New Kato HO P42 Diesel Are NOT DCC Ready

Just so everyone here knows, the new Kato HO scale Amtrak P42 Genesis diesel locomotives are not DCC ready. The design of the new drive system and circuit boards prevents the simply drop in installation of a DCC decoder. I contacted Kato about installing DCC in these locomotives. Below is their response:

Mr. Aaron,

We will be posting up directions on how to put DCC into these locomotives
once we have finished putting them together, likely a combination of a
pictoral guide on our site and a video.

The 8 pin holes on the board are not a DCC socket and are used for manually
soldering wires on the pre-installed DCC/sound equipped models.

Regards,

Michael Conway

I guess they forgot about designing these new locomotive for easy installation of DCC. When I hear from them, or see the instructions posted, I'll post an update here.

Stuart

SoundTraxx just posted instructions on installing their Tsunami DCC/sound decoder into this locomotive. It is a very involved procedure.

http://www.soundtraxx.com/documents/app ... to_p42.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stuart

Particularly interesting considering that the N Scale P42 from Kato does take a drop in decoder, Digitrax's DN163K0a for example.

They had a display at CUS on National Train Day, DCC for HO was my first question. The salesmen said that it wasn’t exactly DCC ready and also danced around the issue when I asked what they were thinking by not making it DCC ready. He did mention something about them installing decoders if you order direct. Have you asked about that?

Chuck Pullen

That "direct order" might be via Kobo Shops. It's an option for folks in N Scale who rather not do it themselves. Kobo has also done a few "one off" projects in N, the most recently announced to be the Milwaukee Road Bicentennial Unit.

http://www.katousa.com/Kobo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.katousa.com/Zcart/index.php? ... &cPath=157" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And yes, HO Scale P42s with LokSound DCC/Sound decoders installed are available. (Bring money...)

I don't know what the exact relationship between Kato and Kobo is.

UPDATE! Kata has posted instruction on modifying the P42 for DCC while using the stock light board (modified as well).

http://katousa.com/HO/P42/maint/DCC-install.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It seems pretty straight forward.

Stuart

I just finished my first DCC installation in the P42 and I found a couple of things not clear in the Kato instructions:

1. If you want to control the marker lights you need a four function decoder with two extra function wires (usually green and purple);

2. The green wire needs to be soldered to pin 3 on the 8 pin plug, or the trace that they jumper to pin 3 on the board (in which case you don't need the jumper).

I used a SoundTraxx MC2H104P9 non-sound decoder for this installation (it was the only four function decoder I had available at the time). It uses function 5 and function 6 respectively for the front and rear markers. Because of this you can have independent operation of the markers. You can have either, neither, or both on or off as you wish, regardless of whether the headlights are on or off.

The best thing is that it works!

Stuart