Tomytec B-L1: N-Scale Moving Bus System Basic Set

I sometimes wonder how it came to be that miniature worlds are mostly about motorized trains. I personally wouldn't mind having my layout oriented around city streets and moving cars. But the market is mostly about trains. And I know only of two options allowing modelers to run cars.

One is the Car System developed by Faller. It looks very promising and allows even remote digital control of the units. But that system is unfortunately focused around H0 scale and its smaller N scale version is very limited..

The other is Tomytec bus system. It's noticeably cheaper than Faller and it offers much more when it comes to the 1/150 scale. The company has recently released an updated version of the product and I decided to give it a try.

I ordered a starter set from my favorite Asian Plaza Japan store. It arrived around 3 weeks later. Unwrapping the package revealed a nice looking, colorful box.

The box contains several elements protected inside a transparent plastic mold and a manual. Everything arrived in perfect condition even though the cardboard box was not very well sealed.

The set consists of several road pieces. These allow us to build an oval 67cm long and 44cm wide.

In addition we get:

• USB charging cable
• bus stop building kit
• spare tires
• road connectors
• magnets for controlling the bus

The manual is entirely in Japanese. Fortunately it's not all that complicated and the pictures help a lot.

And here's the bus itself. The new version of the Tomytec system features a longer, articulated vehicle. The set actually contains three items: a bus body, a static chassis and a motorized chassis. The model is designed for Japanese roads, with doors on its left side.

The way the model is delivered it has to be disassembled in order to replace the static base with a powered one. Unfortunately the bus loses all its interior details in this process.

The bottom of the motorized chassis reveals the magnetic steering mechanism and a micro-USB charging port. The USB solution is a novelty - the older system uses small batteries instead.

The bus body easily snaps onto the chassis but there's a surprise - it does not fit by default and the middle wheels go in contact with the fenders.

Luckily one of the pictures in the manual provides a solution. There's a screw on the bottom of the model which allows tuning the length of the chassis. But I still wonder why it couldn't fit by default...

Each road piece features a very thin wire underneath. That wire makes the magnetic steering mechanism on the bus follow the correct path. This concept is identical to the Faller system. I wonder whether the two solutions on the market are compatible...

The three included magnets go under the road pieces. They make the bus slow down, speed up and wait at the stop. Unfortunately my Japanese was not good enough to learn that from the manual, but luckily there's a great page in English explaining that: Sumida Crossing

Building the bus stop requires some plastic cement which is not included. The structure is however very small, and literally 8 drops of any glue are enough.

The vehicle fits the bus stop pretty nicely.

Another feature added in the new version of the system are the front lights which look really cool...

...and the back lights which are very dim.

Here's the complete set in one photo. An oval road, a bus stop and the motorized vehicle.

Once the bus is charged, it works immediately without any extra steps. The following video shows various scenarios, including some extra road pieces I purchased separately.

The bus runs nicely, most of the time. It did have problems here and there and went off the road occasionally. Unfortunately it's not a completely smooth experience but it works pretty well.

One of the things that - I think - causes problems is the articulated body. For some reason the back part does not slide left and right easily enough which causes the vehicle to be stiff and not follow the road perfectly. The video shows very well that a chassis without a body rides much better than a complete model. Perhaps it's something that can be tuned but I'm a little disappointed that it's not flawless out of the box.

Would I recommend the product? Difficult to say... It definitely has a potential and is very nicely made overall. But unfortunately it does not ride as well as I expected and I feel I'll have to spend some time on it to make it perform the way I want.

Anet is the new Pola?

Bringing our miniature worlds to life requires a lot of elements. Houses, streets, lamps, people, animals and much, much more. Those items can be purchased but they're not cheap. Or they can be made if you have the required skills. What can a software engineer like me (who barely knows how to hold a hammer) do in such case? Well, he can use his computer skills to 3D print whatever he wants!

3D printers have become pretty cheap lately. Or at least the Chinese clones have. A promising 3D printer can be bought for less than $200 dollars. And to satisfy my curiosity, I've decided do get such device...

The model I've picked is called Anet A6. It's a very popular printer with a huge and active community of users. It comes as a DIY kit packaged in a medium-sized but rather heavy square box.

The content is not surprising. A lot of mechanical and electrical elements. It all has to be assembled by the user.

It took me almost an entire day to build it. The parts are good quality and fit perfectly BUT the manual is a joke. The assembly is really fun however and it allows you to learn how the printer actually works. Not to mention the feeling of pride when it's finally functional!

And did it work? It worked right away! As soon as I managed to solve some basic issues, I was able to print my first 3D elements. And so it started: boxes, scissors a whistle and other useless stuff...

But this new purchase was supposed to help me with my train layout, wasn't it? So let's see how we can use the printer for that purpose!

It seems we could easily print a street lamp...

...or an outhouse...

...or a boat for my pond...

...or... anything we can imagine?

My first impression is that the cheap printer is not perfect. It requires learning, attention and maintenance. The print quality however is definitely good enough to support my G-Scale modeling. A smaller scale would require a much more precise device but for large items - Anet has the potential to replace Pola G (at least for basic cases).

This new experience opens also a new field to explore on my blog. I'm not going to stop writing about commercial products but I will be sharing my 3D printing successes (and failures), too. And I hope all of you will enjoy that!

DCC Concepts DCM-RRA6: Multi-gauge rolling road

I have previously purchased, reviewed and used a rolling road for my G-Scale models. It's a very useful product, especially for someone who tries to run a train models blog. But of course my webpage is not just about G-Scale and I needed a similar item for my other love - the very small N-scale.

This time I've decided to go for a well-recognized brand. Unfortunately the bigger the name, the higher the price is. My compromise is a product made by a company called DCC Concepts. And the rolling road I decided to buy is an item marked as DCM-RRA6. The Hattons store had it in stock for around £60 which was acceptable considering British Pound's low rate caused by Brexit.

The most advertised feature of this set is its multi-gauge capability. That's why the box contains a collection of elements allowing the modelers to build any rolling road they need. It's even supposed to support the 3-rail Marklin system.

And since we're already mentioning the 3-rail system...The product comes with a small plastic bag which looks like it was added there in the very last moment. The bag contains a piece of metal, three screws and a short wire. I'm not sure yet how to use it (no manual is included) but I bet it has something to do with the Marklin system.

The function of the remaining parts is clear and they allow us to create rolling roads for the following gauges:

• 9 mm (N)
• 12 mm (H0n3-1/2)
• 16.5 mm (HO/OO)
• 18.6 mm (EM/P4)

The set contains enough elements to build 6 rolling road pieces and that's the limit of what we can have at any time. Any combination is however possible, so one could decide to have - for example - 3 N-scale and 3 H0-scale pieces.

The assembly/disassembly is easy. Each piece consists of a plastic spacer and two double rollers attached using a screw. Once the screw is removed, the roller can be installed on another spacer.

The system is simple and permits quick reconfiguration BUT I've noticed it has a disadvantage, too. It's based on metal screws going into plastic parts. Such solution will sooner or later damage the threads inside the spacers and will render the parts unusable. I've actually seen small particles of plastic coming out when unscrewing the elements for the very first time. In other words - I would not recommend changing the configuration very often.

But as long as it works, we can create pieces of any gauge we want...

Let's go back to the mysterious plastic bag for a moment. It is indeed meant for the 3-rail system. And I suspect the solution proposed by the manufacturer is something like this (but still can't be sure, since the manual is nowhere to be found).

My focus however is the N-scale and the Kato Unitrack. For this case the DCC Concepts product works perfectly without the need for any extra tricks.

So how does it perform? I've tried the system with most of my N-scale stock and it worked with every single piece. Not every locomotive is however 100% compatible. For example - any engine featuring small details around its wheels has a chance of not fitting perfectly. It does not break the functionality of the rolling road, since it still works, but I would be careful and always check how the items position themselves together.

One of my locomotives had some contact issues BUT it was the one which always required a very, very clean track. I would not blame the DCC Concepts set here, since every other engine worked perfectly.

I've also discovered something new. When making a video for this post, I wanted to shoot a cool scene with my longest steam engine running on the rolling road. To my surprise, the locomotive turned out to be driven by only two axles and the final movie shot is really not what I wanted. But it only proves how useful this item is for anyone who wants to learn more about their collection.

Anyway, the movie is here. Enjoy!