i have a GEM Reading B-8 0-6-0 camelback that runs well but not quietly.
i’m wondering if replacing the axle gear with a Delrin gear from NWSL will help make it run quieter?
are the other common sources of noise that I could address?
It should…Delrin is a slippery type material…less friction. Before that…try a little bit of motor honey on the gears…the type that You would use when rebuilding engines…acts just like honey. Remember Casite Motor Honey? Used that alot when redoing engines for racing…reduses friction tremendously, for first time fire-up, without oil pressure steady.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
I’ve found gear noise in these old brass steam engines to be more related to the cut and mesh of the gears than the material used. I tried replacing just the axle gear in an old Ken Kidder 0-4-0 with a Delrin gear and got almost no change in noise, meaning that the old worm had a poor cut. If you want it to be really quiet, you may want to consider changing out both the worm and axle gear together.
Hi, Greg
That drive-train looks like a real challenge to try to upgrade with the motor shaft oriented vertically like that. I recently reworked a 1962 era LMB engine and pulled out the Pittman motor entirely. I’m sure you know about the advantages of using a can motor. In my case it was the motor itself contributing quite a bit of the noise. The gear on the driver was made of Bakelite which, for the technology available in its day, ran pretty smoothly.
The big advantage was the greatly reduced starting voltage and lowered current draw. Just running the motor alone on the bench made quite a bit of noise, then with the rigid mounting in the frame it makes it that much worse.
The can motor by contrast began to spin at .6 volts and max current draw was 800 mA. and was nearly silent. I mounted it using nylon screws and silicone isolation pads to help reduce the transmission of vibration even further.
I’m just pointing out that even after trying to improve the drive-line you still may have considerable noise from the motor itself.
There’s a few worthwhile articles on repowering brass engines by searching the web. maybe you could find a replacement can motor that is short and fat to take the place of that monster.
NWSL has some helpful tutorials here:
http://www.nwsl.com/Tutorials.html
Lots of info on small DC motors here:
http://www.sumidacrossing.org/LayoutElectricity/ModelTrainPower/DCTrainMotors/
I have purchased can motors from this seller on occasion:
He might have some suggestions for your application.
i was wondering if the gear and worm would both need to be replaced so that the angle of the gear cut match. Don’t know how much this contributes to noise.
i hadn’t thought about seeing how quiet the unmounted motor is.
i’m not sure about how to isolate the motor from the frame. I realize nylon screws would probably be better than metal ones, but I would think the motor flanges would need to be isolated from both the frame and screw. I guess I could let some silocone dry in a thin layer on the bench and cut washers from it, two each for each screw.
But presumably this is really only needed if the unmounted motor is noisy and a better solution would be to replace it with a quieter unmounted motor.