2 Different type of Hornby Flying Scotsman, start with different power from Dial

[Deem]

I have various Hornby Flying Scotsman, latest one in my stock is Hornby R.2675 with Can Motor (I think so) in Loco, others are, some with Ringfield motor in tender with Tender driven, some with X04 Motor (British Made) Loco driven.

X04 I understand with weak magnet and being so old need more juice (amps or voltage) and require up to 20 on Gaugemaster GWC before X04 Loco will move.

Ringfield will start moving at 15 on same controller.

Can Motor will start to move at 10 on same controller.

All loco have been recently serviced and all the wheels or valve gear or motor gear are freely running.

Am I to assume older stuff need more power compare to newer model or am I missing a trick or 2.

Regards

[Going Spare]

Yes, in general, they do.

[Deem]

@Going Spare

Thanks for prompt response.

Regards

[JJ73]

There has been many different versions of the F. S. over the years!! 🚂

[Deem]

Further update if this helps anyone and maybe some one can advice me as well.

I have serviced so far 4 types of Flying Scotsman,

British Made with X04 or X03 Motor in the loco, after full service will run up to throttle of 10 or 11 slowest, need little more power to go through points.

Chinese made with 3 poles ringfield motor, tender driven motor after full service will run up to throttle of around 20 or more slowest.

Chinese made with 5 poles ringfield motor, tender driven motor, after full service will run up to throttle of 15 but after moving will happily run in both direction with throttle of 10 or just above on straight, but need little more power when going through points.

Chinese made with Can motor in Loco, after full service will run up to throttle of 10 happily on both direction on straight track but will need little more power when going through points or various points.

My question is, Is it ok for little more power when going through points? I cleaned my service track regularly with Isopropyl Alcohol, so as points as well.

Regards

[Brew Man]

What type of points are they? Hornby, Peco, Insulfrog, Electrofrog, small/med/large radius etc. These factors will have a bearing on how smoothly a loco will traverse them.

[Deem]

@Brewman

Thanks for your response, I am using Hornby R8073 right hand Insulfrog (I think they are and correct me if I am wrong) either standard or Medium, I think so?

Regards

[Chrissaf]

They are short [standard] 2nd Radius.

[Brew Man]

@Deem

The Hornby points do have an insulated frog and locos can stall on that at low speeds, though it is more common with small locos, 0-4-0s etc. and not so much with larger ones such as the FS.

[Deem]

@Chrissaf

Thanks for explaining.

@Brew Man

Thanks for your comment, I don't have any small loco and A1 - A3 - A4 should run normal, all the Loco I have pickups on Loco and Tender as well so my assumption is Loco getting power all the time therefore shouldn't slow down at all (only on the points).

Maybe if I could be shown how to upload a video here to show what exactly I mean.

Regards

[Chrissaf]

The forum doesn't support the uploading of videos. You would have to upload the video on another video sharing site [something like YouTube for example] or your personal cloud storage and post a link to it.

The only file types supported natively on this forum are 'still images' in JPG JPEG PNG GIF file formats. So no videos, no sound files including MP3s no PDFs no MS Office files no anything else.

Personally, I would love to be able to upload PDFs directly to the forum, but at the moment I have to upload them to my ISP cloud storage and post links to them.

[Deem]

@Chrissaf

Apologies Chris, I think I asked the same question previously and forgot that can't upload videos.

Thanks again for letting me know.

Regards

[Deem]

Further updates.

I bought another Hornby R2675 Flying Scotsman DCC ready and just ran on my service track, I checked the Valve Gear and all the Lubricant point which seem like it's been serviced recently.

But Strangely DCC ready loco need little more power i.e. throttle between 15 to 20, compare to my other Hornby R2675 Non DCC model which happily runs on Throttle of 10 in both directions.

Could it be I need to run in Loco or am I missing anything.

Regards

[Deem]

Further updates

FS, Tender driven version with 3 pole motor runs happily with throttle of 10, installed new carbons, spring and cleaned the armature.

FS, Tender driven version with 5 pole motor runs with throttle of 15, installed new carbons, spring and cleaned the armature.

FS, Tender driven version with 5 pole motor runs with throttle of 10, installed new carbons, spring and cleaned the armature.

Only thing I can see different is, 3 pole armature is clean with no black marks at all, however 5 pole motor although been cleaned with Isopropyl but greyish shad on armature doesn't clean up properly, only other thing I can think is maybe magnet needs re-magnetizing.

Regards

[Jim-R855]

It could be so many things, different friction in the components of each tender or different electrical reistance, or as you say because you can't get the armature (commutator?) as clean.

If you have a mutlimeter with resistance reading, try comparing the resistance of each component (not the caps unless it has capacitor checking function) in the wiring and see if they are all the same. Also check the resistances between alternate sections on the commutator and see if all sets of windings are giving the same readings, if not you probably have broken armature wire and will want to get it rewound.

Some people use neodium magnets to see if they can make the motor run better (on the bench, don't think there would be room to put the body back on?) which might be useful for diagnosing if it needs remagnetizing.

You might also want to try polishing up the commutator pads with a fibreglass pencil and see if you can get it as clean as the others, IPA isn't always enough.

But don't dismiss the friction in the gears and wheels, just look how differently 2 identical pin point axles can run on a wagon or coach... And check carefully for things like track pins collected by the magnet and wedged up against a wheel almost where you can't see it.