Hi all,
I’m in the process of re-motoring a West Side C-25. I would like to fit a flywheel into this model, but doing so may interfere with the motor wires without serious re-engineering (by which I mean cutting another hole in the loco shell). It’s a NWSL 12mm flywheel with a 1.5mm shaft, and I want to know if it would be worth making additional modifications in order to fit this in? The decoder I’m using is a TSU-750, if that’s relevant.
Thanks in advance,
tbdanny
I seriously doubt that a flywheel is going to improve much on a Sagami can motor, not only that 99.9% of these flywheels aren’t balanced anyhow and that just causes undue stress on the motor bearings. Using DCC you’ll be operating that motor under “pulse” power anyhow so for my money it would be a waste of time and effort. Also it really won’t be big enough to have much of an effect…save yourself the trouble and fine tune the mechanism, you’re already 99% of the way there now with that NWSL motor.
Mark
Having run the same mechanism with and without flywheels, DCC and good electrical pickup do more for performance. The only thing flywheels do is add more weight.
Heresy, I know, but it is true. Manufacturers add them because they are an urban myth. I am sure there will be a gazillion posts to follow with no evidence how great they are.
Harold
If you are using a BEMF decoder the decoder will fight the flywheel.
Flywheels can´t achieve, what a good motor and a gearbox can do for the performance of a loco.
Btw. Stonercreek RR is offereing a re-motoring kit for your loco. You´ll find it here
A flywheel is mechanical momentum for the drive when it cannot pick up power from the track. I’d try it without the flywheel. If you have bad power pick up you will find out in a hurry.
Really? Funny I haven’t noticed that with my two SDP40F’s. One has an Athearn drive and the other has a Proto 2000 drive. They both have Digitrax decoders with BEMF enabled. Same goes with my two Atlas GP40’s and my two Athearn GP38-2’s. All the locos listed above have dual flywheels.
+1. A flywheel adds something called Initial mass to the shaft. It will resist slowing down or speeding up. The advantage of which is if you have inconsistant electrical pickup, or a bad mechanism the flywheel will help compensate for that as it’s rotational inertia carries it foward. (More so for the former than the later)
The other benefit is it adds weight to your loco. And that rarely hurts things. 
I didn’t know the stall current on canon motors was < .75 amps. That’s pretty good.
Both true and false. The BEMF can compensate for the additional load put on by the flywheels. There’s an adjustable “kick” amount parameter on most BEMF motors. With flywheels it’s a lil higher.
Got flywheels?
Yup…I won’t have a locomotive that isn’t flywheel equipped.
That is why manufacturers keep putting them on locomotives. It is an urban myth. I have removed flywheels from locomotives out of necessity:
I had to remove the flywheel in an Athearn/Roundhouse 4-4-0 to put on an IHC 4-4-0 boiler. The locomotive ran the same without the flywheel. It ran even better when the suspect MRC dcc sound unit died and was replaced with a Soundtraxx Tsunami.
I have many locomotives without flywheels and they run as well as those with them.
All flywheels do is add weight.
Harold
It’s a judgment call. Flywheels store momentum, enough to allow the locomotive to coast over a small dead spot in the trackwork. If your trackwork is first class, and you clean your track, and you clean your locomotive wheels periodically, then a locomotive without flywheels works just fine. A number of my locomotives lack flywheels and they run quite satisfactorily. My trackwork and track maintainance standards are better than some, but not beyond the reach of any model railroad.
On the other hand, I like flywheels, and for a kit bashed locomotive I would certainly attempt to equip it with a flywheel. You say motor wires are the difficulty? Not sure if I understand, there is always room in the top of a diesel hood for wires. Have you considered adding wire guides made from brass tubing and glued to the inside of the shell to keep the wires up out of the works?
Harold,I recall how crappy none flywheel locomotives ran before flywheels and how smooth they ran after flywheels that’s why I won’t have a locomotive without a flywheel and that’s no myth.
Clean track,dirty track,dead spot,rubber frog it doesn’t really matter since the flywheel smooths everything out with momentum.
Locomotives just got better. It had nothing to do with flywheels. It is a myth.
Unless he adds more pickup his C-25 will run poorly. You need pickup on as many wheels as possible:
Visit:
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/1879/bachmann_4-4-0/wipers/
If adding extra pickups to a crap toyish HO Bachmann 1870’s 4-4-0 makes it run like a dream, it is all about electrical pickup in the engine not flywheels.
Harold
Harold,Sorry but,I will stand pat on flywheels and won’t own a locomotive that isn’t flywheel equipped.
From my experiences it was flywheels that smooth out locomotive’s performance and that’s no myth.
If the mechanism of any locomotive runs perfectly smooth and free, and has good electrical pickup, flywheels aren’t necessary. When needed, I think they’re more beneficial to DC users than DCC users. And they have to be large enough to have any effect, because a too small flywheel won’t provide any noticable momentum.
I personally like using flywheels in my stuff.[:D]
Urban myth? Hardly. A feature whose time has past, maybe. Perfect electrical pickup may remove the need for flywheels, but nothing is perfect and remains that way, according to Murphy.
I posted in a similar discussion about a year ago now that I didn’t really subscribe to the idea of flywheels, at least not in HO models. I don’t think they offer enough compensation for their engineering and installation costs.
If they were twice as large as they usually are and spun up to 2000 rpm, sure, that would be useful to get engines over dirty bits or gaps and dead frogs in the #18 range. But I feel they are too small, spun too slowly, and really rob the engine of what would be better weight if it its volume were filled with the equivalent volume in either tungsten or lead.
I believe that I have quite a few locos with flywheels, maybe all of them (?), and none are DC…they all have either a Tsunami, QSI variants, and LokSound. I don’t believe the tiny flywheels amount to a pinch of coon poo in the mix, and that is why my decoders either don’t pay them any mind or they are as innocuous as I claim they are.
I must admit that I am not a mechanical engineer, and have undertaken no method to determine all this for myself. All I can state is when my DCC/Sound engines encounter an electrical fault, they don’t coast for four or five slowing inches as a properly weighted and spun-up flywheel would make it do. Instead, they stop dead, quick. So, I guess I’m saying I’m not seeing their value.
Crandell
The benefits of running with a flywheel are definitely not a myth. Also i’m sure if it was, virtually every designer wouldn’t be adding them. On modern HO looc’s the flywheel or combination of 2 is often heavier than the actual motor. This prevents jerky movement when both accelerating and decelerating. A quick google of electric motors and flywheel will give some insight .
Unless you have a motor with infinite poles, a flywheel DOES help. The better the motor, the less the help - turn a 3 pole motor by hand and you can clearly fel the cogging action, a 5 pole motor, not as much, and a 7 pole motor, barely. But it IS there. This is the same principle as the flywheel in your car motor, without the flywheel to smooth out the impulses from each piston it would be a very rough ride indeed.
But high mass flywheels, or the whole idea of adding extra flywheels, is fairly pointless with DCC, or even a DC system that is more advanced than a rheostat and a direction switch. Feedback motor control works better with less inertia, and coasting action and slow acceleration can be simulated with electronic effects over a far greater range than you coudl ever do with a flywheel.
–Randy