Hello Mark,
The can motors that I used in my steam engines were the type that had the worm pressed onto the motor shaft. I found that when I installed the motor into the steam engine chassis without removing the bronze bearing the motor would not turn, the shaft went through the bearing fine but when the motor was tightened down it would not rotate.this was the case with all three engines that I converted. I found that when I took the motor out that there was runout on the worm shaft. I thought no big deal and pulled the bearing out of the chassis. This loosened things up and I ran the engines quite a lot. Two of the engines were ok but the third had what appeared to be a tight spot in the mechanism, I tried but could not locate the problem until I removed the gear cover on the bottom of this engine, at this time I saw that the worm gear was showing an unusual wear pattern. The runout on the worm was damaging the gear. Because of this I decided to pull the can out of this engine. I also had problems with can motor conversion in a 355 Baldwin diesel. If you plan on using the diesel can motor conversions with TMCC I recommend that you run the motor on dc for a goodly amount of time in both directions and at varying speeds. I found these can motors would lock up occasionally and I actually fried one of my ERR driver boards when this happened. I procurred a replacement motor for this engine but this time ran the motor on dc with out the driver board for a couple of hours. This motor also locked up on me a number of times while on the straight dc but eventually by running long enough the lockup whether a metal chip or what I don't know went away. To protect the board in this engine I installed a 1 amp fuse in front of the motor. This got a little longwinded but you asked.
Ray
Originally Posted by Strummer:
Hi Ray
Well, perhaps "fine tuned" is over-stating it slightly.
Other than the usual stuff ( cleaning the motor completely and replacing the brushes and springs), the only other thing I did was add a washer to the commutator end of the armature shaft; I noticed a bit of back and forth motion while running, and adding the washer removed that "play".
At one time I also removed the arm that connects the flywheel to the smoke piston;I thought the "choo choo" was a bit loud and annoying,(remember, I came over from N scale, where we expect our locomotives to make zero noise), and then the unit was REALLY quiet. But I thought, "what the heck?", it's supposed to be a steam engine, and trains do make a lot of noise when running, so I put the arm back in place.
Along those same lines (i.e.,switching to "S" from "N"), I've noticed these larger mechanisms require more frequent oiling than the little N scale engines do;I almost never had to oil those guys, and if I did, it was just the slightest amount. These "big" locos take a heckuva lot more, but that's part of the fun, I suppose.
I'm curious as to why your own experience with can motors was less than satisfactory: do tell....
Mark in Oregon
