KATO Expandable Joiners

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Today I managed to address half of our expandable joiners. Here’s one of the 2 boxes:

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And here’s the other pile of connectors waiting to be done. Its not hard work but a bit tedious, takes an hour to an hour and a half to do a batch:

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There are two small pins that hold the top part to the bottom part and those have to be pushed through from the bottom, leaving a small hole like this where the pin was:

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Here you can see the pin fully inserted in the bottom:

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And when both pins are pressed through, the top middle part comes off which then allows the track to slide apart:

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The two ends of the track simply pull apart and we are left with this:

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Here you can see where the rail is square. It is this edge that can sometimes stick up and catch a snow plow and stop a loco dead.

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Here we have the rail after I’ve rounded the edge a bit, just enough that if it is hit, whatever hits it will hopefully ride up and over:

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Then one side is slid back in, through the metal joiner track:

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The opposite end is then positioned and slid through the metal joiner as well. You have to be careful to position the rail properly in respect to the rail from the other end.

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Then press the top piece back on so the pins go through the holes and make sure they are completely installed. Verify that the rails that slide against one another fit nice and tight.

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And here’s all 40 of the expandable joiners done!

The End!

On these pages you will find photos and/or drawings of some of the projects we are working on, or have completed.

 As part of what I needed to do prior to SuperTrain, all of the Kato expandable connectors needed a modification.   When two tables go together and the Kato track has a bit of a hump in it, that can cause a piece of the Kato track to stick up, creating a very small vertical piece of track which was enough to stop some engines when their low hung snow plows hit the vertical piece and stop dead!   While this didn’t affect a lot of engines it would affect some.   The solution is to take the expandable piece apart and file down the offending piece of track putting in a nice curve so that when that snow plow hits, it’ll ride up the curve rather than stop dead.   This work requires every one of our current 40 expandable track joiners worked on.   The joiner piece needs to be disassembled and the track carefully filed, then reassembled.
We start with a pile of Kato Expandable Joiners (KEJ).   Note that they have “CAN” in red not he bottom and these are our “standard” insulated joiners, designed to work with our modules.

(future link)

 One of the features of the new Fiddle Yard is to have LEDs embedded in the track in each siding so that when that siding is powered the red LEDs light up to show that the track is powered. The plan is to have an LED at each end of the Fiddle Yard demarcating the power zone. That section of track is isolated from the turnouts so you can easily see what track is powered and what isn’t. However, Kato doesn’t have track like this so work has to be done.

Track Power LED Indicators

Location

First I measure where the LED should go- as close to the pin as possible, then punch a hole through with an awl:

Starting

Here you can see me starting the awl:

Through

And here it is pushed through as a guide hole for the drill bit. The plastic is a bit soft so this isn’t hard to do.

Drilled

Next up we bring out the 3mm drill bit. Here’s the 3mm hole which now needs to be cleaned out:

Test fit.

And we test fit a 3mm LED to make sure it fits OK:

Attach resistor.

Solder a resistor to the LED to cut down the power so it doesn’t blow out. I used a 1KOhm resistor although a lower one would work.

Soldered

The resistor is soldered and excess wire trimmed off. Attach the Resistor to the Cathode (Negative) of the LED although it doesn’t matter.

Install LED

Put the LED in the hole and route the legs to the rails, Then bend the legs so they’ll fit against the rails:

Flux and tin rails

Apply flux to the bottom of the rails and “tin” the bottom of the rails. The flux is necessary.

Soldered to rail

Then the LED leads are soldered to the bottom of the rails:

Test the joint

Once soldered, a “tug” test is done to make sure that the LED leads are properly soldered in:

Check the height 1

Then I check to make sure that the LED is at the proper height on the bottom.

Check height 2

Here I’m checking the height of the LED to make sure it is under the level of the track:

Clean the joints

Next up, clean up the flux with 90% alcohol and a toothbrush:

Test!

After that, it is time to test the LED on DCC power to make sure that everything has been done correctly:

Glue it in.

Now that everything works, I apply SuperGlue to hold the LED in place.

DONE !

A completed rerailer section. The Black joiner is insulated so the siding is isolated on both ends:

The END !