Older Locos Triang 70's 80's Hornby Wreen

Dear Andrew,

There is already a quite extensive topic in the DCC Forum 'Older Locomotives and DCC', last posting 21st January, which will probably answer many of your queries. Hope you find that of use.

(I'm still waiting to get my hands on old Triang models lurking in my sister's loft before I can get underway. )

Regards,
John Webb

Does any other manufacturer provide a motor upgrade for older designs?

That is the only way to prove a demand.

Its going to cost (for arguments sake) £15 for a replacement motor and £10 for a chip. Thats £25 to upgrade a £35 secondhand loco. And even then the pick up is still going to be substandard as more wheels have power pick up on recent models.

All things considered does this make sense?

What about those who own locomotives with 3 pole ringfield motors. How many of these models are upgraded to 5 pole? Probably not many if any and Hornby will already know this from sales of motors.

Better to buy new rather than mess about. Am I right or wrong?

The small band of collectors who seriously want to upgrade their old locomotives to DCC will adapt and come up with their own solutions.

Happy modelling
Gary

The simple matter is, as with any dcc instalation, a case if ensuring the motor brushes are isolated from the rail pickups.

With the older X03 open frame motors i have found the best way to do it is rather fiddly but does work.

The main part of the job is removing the brushes and retaining spring. The brushes are held on the armature by a V spring which carries the ground current from that chassis. You will note one brush has a smalladditional brass piece with an attcached lead that suplies the current from the non powered bogie. The Sring will also have an insulating sleve on that side of the motor.

Next step is to tin the upper tips of the brass brush arms. (clean and flux first)

Now slip some 1.2mm heat shrink tube over the entire of the V spring and shrink into place. This isolates the spring completely.

Before replacing the spring i suggest you tin the brass plate which carries the screw and connect one of the power pick-up leads for the decoder (black or red)
slip the brushes back in with small nose pliers and fix into place with the, now isolated V spring.
The motor is now complete and isolated from the chassis.
Now quickly (as not to destroy the heat shrink) solder the orange and grey decoder leads onto the tinned brushes (the bits that poke out above the V spring)
The remaining power pick-up lead can be connected to the other bogies pickup lead.

There you go. I suggest you use a cheap and robust decoder for these motors as they not only drawn big currents, but also but out all sorts of EM noise (you can forget things like silent drive and feedback control)

Hi

The X04 motor can actually work very well on DCC:

The only thing needed install wise is to isolate the second brush as already described - but there is a very effective "Tuning" you can do. (there's no meed to isolate the whole motor - just the brush holders, and a 1cm bit of heatshrink or wire insulation will fix that)

First, strip the motor brushes out and clean the motor thoroughtly - I actually use dishwashing liquid and a soft brush and really scrub is / clean it thoroughly - I do the same with any ond chassis after its been sripped, as years of grime build up and help nothing if left in place.

Rinse thoroughtly after cleaning and air-fry with a fan heater or hair dryer.

soak the brushes in strong detergent, meths, acetone or similar for a couple of hours to try and get rid of any oil in them - they are often contaminated by careless oiling. Rinse thoroughly and dry properly - an hour or more in front of a fan heater = thorough!

Then: Reassemble the motor.

attach 2 DC leads from a power pack to the brushes and Using some 1000 to 1200 grit wet and dry paper glued to a bit of 10 thou styrene or tin stripwood, gently polish the commutator until it shines like a mirror.

Do NOT use any cqarser wet and dry... we are gently trueing it to be perfectly round and polishing off the imperfections left there at manufacture, not turning it down!!

clean the conmutator slots with a sharpened wooden toothpick and then lubricate the motor sparingly.

Reassemble loco with only a tiny bit of lubrucation on all bearings and gears.

Install the decoder: I find the TCS T-1 very tough and its silent drive and reasonable cost - works really well with Hornby X04 especially now it has a really excellent Back EMF added (from last month).

The ONLY hard to do older loco's are the Dublo/Wrenn with the motor as part of the chassis - these require the second bruch holder to be removed and replaced with a plastic not brass sleeve - after that, they run beautifully on DCC but its NOT an easy job without the right tools.

As for any loco's with the Xo4 - go for it, they'll be better on DCC than the rather poor performing much later tender drive!!

Richard
DCCconcepts

QUOTE (HORNEBEE_DUBLO @ 26 Jul 2007, 01:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>You may recall that Hornby fitted Johnson 111 motors to the older diecast 0-4-0 chassis, (in place of an XO4 motor) using such an adaptor plate in the 1970s. The XO4 alternative was the X842. Another version known as the X908 with a different worm wheel with fewer teeth was also used on these chassis. The current Hornby 0-4-0 chassis is still the one designed to take the Johnson 111 motor (known as X908). As this motor is no longer produced a shorter Mabuchi motor is used with a spacer. This is also used on older Scalextric cars.

I am wondering if the Johnson 111 adaptor plate for the older 0-4-0s was used in conjunction with the spacer, could the Mabuchi motor be used to replace the X03/4?

QUOTE (homeofoo @ 2 Apr 2006, 12:39) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi! An update on older locos on DCC.Having had a chat with Simon Kohler at Hornby's stand at the Ally Pally,it is doubtfull if their DCC chips will be suitable for Hornby Dublo/Wrenn locos as they are rated for 1amp with a peak of 1.5amps.If you want to DCC these locos you would require a chip rated at 1.5amps to 2amps to be safe,and then the magnets will have to be good.I also suggested that Hornby produce a 5pole version of the XO3/4 fitted to the Triang and earlier Hornby locos,he is not convinced that the demand would be enough to cover the high cost of production,so I suggest that any of you out there who agrees with me,write to Hornby and let them know what the demand may be.
John
homeofoo

I think this sums up one of the problems with Hornby. The X03/4 motors were the most widespread motors available for 20+ years; they were rugged, robust, widely available, cheap and thousands are still running today. Yet because Hornby have moved on - they're no longer interested - try finding an older assembly diagram on their site!

I see from another post that Bachmann themselves responded, perhaps Mr Kohler could do likewise on here to explain his position ( and their prices?)!