NWSL Stanton drive

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Has anyone installed one of these? I was wondering how good they are. Are they quiet? Are they smooth running? Any thoughts about them?

I’m thinking I might repower a brass SW1 with one or two of them.

Thanks for any input.

Jim

2

Dave at NWSL usually does a lot of test with his stuff. Send him an email as he does answer.

You might try a Google search for a possible independent review.

Rich

3

Thanks Rich. I just wondered if anyone on the forums had actually used one.

I am curious if such a small unit would be rough running.

Jim

4

I just did a Google search for nwsl stanton drive and found one person using it. He bought three back in March 2010. I will let you do the Google search as I search out stuff a lot so it is rare that I have to post a question in a forum. The link is in a different forum also so I will not post it. The Powers To Be here might not like it.

You might even join the forum and ask. With the twenty or so forums I belong to, I find a lot of mrr/DCC info.

Rich

5

I’m waiting to hear a bit more about them as well.

I’ve got an old brass CPR doodlebug, and if I can get one of these with the correct wheelbase, it might be a good fit for my needs.

I’m just NOT willing to chop up a cool old brass loco without knowing for sure it will run

6

This item would appear to be a great candidate for a Review in MR. In particular, a description of the running quality would be great. Do they run as well as a Kato? If not, how close? What’s the top speed?

I’m already looking forward to that issue.

Ed

7

Since NWSL builds and tests every one of them, I would expect an excellent running product. It should be at least as good as the PDT. So far, every comment I’ve seen from around the internet has been very positive. The motor and gearing were specially developed to give good torque and run smoothly at realistic speeds, and mounting should be extremely easy. I say go for it, and then be sure to let us know how it turned out!

8

I personally have used the Stanton drive to power an old IHP Silverliner III EMU car in HO scale. It s a good running piece of equipment, though i will point out some things to be aware of.

Consider in what way you will be using the trucks. The stock Stanton drive has delrin axle gears, but brass gears can be opted for. In my case, i needed the brass gears because the worm gears ate through the delrin gears. The car needed about 6 ounces of weight for it to get any kind of traction (these Resin Silverliner kits are EXTREMELY light), and so the delrin couldn’t handle this stress. On the other hand, I’ve seen these placed in diesels with the delrin with no problems.

Another thing to be aware of is that the gearing is constant across all types. This means speed is controlled by wheel diamater. Not really a big deal for larger diesel switchers or small switchers, but the 33" wheels of my Silverliner don’t allow it to go as fast as i’d like (though i recognize speeds aren’t that fast on SEPTA mainlines).

You can see the Stanton drive in beneath the truck in this picture. To bad i can’t get GSI 70 ton side frames to cover up the sides with!

9

I would like to see NWSL with a Stanton drive to fit the Athearn Hustler, which is where I plan to use one. Haven’t worked the details out but this little engine needs a good replacement drive system.

-Bob

10

Hi all,

I purchased a couple Staton Drives about a year ago. I’m building an On30 coal mine and wanted to use a single Stanton Drive as the basis for a battery powered Westinghouse mine locomotive. That required the Stanton drive to function on its own without a second Stanton coupled to the same locomotive. The results were not encouraging and I have since abandoned the Stanton drives for my application.

Because I’m molding a mine I wasn’t too worried about top end speed. What I needed was excellent low end performance. I experimented using the Stanton Drives on DC and DCC with Digitrax and Zimo decoders. Both Stanton Drives I purchased and tested gave similar results in each power configuration. The minimum sustainable speed was 12 to 15 smph. I needed to see under 5 to even consider using them. Even at 15 the drive was not what I would consider smooth. After considerable break in time the performance above 30 smph did smooth out pretty well, but speeds below 30 remained noticeably jerky. Pulling power was quite good for the size of the motor. I was able to add a fair amount of weight to the Stanton Drive by modeling the batteries in lead. That allowed a single drive to pull a dozen Bachmann On30 die cat metal mine carts with minimal wheel slip at starting. Each of the Bachmann mine carts is about equivalent to an MNRA weighted 40ft. freight car in HO.

My project was quite a bit different than a normal HO application, so you should take this with a grain of salt. I never tested the two Stanton Drives together. They may have better slow speed performance if they’re run as a pair. But, by themselves I did not find their performance even close to satisfactory.

11

NWSL is currently developing a Stanton drive for the Athearn Hustler. I don’t know when it will be out, but they mentioned it on their website.

When the Stantons were released, NWSL said they weren’t made to crawl at very slow speeds. A few scale MPH is their best. If there’s enough demand, which I suspect there will be, I’m sure they’ll release a slow speed version with a higher gear ratio.

12

i have installed 2 of these in a o scale rdc they run smooth and quiet, starting voltage is good when new ,they may get even smother with use. i like them. earl

13

I acquired a Bachmann doodlebug with suspected cracked gear. I decided on the NWSL Stanton. Installed it with a LokSound select soynd decoder. It ran weird on default settings. It’s been awhile but I recall it would jerk, then lurch when stopping. Not certain. But running the BEMF auto tune that the Loks allow made it run acceptably. So if going DCC, something to consider.

14

NWSL makes a Stanton drive kit for the Bachmann Spectrum Doodlebug which I am going to buy. The kit come with one powered and one unpowered Stanton drive. I assume the unpowered truck is for improved electrical pickup. If this goes well, I will purchase two powered Stanton drives for my center cab switcher project.

.

-Kevin

.

15

You may be interested in my thread about installing the NWSL Stanton Drive kit for the Bachmann doodlebug. Ever since making this conversion, my doodlebug has been running flawlessly.

The unpowered Stanton truck was not necessary, and I never used mine. I think NWSL could have excluded it, and the drive would be less costly.

Here is a link to my thread.

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/217394/2405416.aspx#2405416

Edit … I don’t know why the clickable link changed to non-clickable when I posted.

16

Because it can http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/217394/2405416.aspx#2405416

17

Hello all,

Check out this article posted on the NMRA web site…

UPDATING THE MDC BOXCAB.

Hope this helps.

18

Hi Garry:

When you want to post a link to another thread or post, you have to add in some instructions so the system recognizes what you want to do. Copy the link into your post and then do the following:

  • immediately before the link, type in ‘[’, ‘url’, and then ‘]’. Do not include the quotation marks or commas and don’t leave any spaces.

  • immediately after the link type in ‘[’, ‘/’, ‘url’ and ‘]’, again without the quotation marks or commas, and no spaces.

This seems like an odd way to explain how to do it, but if I typed the command without any spaces or quotation marks it would not show in the text. Instead the system would try to execute the command.

Note that the link will not highlight until you actually submit the post. Also, it seems you only have to add in the commands when you are copying within the forums. Outside websites don’t require the commands. Just another minor glitch.

Dave

19

Hi sparkycarrs!

Welcome to the forums!! [#welcome]

Something you may want to note is that before your post, the last post to the thread was made in 2011. There is absolutely nothing wrong with resurrecting an old thread, but you may not get responses from some of the people who posted in 2011. Some of them are no longer active on the forums.

I have used a newer NWSL Stanton drive in a gas powered trolley car project and it runs beautifully right out of the box. I used a Digitrax non sound decoder and I didn’t have to make any adjustments to the CVs to get smooth operation.

I have also used BullAnt drives from Hollywood Foundry in Australia. They also run really well.

http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. I like the Stanton drives because they are flat, i.e. the motor is contained between the axles. The BullAnts have the motor mounted above the chassis so they take up a bit of space inside the shell, but their advantage is that they come in literally hundreds of variations. You can do 2, 3 or 4 axles, multiple wheels sizes and widths, various gear ratios, various mounting options and more. They will match just about any HO truck configuration.

There is a BullAnt inside this:

Dave

20

I have worked on a brass Erie gas electric that had one installed. The drive, because of the design of the model in relation to the design of the Stanton drive, raised the level of the gas electric to an unprototypical height. Otherwise it ran well. Something to consider.