HELLO
I HAVE A QUESTION TO ALL WHO COULD PROBBALY HELP ME SINCE ALL OF YOU HAVE BEEN REALLY REALLY HELPFUL SO FAR I WAS WONDERING DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW I CAN MAKE MY ATHEARN R-T-R AMD’S GO FASTER LIKE THE REALL THING. WELL IF YOU COULD TELL ME THAT WOULD BE GOOD THANKS SEAN,
NS8665,
Your Athearn units should be traveling at close to 90 scale mile per hour.
One little trick I do to “visually” gauge train speed when I view someone’s layout that you can try. When you run your AMD locomotive, put your face close to the track and imagine a scale six foot tall man standing by the track as your train blows by. Should be quite fast!
If you want it to run faster than that then contact either www.NWSL.com or
www.ppw-aline.com. They have gear set ups and/or trucks that will satisfy your speed needs, but again, think it over carefully.
Some of the model locomotives of the past ran at 150 mph scale speeds which was not very realistic. That’s why most of the modern manufacturers “regeared” some of the model locomotives.
Hope this helps!
First, please stop SHOUTING !!!
The easiest way to make the go faster is a beefier power pack, but first some maintainence.
Clean and the properly lubricate (a very little, not a lot) using appropriate plastic compatible hobby lubricants (I use LaBelle, but there are several other fine products). On your list should be bearings and gears in the trucks, motor bearings, driveshaft, etc.
If you haven’t hard wired the electrics - gotten rid of the infamous Athearn clip, do so.
Get 42" solid nickel silver wheels - NWSL are excellent.
If the model has directionally controlled constant lighting wired in series with the motor, bypass it. You will have to build a new circuit that is in parallel with the motor.
An old slot car trick is to sand down the motor brushes to about half thickness. This reduces the spring pressure on the commutator, wich reduces the drag inside the motor. Before re-installing the brushes, clean them with Isopropyl Alcohol to removed the residue.
Next polish and clean the commutator.
Finally, the power pack, you need one that will put at least out 15 Volts and 2 Amperes. A typical Large Scale pack will work fairly well.
Athearn uses 12:1 gearing, 42" diameter wheels have a circumference of 132", 10,000 rpm motor speed will provied 104+mph scale speed - which is prototypical.
A trick I’ve found handy for standardising speeds between Athearn locos (for multiple working) is to add a drop of oil to the motor bearings, and to the worm gear bearings. This also improves running at very low speeds and reduces noise. I’ve used silicone spray lube in the past, mainly as an experiment (the can we have was intended to lube seals on our RV toilet system, so is plastic safe). Results were variable, so I think I’ll go back to filling the trucks with plastic-safe grease and oiling the bearings - the silicone worked well but seemed to wear off quickly.