EURIKA!! Motor does not function when setting loco motor full load current

[carpediem4570]

Good Afternoon All:

The saga continues:

I am doing a hard wire conversion of an ihc mehano 2-8-2 Mikado steam loco. 

The decoder is an LM-2S

From the nine pin wiring harness, I am using the red to the right side pick up, black to the left side pick up, orange to the positive motor, grey to the negative motor and blue and white for the front light.

Before installing everything, I did a motor test with the above connections soldered appropriately, with the exception of hooking up the front light.

I put the engine, without tender, on the test track. Hit find product; product found LM-2S.  Exit page.

Hit locomotives, hit no name engine, screen displays “button setup changed. Go to adjustments.”  Exit.

Hit adjustments, hit save, save complete, hit next page x2, hit motor full load current, use auto set yes, hit start test, count down, momentary display of 100% then showing 0mA, redo start test, loco speed 100% then error-timeout, try a third time, error time out.  The first two times the motor made a sound then stopped, the third time, no motor sound.

Thinking I had a short in the wiring harness, I got a new nine pin wiring harness and soldered directly to the terminals.  Same results.

Thinking maybe a bad decoder, I tried a brand new LM-3S.  Same results.

I put another dcc engine on the track.  Everything ran fine.

Thinking the motor was bad on my Mikado,  I hooked the motor leads to my dc power pack.  It ran just fine.  This motor is not the original motor.  The old three pole was shot so I replaced it with a new five pole.

What am I doing wrong?  Help.

Kind regards,

Max

[gregeusa]

indications are that the motor was drawing too much current.

running a motor from a DC power pack does not indicate the current it is drawing...

measure the motor current...

[carpediem4570]

I hit the info button which took me to the loco info page. It states”motor full load current not set.”

The voltage reads 13.7 V with no motor current.

Is this what you were asking?

[gregeusa]

NO

What you experienced when using the decoder looks like motor drawing too much current.

Then you hooked up to a DC powerpack and think the motor is fine.

You need to measure the current the motor draws ON DC, using the power pack, and see if it indeed is drawing too much current by itself.

power pack > through current meter > directly to motor, no decoder.

Do you have an amp/multi meter?

[carpediem4570]

Thank you for your reply:

Yes, I have a multi meter but I’m afraid I don’t know how to do what you are asking.  It makes great sense for trouble shooting.

As I said, this is not the original motor.  The unit came to me with a burned out motor.  This tells me there are other problems that caused the motor to burn out.

Kind regards,

Max

[carpediem4570]

I have a second 2-8-2 that is new in the box.

I want to pull it apart and check the worm gear that turns the cog on the drive axle to move the wheels.  It appears this is quite stiff to turn and that might be why the motor can’t turn the worm gear.

Kind regards,
Max

[carpediem4570]

Well, this certainly has been an adventure.

I pulled the cover off the worm gear and cleaned out all the old grease and it is moving much better.

The worm gear and the two wheel gears are plastic.  Do I need to regrade them, oil them or leave them dry?

The wheel axle have no bearings and ride in a plastic slot.  The axles are brass.  Do these Ned to be greased, oiled or left dry.

Thank you in advance for the help.

[gregeusa]

I do Z scale and G scale... not an expert on HO mechanicals... sorry..

will tell you that you do need lubrication... I use oil on bearings, and jel grease on gears...

[snowdog]

Hi Max,

It sounds like your motor is pulling to much current and the safety feature of the module has kicked in to prevent damage. If you remove power, the module will reset...A common mistake in converting to dcc or similar function is that people believe the conversion will help the loco run better (which it will if the loco runs good as a DC unit) What you are describing is a case of having something in the drive system bound-up.You should tear the loco apart and check that your gears mesh well, the motor spins freely and all the drive mechanisms run smoothly. ENSURE the loco runs smoothly on DC before converting to RailPro. Once that is done, you should have no troubles with the RailPro system. (we are here to help if you do).

When you're done getting the drive system working, oil the bearings, grease the gears.  ONLY USE A LUBRICANT INTENDED FOR MODELS!!!

Make sure it's synthetic or your loco could be ruined (ask me how I know).

Good luck

[gregeusa]

your lubricants don't really need to be synthetic, they need "plastic safe" on them... lubricants for our hobby are clearly marked and marketed as such.

[carpediem4570]

HOLY CRAP: SUCCESS

OK, TO RECAP: this is an IHC MEHANO 2-8-2 mikado steam loco from a presidents choice train set from the 1990’s.  The set came to me with a fudged motor, burned out and brush’s really worn.

This is my first hardwire conversion to dcc with railpro, or any conversion for that matter.  I figured this would be a good loco to try.

I ordered a new five pole motor from china for a couple bucks, did some filing to the plastic housing of the motor and fit it to the loco.  Perfect fit.

Wired up using an lm2s I am wiring the loco so the chip is in the tender with a rear light and the loco with front light.  I phone 4 speaker in the tender.

Wired just the loco to make sure everything works.  AND THAT is where everything came grinding to a halt.  I couldn’t get the motor to turn, even just for the motor full load current test.

The new motor ran ok on dc but, it wouldn’t start turning until I hit 45 percent.

Stripped all the old lube and oil and re greased with fresh stuff. Then, using the dc power pack, I broke in the motor; half hour forward, half hour reverse on fifty percent throttle.

After the break in on dc, I get movement at twenty percent throttle.

Today, I tried again and wired the loco for dcc.  I put it on my rolling railroad and with a whole bunch of fiddle fxxking, I managed to get the full load current test done.

This time I put oil on the tower worm gear and got a little better movement but, I kept getting a low voltage error.  I took the positive and negative power leads off the rolling road and connected them directly to the locomotive.  Holy crap, full movement with no stalling.

This little project has been on my dining room table since 2022, (yes, I’m divorced), and so has the rolling road.  I took a couple minutes to clean the wheels and laid down a fresh, clean piece of track and connected the leads.

Well, what in the blue falcon?  In the name of all that is holy, I got the loco to crawl, I got the loco to fire up to all speeds, forward and reverse. 

I think breaking in the new motor, clean track and oiling and re-greasing the tower worm gear made all the difference.  Now I can finish the lighting, speaker and re- assembly.

It’s been a long journey but, it has also been fun, and exasperating.

Thank you to everyone for your advice.  It helped and was very encouraging.  Kept me from giving up.

Now, 15 more locos to go…BAHAHAHAH!!!

I’d love to show you pics but I can’t seem to attach the pics.

Kind regards,
Max [ Invalid Attachment ]

[carpediem4570]

Well, it’s done.

I finished wiring up the locomotive and tender.  Both front and back lights work.  The speaker is wired and placed and, it works.

Moves forward and reverse, bell, horn and motor sounds work.

It’s taken three years from the time this engine landed on the dinning room table to now.

I will try to put pics and video in the completed projects section.

Thanks for the help and thanks for letting me brag.

Man, I feel like a kid at Christmas, lol.

Kind regards,
Max

[gregeusa]

So to recap, you had:

• bad motor
• bad wires
• bad power pickups
• bad lubrication

??

well, maybe nothing else can go wrong, you seem to have covered it all!

the next few should not be so difficult to diagnose
Greg

[carpediem4570]

lol, well summed up.

I think the next one will be easier.

As I said, I got this one with a burned out motor.  I should realized it wasn’t the motor.  The motor was a symptom of something else.

Kind regards,

Max