same address for the motor and head/tail lights (or else treat them as a consist) so that the head/tail lights will swap when the motor direction is changed.
Kato notes that FR11 and FL12 are “write-in” only; you can’t read the settings of CVs from them. Reportedly this is because the load on the function decoders is too small to be detected by the control station (reading is done by detecting on/off of the load, since DCC is a one-way communications medium).
Decoder CVs
All three decoders support four-digit addressing, although it apparently needs to be set manually, rather than by using a command station’s “set address” function. I’m not clear on why, but one comment suggested the order in which things were set mattered, and the set address function did it wrong and left the decoder in a confused state where it needed to be reset. See below for how to set these four-digit (extended) addresses.
CVs used: (most apply only to EM13)
Note: CV29 is the Configuration Register, which is used as described on this Digitrax page (and see below).
JMRI Note: JMRI lists several CVs for the EM13 that do not appear in other documentation I’ve found. I have not yet tested these to confirm they work. As one of these is Advanced Consisting, which I’d read somewhere was not supported, I suspect they’re merely listing all of the CVs in some class of Digitrax decoder, and not ones they’ve confirmed.
Kato’s documentation lists the following CVs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 17, 18, 29, and 57. The FR11 and FL12 documentation additionally discussed CV61 & 64 (see below). It also notes CV8 as having the default value 129 (meaning it’s a Digitrax-made decoder) and being able to set it to a value of 8 (Digitrax’s standard “reset” code).
CV29 Values
Kato’s documentation sheet lists the possible values of CV 29 as:
6 = 28/128 speed steps, Analog Conversion, Forward direction, 2 digit address
7 = 28/128 speed steps, Analog Conversion, Reverse direction, 2 digit address
38 = 28/128 speed steps, Analog Conversion, Forward direction, 4 digit address
39 = 28/128 speed steps, Analog Conversion, Reverse direction, 4 digit address
But this list is followed by an “etc.”, suggesting that other values may be acceptable.
Note: the meanings are from other Digitrax documentation.
CV57 Values
This controls how much the “back EMF” can modify the speed of the motor. While some Digitrax decoders provide a “consist” setting in addition to a single-engine setting, the EM13 apparently only provides a single-engine setting. The default is 6. When set to 0 there is no compensation.
For programming this, you really need track with a grade. Set the value to the lowest value where the speed remains constant from level track to up-grade.
CV61 / CV64 values
Kato’s documentation omits mention of this CV for the EM13, implying that it does not apply, and thus there is no way to disable Transponding. This may merely be an oversight because there is no function output (i.e., 00 / 00 may disable Transponding). I don’t have any Transponding detector (yet), so I can’t confirm that.
Functions are listed individually for FR11 and FL12, as FL12 does not support all settings. By default, F1 controls the head/tail lights, and F0 controls interior lighting.
Programming 4-digit Addresses
Kato’s decoders can use Extended Addressing (4-digit addresses), but they can’t be set using the method normally used by control systems. There’s something about this that apparently confuses the decoder. Instead, you have to do it manually by setting three CVs. You should use the programming track to set the address, as this is more reliable than on-track (operations mode) programming for these decoders.
Make sure the decoder and train work correctly with the default settings (and address 03) before attempting to set extended addressing. If they do, and setting the extended address fails to work, you can reset the decoder to factory defaults and try again, knowing that you made a mistake, rather than being unclear if the problem is the decoder or your configuration of it.
Note: use normal (CV01, 2-digit) addressing for addresses from 1 to 127, and extended (CV17 & 18, 4-digit) addressing for 128 and above.
First, translate the 4-digit address you want to binary or hexadecimal and split it into two 8-bit quantities. The easiest way to do this is with a DCC calculator, but you could also do it with a scientific calculator that converts from decimal to hex or binary. Put the low byte in CV18. Then add 192 (decimal) to the high byte and put it in CV17 (the linked calculator does that extra addition for you).
Actually, you can do the conversion just by dividing by 256 if your control station allows programming using decimal numbers. For example, 1250 (decimal) divided by 256 is 4.8828125. This means the high byte should be 4 (plus 192 as above), and the low byte should be 0.8828125 times 256, or 226. So, setting CV17 to 196 and CV18 to 226 gives the decoder the extended address of 1250. But you can’t use it until you enable extended addressing, which is the next step.
Finally, read the value of CV29. This will probably have a value of 6 (although it could be something else). Add 32 to whatever it is and write the result (i.e., 38 if it was 6) back into CV29 to enable use of extended addressing. This same method should work for the FR11 and FL12, but you can’t read CV29, so you’ll have to assume it was 6 to begin with.
Now move the car to the track, and try running it with the new address. If it doesn’t work, you probably set the address wrong.
Note: remember that if you mess up the decoder, you can reset it to the default values by writing a value of 8 into CV8. That’s the standard Digitrax “reset to factory default” sequence. Do that on the programming track, obviously, as doing it on the main track would reset every decoder if it could be performed.
Decoders for Kato Locomotives
Several of Kato’s locomotives can have their lightboards replaced with Digitrax boards, with a greater or lesser amount of work. Digitrax makes several “for Kato” boards, and as these also fit North American prototype locomotives, they’re available from U.S. distributors. At the easy end of the scale, the DN163K1D board is a drop in replacement for the DD51 (pity I don’t have one of those). A bit further down the scale, the EF210 can be equipped with a DN163K0A with a bit of work to modify the body shell. The DN163K0A (two “golden white” LEDs) and less commonly the DN163K0B (one “golden white” LED at the front, and solder points to add a rear LED) are used for Kato’s Japanese locomotives, with only simple modifications to the LEDs.
The new DE10 takes the DN163K1D according to Kato, but I’ve discovered (via a Japanese hobbyist site, but I confirmed it myself) that there is modification to the frame required, as well as some insulating tape needed. I’m going to do a couple of these and document the process, but I haven’t done it yet. See my Kato DE10 page for details on this.
Kato’s Custom Shop has information about DCC, unfortunately it’s in Japanese, and they seem to move the pages around periodically, so links break, and some pages are scripted and can’t be linked directly. Go to their English Home Page, and find the “custom shop” link (on the Links menu), then click on the big “DCC” link (it’s a button near the bottom of the screen as of January 2012), then use Google Translate on the text of the resulting page (you can’t translated the whole page URL as you’ll get a translation of the parent page) and find the link translated as “(N) decoder with board type” (there’s also a second page with a different table under one of the untranslated graphic buttons, plus a third page with a list of their decoders). Machine translations of Japanese are notoriously bad, but Google’s does a fair job. Just remember that word order can be messed up, and loan words show up with odd phonetic spellings (e.g., “toraburushuteingu” for “troubleshooting”). I should note that I first found my way to this from a comment posted by CaptOblivious (Don G., author of the Akihabara Station blog and creator of the Rail Stars DCC systems) on the now-dormant Yamanote-sen blog. Despite previous forays into Kato’s Japanese pages, I’d never dug this deep.
In 2009 they mostly recommended the Digitrax DZ123 or DZ143 for smaller N-scale locomotives, and the DN163K0A for the larger ones. They also suggested the DN122K2 for DMU power cars and the two DZ models for other cars.
As of July 2010 this had changed, and while the DMU recommendations are mostly unchanged (and still vague), they’re recommending the DN163K0A for several models (DF50, DF200, “any other except EH10”) with various degrees of modification such as moving LEDs, they’re also recommending the “DN-EF64-0 KATO” (29-302) and “DN-EF65/60 KATO” (29-303) for several locomotives (with varying degrees of modification required). From the pictures on Kato’s website, these appear to simply be DN163K0A decoders with custom LED spacing (and Kato notes “performance is identical” to the DN163K0A). As of January 2012 the “LED must be relocated list” appears to have been deleted (I’ve retained it in the table below) except for a reference to the DF50, which had not been on the earlier list. Some of the others had also been removed from Kato’s table, likely because the lump reference to the use of the DN163K0A with resoldered LEDs applying to “all others”.
Note that the DE10 information in the table below doesn’t come from this page, but from another Kato page about the DE10 model, which as of January 2012 now recommends only the DN163K1D.
Specifically, they note:
(*) = Unclear if modification is required.
Vendors other than Digitrax (e.g., TCS) also make “for Kato” decoders, but there’s less info available about those, and I’m predisposed to use Digitrax so I haven’t dug into them yet.
Much of the information on this page came from the JNSForum’s DCC Forum, although some was taken from Kato’s English-language manuals or other sources. Some information also came from articles on the Yamanote-Sen and Akihabara Station blogs about installing decoders in E231 trains.
