Hornby Tender Drive
Bill Lord
improving it - I have tried weighting it - but it still picks up poorly.
R. K. MESSENT
the coupling pin more firmly or better still provide a wire connection
between the motor and the pick-up side on the loco. If you have dropped
any wheels for maintenance purposes, make sure that you put them back with
the wheel centre insulation on the correct side. Make sure there is not a
collection of oily gunge and oxide on the wheels. Make sure that the
wheels which are supposed to be insulated from the frames are not fouling
same and causing shorting (you might see sparking if this is occuring).
Keith Messent.
Bill Lord <bi...@lordspen.force9.co.uk> wrote in article
<362CF731...@lordspen.force9.co.uk>...
Grierson
My Hornby 8F is a fantastic runner, so much so I was thinking of buying the
9F, has anyone else had problems?
Michael
ab
>I have a Hornby 9F which runs very badly - can anyone suggest ways of
>improving it - I have tried weighting it - but it still picks up poorly.
>
I posted the following in response to another post a few weeks ago: I
hope no-one minds the repetition :->
~~~~
I've been fiddling with the tender drive on my Hornby 9F for the past
year or so (on and off) to try and get it working properly. On this
the centre wheels are not actually on an axle as such - they just
rotate on two little pins - the result being that the wheels wobble
about so much that the flanges hit check rails and so on. I've now
filed off the flanges - not an elegant solution, but it works!
I've also noted that the back-to-back measurement of the wheels is too
small for reliable running over Peco 100 track. Widening this on both
the loco and the tender is a good idea, although washers are required
on the tender axles to ensure that the gears still mesh.
I've removed the sprung copper drawbar contact altogether - when the
loco was running over uneven track, the tight drawbar connection meant
that any twisting of the tender would lift the loco wheels off the
track, and vice versa. The connection between loco and tender is now
much looser, resulting in better pickup all round. (I've also taken
the opportunity to make a shorter drawbar for closer loco-tender
connection - fine if the curves on your layout aren't too tight).
Although it obviously makes it more difficult to separate loco and
tender, a piece of wire results in a *much* better connection. I've
also run an additional wire from the valve gear of the insulated-wheel
(ie non-pickup) side of the loco to the motor, which means that the
current is picked up from the five wheels of the loco as well as the
two on the tender, and am now just about happy with its performance.
~~~
Kind regards,
(ab)
Tom Houston
to the problem of noisy tender drives?
I've got three Hornby tender drive locos:-
Flying Scotsman, runs lovely and quietly.
Black 5, 'growls*' a bit.
A4 from the 'Heart of midlothian' set, 'growls*' a lot.
*kind of low-pitched whirring and ...well... 'growling' noise at low motor
speeds,
sometimes it's more pronounced when the loco is slowing down.
The problem seems to be down to noise from the motor rather than the
gears, (I've tried running the motors without the gears connected, and
swapping gears between noisy and quiet locos).
The problem is made worse by the tender cover acting as a
sound-box. I've tried padding between the motor and the cover,
and slightly bending the cover to increase its grip on the tender base,
but to little avail.
I've noticed that the motor in the Scotsman is different in design to those
in the other two tenders. Anyone got any suggestions apart from
buying two more 'Flying Scotsman' tenders?
cheers,
Tom Houston
Mike Parkes
>While we're on the subject of tender drives, does anyone have any solutions
>to the problem of noisy tender drives?
>
>I've got three Hornby tender drive locos:-
>Flying Scotsman, runs lovely and quietly.
>Black 5, 'growls*' a bit.
>A4 from the 'Heart of midlothian' set, 'growls*' a lot.
>
>*kind of low-pitched whirring and ...well... 'growling' noise at low motor
>speeds,
>sometimes it's more pronounced when the loco is slowing down.
>
>The problem seems to be down to noise from the motor rather than the
>gears,
Have you tried a drop of oil on the end of the armature spindle where
it passes into/through the motor surround, usually does the trick for
these locos and also the Mainline 3 pole types
Mike Parkes
-----------------------------------------
***********Model Railways UK************
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Len Smith
a spring under the screw that attaches the drawbar to the loco and is
normally caused by a bad contact between the drawbar and the loco chassis.
What I do is solder a wire to the contact on the drawbar and attach the
other end to the loco chassis, perhaps to the screw that holds the cylinder
block in place, or any other convenient screw.
Best of Luck
Len Smith
lens...@rmrailways.freeserve.co.uk
www.rmrailways.freeserve.co.uk
Bill Lord wrote in message <362CF731...@lordspen.force9.co.uk>...
jim lad
Grierson wrote in message ...
a lead from loco pick ups to motor (brush connection 0 plus a good cleaning
did the trick.
Jim.
>
Tom Houston
> Tom Houston <hou...@nospamformenortel.ca> wrote:
>
> >While we're on the subject of tender drives, does anyone have any solutions
> >to the problem of noisy tender drives?
> <snip>
>
> Have you tried a drop of oil on the end of the armature spindle where
> it passes into/through the motor surround, usually does the trick ...
<snip>Thanks Mike. A bit more oil and a lot of fiddling to get it worked down
into the
spindle did the trick.
- My local dealer has two pet hates; those who don't oil their locos enough and
those who oil them too much, guess I fall into the first group.
(I suppose this means the Black 5 really was 'only test run' after all.....)
Incidentally, back on the original thread, the Hornby loco-to-tender drive
connection isn't one of their best ideas, I find that even with the spring
(all of mine have the spring fitted) it's very susceptible to poor
electrical pickup due to dirt and gunge, and needs almost constant cleaning.
I've seen mine start up a sort of oscillation where the connection's being
made and broken as the units run along.
I'm going to add a wire to mine as soon as I get around to it.
Tom Houston
Andrew Cocker
<hou...@nospamformenortel.ca> wrote:
>Incidentally, back on the original thread, the Hornby loco-to-tender drive
>connection isn't one of their best ideas, I find that even with the spring
>(all of mine have the spring fitted) it's very susceptible to poor
>electrical pickup due to dirt and gunge, and needs almost constant cleaning.
>I've seen mine start up a sort of oscillation where the connection's being
>made and broken as the units run along.
>I'm going to add a wire to mine as soon as I get around to it.
>Tom Houston
Sorry to barge in
I found that initially contact cleaner worked well, but that after
time even that can't compensate for a poor design. It seems that the
problem is worse on locos that have a trailing bogie 4-6-2 etc. The
contact is through a single screw that has to be loose so the bogie
can swivel. Some locos have a phospher bronze clip fitted to improve
contact but it soon wiggles about and causes derailments as the
trailing bogie can't swivel. My son's "James" 2-6-0 doesn't suffer
from this problem as the connector is screwed directly to the loco
chassis.
I've added pickups and solid wiring to all my tender drives. It is
well worth the effort. Especially when using dcc.
Another thing that worked for me to improve running was to completely
clean the ringfield so the whole thing is dry and devoid of any
lubricant. Then give it a good shot of wd40 while the motor is
turning. (it was a cure or kill experiment that worked)
Tom , I noticed you have a Canadian e-mail domain. Where abouts are
you?
Tom Houston
> I've added pickups and solid wiring to all my tender drives. It is
> well worth the effort. Especially when using dcc.
My plan is to migrate to DCC some time in the new year,
I've built and tested a home-brew system and am currently trying to lay out
the PCBs for the decoders.
> Another thing that worked for me to improve running was to completely
> clean the ringfield so the whole thing is dry and devoid of any
> lubricant. Then give it a good shot of wd40 while the motor is
> turning. (it was a cure or kill experiment that worked)This kind of ties in
with my experiences, presumably you shot the wd40down into the end of the
bearing, There's a certain amount of longitudinal play in
my motors' shafts and so I worked mine back & forth for a bit to get the oil to
penetrate down into the internals, presumably it was some internal dry
surfaces causing the noise. Now it's quieter but ...smells a bit.......
Next time I might try blowing (a very small quantity of) oil down into the
bearing using a drinking straw or similar.
Any experience of dismantling a ringfield? I was tempted, but other than
taking out the gears and brushes, I couldn't see where to start.
>Tom , I noticed you have a Canadian e-mail domain. Where abouts are>you?
I'm in the UK, just North of Belfast. The E-Mail address is just one of those
Corporate things.
Cheers,
Tom Houston
Andrew Cocker
<hou...@nospamformenortel.ca> wrote:
>with my experiences, presumably you shot the wd40down into the end of the
>bearing, There's a certain amount of longitudinal play in
>my motors' shafts and so I worked mine back & forth for a bit to get the oil to
>penetrate down into the internals, presumably it was some internal dry
>surfaces causing the noise. Now it's quieter but ...smells a bit.......
>Next time I might try blowing (a very small quantity of) oil down into the
>bearing using a drinking straw or similar.
Nope a good full blast front and back. smells like hell as it burns
off the brushes and commutator but it cleans as it evaporates.
>Any experience of dismantling a ringfield? I was tempted, but other than
>taking out the gears and brushes, I couldn't see where to start.
I've rebuilt dozens. Simple really except for the magnet. Just pop
off the face plate after removing the brushes. IF you need to remove
the commutator just pry off the brass cog and the thing just pops out.
Try not to shift the magnet ring. If this ring shifts by more than a
couple of degrees your motor will cog, stall, and run worse than
ever. Trying to get it back into polarity will drive you nuts. If you
have to remove it my little secret is to mark the chassis and the
magnet with 3 or more lines using an acid pen. (ultra perm marker
finest tip) When re-installing just line up the marks.
Older ringfields used a solid metal magnet with an alignment notch.
The newer ones are made of that flexible magnet strip.
With some ringfields the back of the commutator rubs the brass collar
that the shaft sits in. The wd40 penetrates back there to help too.
Cheers
Andrew