I took a couple of my BB Athearns and regeared them. A U30-C and a U36-C. Of course there noiser than they were before but seem to get better with time. The obvious advantages; once you’ve re-geared and added some weight, they are great pullers, low speed operation is greatly improved and the lights are much brighter. If you keep the scale speed down to 30 or 40 miles per hour they make very little noise and look nice rolling at these speeds. Whats your take on regeard locos?[?][8D]
My Athearns gears are getting worn out so I wouldn’t mind trying this. Can you give us some specifics on how you did it?
I’ll get back with you in a few hours I have all the info at home. Joey
I regear and remotor my Athearn engines using Ernst slow speed gearing, a quality can motor and Northwest Short Line wheels. All of this with a little weight added gives me extreme slow speed movement without stalls or surges. The engines also can pull much better than before. My engines run better than most expensive off the shelf models.
dragonrider, do they run better than Kato’s and stuff?
They may not be better than Kato, but there still impressive at low speeds and cost way less than half with all the details. Personally I like to spend time building models as opposed to buying a model.
Regearing has its benifits. And Some of my models defnatly need it. The worst off ones need a whole new drive train. However All my regears seem to be funky one off affairs for which I am left to figure out for my self.
James
I can’t honestly answer that as I don’t have a Kato or new Atlas engine to compare against. However, I’ve quit running my three P2K engines (1 gp, 2 sw’s) and my classic Atlas switcher because they simply don’t measure up. The P2K’s are smooth and have excellent slow speed response, but I think my reworked Athearns are a tad bit better, especially on handling rough track, slow speed operations and pulling power.
Then again, maybe I’m just biased because I spent so much time tweaking and puttering with my “babies”. [:D]
An Ernst gear set is a drop in conversion that a junior high student could do with ease. It adds one additional gear to the drive train and a corresponding increase in motor RPM’s for each wheel revolution. If you attempt to run them flat out most of the noise is from shell vibration and I don’t recommend them if that is the way you operate but I have three or four in switchers and a set of PA’s and am very pleased.
That’s probably why I can do them!