Hi,
Am thinking about purchasing some Kato HM-5 motors for my Athearns as they are a little less pricy than my Proto Power West motors. Should I assume that these are the same motors that come in a stock off of the shelf Kato locomotive? If so they are probably a high quality motor. I do not own any Kato locomotives so I have no knowledge on how they run or the quality of the motors. If any of you out there have any knowledge on the HM-5 motor give me your two cents!
Regards,
Brad
I have one of the Kato HM-5s that came in my SD80MAC. It runs extremely well, and, even though it’s not as large as most motors, it’s very powerful. They’re also quiet, if you get one with good bearings, which I didn’t.[:(]
Features: 5-pole armature (not skewed, but has excellent low speed control), two shafts, perfectly balanced, powerful, and quiet. They should make your Athearns run very well.[:D]
I tried putting one in one of my Athearn diesels once, and it worked very well.[:D]
Darth,
Long live the Stormtroopers! I figured that the HM-5 motor would be better than the older “bluebox” Athearns. Toy Train Heaven is selling them for $13.39, much cheaper than my $29.00 Proto Power motors. Just think of it as the two for one deal. Two Kato motors for one PPW. I better start with a few and see if I like them before I buy a whole fleet of them. I will be running DCC on all of my locos and would like them not needing allot of throttle from a dead stop to start like Athearns tend to do.
Brad
You won’t have to worry about much throttle to get these started.[:D] I can keep my SD80 running smoothly at 1 volt at about 2 scale MPH![:D]
Brad,
I too have noticed that Kato has begun marketing their motors to the re-power crowd. http://www.katousa.com/ho-scale/HM-5-motor.html The price is certainly right, so is the size. The top end RPM is a little higher than the Mashima but not excessive. One thing to consider is it does not come with flywheels so they will have to be added into the cost.
I have 7 Katos myself and I can tell you they do run very well. You mentioned you have some PPW powered Athearns. For comparison, I have re-powered an Athearn GP-35 with the PPW kit, motor mount cradle and the NWSL wheel sets. They both run very similar in their ability to maintain a very slow speed on DC. I am sure the Kato trucks have a lower drag to them.
If you do decide to try one out, post the results. I am sure many others, including myself would be interested.
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for your input also. A question for you? Do you remember the part # for your NWSL wheel sets that you strapped onto you Athearn GP35? As I have several Athearns that will be getting disected in the next year or so (SD40-2, U30B, SW1500, GP7). I would like to drop wheel sets on all of them. I will let the forum know how it went with the Kato HM-5 motor when I buy one and install it into one of the Athearns.
Brad
Here is the NWSL link: http://nwsl.com/Brochures/371004br-v0603.pdf Athearn’s standard wheel diameter is 42” for most of its diesels. Some modelers, myself included feel the loco looks better with the 40” wheels, which are closer to the actual diameter on the prototype. Other model manufacturers use the 40” wheel diameter also. I have used the 40” wheels on both 6 and 4 axle locos without any problems. You may have to adjust your coupler slightly with the change to the 40” wheels. That being said, it is up to you. As you can see in the chart, the part # for the new style 40” wheels is 37141-4 and the 42” is 37142-4.
Hope this helps,
Jim
Note that you have the choice of three different treadwidths; scale (.064") - which very very few modelers have suitable track work for, semi-scale (.088") - which will work fine on well laid track, and standard (.110") The .088" looks a lot better than .110"
Brad;
Your statement does not make sense. With DCC, you just adjust the speed tables, you can make any locomotive start at any throttle position. Usually, you want to set it, so that the locomotive when it is properly warmed up will start on speed step 1 (or a bit higher with 128 speed steps), and a bit higher step when it is cold. If you set it up when cold, it may not stop when warm.
With DC (not DCC) your statement make sense.
How easy is it do the conversion in say an austrian atlas? and an atheran blue box engine?
On the Atlas/Roco, the Roco flywheels should press right onto the Kato motor, but you’ll have to make a taller motor mount and glue or tape the motor to it. The Kato motors aren’t as tall as the Roco motors.
On the Athearn BB, if it’s newer with hex-driveshafts, try getting a Kato motor with Kato flywheels, because they have a hex-shaped hole that the driveshafts fit perfectly into. Once again, you’ll need a new mount for the Kato motor. If the Athearn BB engine is older, you’ll have to find a way to mount the Athearn flywheels and driveshaft couplings to the Kato motor, because the Athearn shaft is a lot wider.
A better method than trying to mount the 2.4mm Athearn flywheels on a Kato motor which has 2.0mm shafts is to use the PPW / A-Line flywheels. These have a 2.0mm shaft diameter. They will be a direct fit and have the older style Athearn couplers on them. The PPW flywheels are also balanced more precisely than the Athearns.
Jim
Would the wider the wheel increase tractive effort for the simple fact that more tread is contacting the rail? Meaning a larger footprint if you will?
No, because even the narrow wheel is just as wide as the rail head. The wide tread on wheels allows quite a bit of overhang so there is no derailment on poorly laid or manufactured track.
Cacole is correct.
The NMRA states rail head width should be 0.045 for code 100. I have measured Atlas track and it is closer to 0.042. Cannot comment on other brands because I do not use them.
NWSL lists its standard wheels at 0.110. This measurement includes the flange of the wheel, which is listed at 0.027.
We subtract the flange width to get tread width:
0.110 - 0.027 = 0.083 which is the actual tread width. So quite a bit of overhang with standard wheels.
0.064 - 0.013 = 0.051 which is the actual tread width of the narrow Proto 87, aka scale wheels. Again the wheel tread is wider than the rail.
So the footprint is not larger with the wider wheels.
Thread was 7 years old, why are we resurecting it? David B