I have two athearn F7’s that are very noisy even on pure DC. Do they require a break in?
What is a good way to do that if I don’t have a circle of track?
Thanks,
Bruce in the Peg
i have two fairly new (low milage) athern sw1500’s and a 27 year old sw7 and they are somewhat noisy. they run good and the sound that they make is similar to a real one. so when someone comments about how noisy they are i just say the’re sound equiped.
I always break in my locos by letting them adjust to room temp, then running them at 1/2 speed for 10 minutes in each direction (forward and reverse). Then again at 3/4 speed, 10 minutes in both direction. After which I disassemble them and do any needed adjustments, greasework, etc. A lot of the time if there is any strange wobble or anything like that I’ll run them without the shell just to I can watch and get a good idea of what’s going on, helps with adjustments too, gives you a good idea of noise if you’re looking to quiet anything down.
I actually had a bad habit that two modeler friends of mine chewed me out about.
I’d get a brand new locomotive, like an E unit. Place it on a layout for the first time and proceed to run it at “prototype speeds”. As we all know, E units were 90 m.p.h rail blazers!
I had forgotten about properly breaking units in. It was explained to me that the new moving parts of the locomotive’s drive need to to properly wear in and settle. Doesn’t always happen, but even on some “high end” units the armatures can wind up with a slight wobble if suddenly subjected to full rpm just out of the box.
So now I do the proper break in, and make the needed observations and fixes as needed.
One option is a stationary roller set. I use the roller set to run in a locomotive after it is checked and lubed if it needs it.
You can run it for twenty to thirty minutes at medium speed in each direction and this usually helps with minor problems. It seats the brushes on the motor and in general, gives you some confidence in the engine. It will usually help with minor gear problems. If any problems arise, you can watch the unit run in place and observe problems, like the valve gear on the steam engines or an out of round wheel or gear set will cause a wobble. It might be more useful on steam models, but I use it for some of the diesels also.
One steam engine required about twenty hours of running over a period of a week to get it to run well, but it runs well now.
You can buy the roller sets at Micromark to set on any HO track. They are worth the cost, at least to me.
Does any other company offer stationary roller units besides Micromark? Sounds like a good way to go, but Micromark sells their items at full MSRP.
Antonio
I purchased my roller set at a train show after watching a demo. The eight set of rollers look like the Micromark type and will fit on code 100 HO track, but they are used with a stand made of oak base with the track mounted. One of my friends did order the sets from Micromark, that is why I mentioned them.
You might check your next local train show to see if you can get a discount.