I am slowly getting dragged (ya right!) into the world of Brass Engines and I’m the kinda guy who believes in running them, after all a steam engine is at her best when in motion.
I have several engines that have open frame motors that I would like to upgrade with NWSL or other equivalent motors. After looking at the NWSL catalogue I now have more questions than before, such as “What’s the best motor for engine X” and “Do I need a High Speed motor for Y” or “Double axle?”. And yes I am more than likely over complicating matters.
At present I have a GEM C&O 4-6-4 Hudson, Van Hobbies Samhongsa B&O Consolidated and a PFM Samhongsa Southern 4-6-2 Pacific.
So the question still remains “How does one determine what’s best?”
If the old motors aren’t too noisy (worn bearings tend to SCREEEECH) and are in generally good shape, you might want to try upgrading the magnets to rare-earth cubes or stacks. This will cut down the current draw and give you a slower, stronger motor. It won’t quiet a worn bearing, unfortunately. Current draw, high speed, and bearing wear seem to be the biggest problems with old open-frame motors.
It’s also a really quick fix, and it’s cheap (about two dollars).
Oddly enough, the stronger magnets also seem to counteract the tendency to cog, which seems counter-intuitive. It could be that the torque increase compensates for this.
Send a note to NWSL explaining what you have and what you want to do. They are pretty good at ‘working’ with you to develop a solution for your repowering needs.
One of the engines arrived today and ran nicely but didn’t like DCC, and though the smoke was very realistic it didn’t last! I need a replacement motor
I supect that will probably be my best way to go about it. I was just hoping someone here was familiar with thes engines and had a quick answer. Didn’t see any phone numbers an the NWSL site.
Was the motor smoking or the decoder?? I suspect most older brass engines do not have the motor isolated from the frame, so you have to do that when installing a decoder. It’s often as simple as unscrewing the motor assembly, putting down a thin sheet of plastic or rubber electrical tape, and reattaching the motor assembly with a plastic screw replacing the metal one.
Two things: 1: The locomotives you’ve described should all work with the same size NWSL can, they’re very close in size to each other.
2: I’m not a DCC’er, but cleaning up old open frame motors and replacing the magnets to draw less current should work okay for you–I’ve done the same thing with some open-frame motors that are almost impossible to replace with cans (my PFM articulateds, because of their very weird reduction system), and in the process, isolated the motors from the frame with silicon gel. They work just as well as a new can and don’t draw that much more current. A couple of my old brass PFM’s that used to sound like a coffee-grinder now hum along nice and smooth with minimal noise and much better performance.
I used to be sold on NWSL Sagami motors until I happened onto the Swiss coreless variety. I’ve heard that these overheat, but I’ve been running them for years and had no trouble. What they do is they run very smoothly, and they have a very low starting speed. They also behave as if they have a flywheel, even when there is no flywheel.
As far as selecting a replacement motor, I find my dial caliper to be pretty useful. It makes it pretty easy to measure length, width, and heigth of the existing motor, and also measure the shaft position.
I recommend that you get a motor absolutely NO larger that the OEM motor. Shoe-horning is a very difficult process in brass locos.
My preferred method for fastening them down comes from NWSL: Glue them in place with silicone sealer. It holds well enough that it works and you can still pull/cut the motor free if that is ever necessary. You also don’t have to modify the chassis, so you can put the OEM motor back if you ever want to sell it to a detail-oriented collector who wants it to be “Showroom stock.”
I can turn you on to a source for coreless motors if you are interested.