Kato Amfleet Passenger Car Lighting & DCC

[tehachapifan]

Recently picked up a couple of Kato N scale Amfleet cars with factory-installed interior lighting (I think with LEDs, but I haven't opened up the cars yet). Says max 12V DC on the box. My DCC system (MRC Prodigy Express) says it is 15V. Can these cars handle it?

[MetroRedLine]

Recently picked up a couple of Kato N scale Amfleet cars with factory-installed interior lighting (I think with LEDs, but I haven't opened up the cars yet). Says max 12V DC on the box. My DCC system (MRC Prodigy Express) says it is 15V. Can these cars handle it?

I don't know about factory-installed lighting, but Kato does makes universal lighting kits for their passenger cars, which are all manufactured to accept the LED and lighting element. I have them installed in all my Kato Amfleets and Superliners. They are made to work in both DC and DCC power. You should have no problem.

[peteski]

The original Kato Lighting kits used incandescent bulbs which would get very hot powered by the DCC track voltage. Hot enough to melt the roof.

But Amfleet cars should be new enough that they are equipped with LED-based Kato lighting units.  Kato released 2 versions and both are safe to use on DCC power.

Russ, you should be able to place a car on a DCC-powered track and check if the lights have a warm incandescent glow, or a cooler LED white light. Or just check if the roof on the ends gets hot after a minute or so.

[tehachapifan]

Thanks, guys! They are indeed LED units. I pulled a car apart to make sure.

TBH, I'm not sure I even like having any interior car lighting. I don't really do night ops and the interiors being illuminated during "daytime" ops doesn't seem quite right.

Plus, it illuminates the interior to show that it's really not much of a detailed interior at all. With no illumination, the interior looks rather convincing.

All this coupled with the tendency to flicker kind of makes it all seem toylike. 

I may end up removing/disabling these lights.

[nightmare0331]

The 'factory' and 'kobo' installed light kits (one in the same...all installed here in the US...not truly factory installed int he typical sense) are all LED light kits.

The last incandescent light kit sold by Kato was early 2000's iirc.  They're still out there.  If you see used or new old stock incandescent bulb kits, it's best to replace.

Enjoy!

Kelley.
www.dufordmodelworks.com