evening star power tender can i still purchase one

[ROBBERT-1233605]

i want to by a evening star power tender as has stoped working?can you help me

[Going Spare]

Hornby stopped producing tender driven 9Fs (and Britannias and class 37 & 47 diesels which used the same drive unit) way back in 2007 so it is most unlikely you will find a new replacement drive unit. Secondhand units may be available on auction sites.

Do you know why yours has stopped working? It may be repairable.

There have been several versions made of Evening Star - can you identify which one you have?

[Tony57]

Which version of evening star are you asking about as there are several?

What is the issue with the tender? as no new Ringfield type motors are being made so a working X941 would be the best option.

[Topcat2018]

Do you know that the fault is in the tender and not the loco?

I am not familiar with this particular loco, but there are several things that can go wrong with any tender drive loco or its tender, depending on the exact type of connection between loco and tender. I have a reliable faultfinding method I use that I can put into a flowchart if you are interested, but if the fault isn't found by simple go/no go tests it may also be necessary to use a multimeter.

It will take a few days to draw this flowchart and I am no longer prepared to post drawings unsolicited as sadly some people just take what you post and don't have the courtesy to acknowledge the effort involved.

[morairamike]

You can buy a motor upgrade which uses a CD motor. Make sure you buy the thinnest one. Works well in my 9F tender drive.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hornby+ringfield+motor+upgrade+kits&oq=Hornby+ringfield+motor+uo&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i13j0i390.20893j0j7&client=ms-android-motorola-gfw&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#scso=_-GG_YtvHCcmcgQbFuZWABg3:159.5

[Topcat2018]

The thing I would say about these can motor replacements is that:

1. They are expensive. You can buy a motor from China for about £3 and make an adapter from a piece of plastic or cardboard tubing.
2. The motors are only 6 volt so you run a risk of burning out the motor if the controller voltage is turned up too far. You may be able to make an adjustment for this if using DCC.
3. For analogue use you will see that "diode droppers" are available costing anything up to £6 for four diodes that actually cost less than £1. These are completely pointless as all they will do is reduce the voltage to the motor by twice the diode forward voltage drop, 2 volts or less, so you will still have 10 volts applied to the motor at full controller output, and the motor won't actually see any voltage until the controller output is about 1.4 volts when the diodes start to conduct.

In either case 2 or 3 above you will find that the loco behaves completely differently from one with the original motor. I have designed a circuit that halves the motor voltage at any input voltage over 1 volt so if the controller outputs N volts the motor sees N/2 volts. Anyone is welcome to have the circuit and printed circuit board layout, for personal use only.

Also, why are there two versions of this post with the same title?

[Rana Temporia]

Topcat I fully agree about the price that some electrical packs are being sold for but unfortunately there isn’t the knowledge nowadays on electrical components that there used to be, and through hole technology is somewhat outdated now making it even more difficult! I always get mine from Rapidonline.

I did buy a couple of remotoring packs a couple of years ago as the motors were 12v and they came with a replacement cog which fit the diameter of the replacement motor shaft. They were also not much more than the motors with postage from China.

The best and easiest use of cheap Chinese items I have found are the PWM controller units which if you are prepared to wait a few weeks for the budget delivery are ridiculously cheap and with a case and power supply well less than £10 for a controller that I have found to be far superior to anything else I have, especially for older locos.

I understand that the early silver seal ringfield motor that I think this one is, was a direct copy of a European one and had to stop being produced for that reason. I have several in different locos and they are easy to repair as long as it’s not the armature that’s gone. I think the brush cups are still available on eBay. Personally I would go for a repair if possible as it may not be the motor that’s the problem as has been said by others.

[Topcat2018]

@Rana Temporia

I haven't seen any re-motoring packs with a 12 V motor, are they still available? If they were I wouldn't have bothered designing a step-down circuit. I have searched online and so far not found any 12 V 9 mm deep can motors. You can buy plastic cogs online that fit the 2mm shaft of the can motor (difficult to use an original British gear as they have a 2.3 mm diameter shaft, but I think the pitch of these is only suitable for the gears in British-made tenders.

If you do want to build your own circuits it's worth mastering building surface mount PCBs by hand (not the really tiny stuff but 0805 size resistors etc)., especially if you want to put something inside a loco or tender. It's not that difficult, all you need is a set of magnifying spectacles, a soldering iron with a fine tip, a pair of tweezers and a steady hand. The other advantages of surface mount are that you don't have to drill all those holes and you can stick your board down to a suitable surface with double-sided tape as there are no leads poking out the back.

To design and make simple SM PCBs you don't even need a PCB design programme, though you can (or could) get DesignSpark free from RS components. If you've got a vector drawing programme you can lay out simple PCBs then laser print them onto transfer film that you then iron onto your blank laminate board, and etch.

As for fault finding tender drive locos, it's problematic as there are so many places a fault can occur, depending on the version.

• A broken wire somewhere
• worn brushes
• dirty commutator
• weak magnet in the ringfield motor
• a short or open-circuit in the armature
• poor connection between the tender wheels and chassis (British-made versions)
• poor connection between the drawbar and the loco chassis (British-made versions)
• poor connection between loco chassis and loco wheels (British-made versions)
• poor connection between the leaf contacts and the wheels (Chinese versions)
• poor connections between the contacts on the drawbar and those on the tender (British and Chinese versions)

I think that's about all the possibilities.

[ColinB]

It is probably the brushes, quite an easy fix. If it is the armature then you can get second hand ones or you might be able to get a rewound one. You need to explain how it doesn't work. You even see second motor driven tenders come up on EBay second hand.

[Rana Temporia]

Topcat, the 12v re-motoring kits came from Denmark I think off eBay a couple of years ago.

For any small circuit I would just use stripboard rather than get a bespoke board made. SinceI stopped building guitar effects I don’t do much with electronics nowadays so it’s a bit of fun when I do!

[Topcat2018]

@ColinB

As I said I am not familiar with this particular loco, as I'm not interested in British Rail, only LMS or LNER, but if it uses a similar connection between the tender and loco as other tender-drive locos such as A1/A3/A4, of which I have several, I wouldn't necessarily say that brushes are the most likely cause of a fault.

British-made versions of these locos have a forked contact on the underside of the drawbar and the only connection between the drawbar and the loco chassis is a brass screw that goes though the drawbar into a tapped hole in the chassis that has a spring inside it. The drawbar seems to be made of some kind of zinc alloy and is prone to oxidation, so needs a good clean. This is the most common problem I have found with this type of tender-drive loco. A bad connection between the tender wheels on the right side and the tender chassis is also a common problem.

Chinese-made locos have contacts above and below the drawbar which are wired to leaf contacts that connect to the wheels on either of the chassis. A bad connection between these contacts and the wheels is also a common problem.

[Topcat2018]

@Rana Temporia

Stripboard is of course fine for one-offs. I would only design a PCB for a one-off if space was a problem or the circuit was very complicated.

[morairamike]

The kit I used was 12v. It was one of these.

https://www.strathpefferjunction.com/hornby-lima-ringfield-motor-upgrade-conversion-kits/

[Topcat2018]

@moirairamike Thanks for that link. I have looked at that website before but he seems to have expanded his range. I could be wrong but it doesn't seem clear if he offers a 12 V 9 mm deep motor conversion suitable for tender driven steam locos.

[The son of Triangman]

Robbert, how old is your loco? There are several versions on the power units fitted to the 9F "evening Star". The earliest ones are always worth getting repaired, they can pull a house in good fettle. Much better than a CD motor conversion. Most ringfields are easily repaired, they were made to be repairable almost indefinately, if kept in good serviced condition they will last decades.

[Topcat2018]

The most common faults I have found on tender drive locos are:

1. worn traction tyres, easily replaced if you can get hold of them. The last lot for Chinese-made A1/A3/A4 I had to buy from Malta.
2. worn plastic gears, again easy to replace if you can get hold of them. The last lot for Chinese-made A1/A3/A4 I had to buy from Malta. If it's just the holes that are worn and the teeth are OK I insert bushes made from brass tubing.
3. worn brushes. Fairly easy to obtain.
4. weak ceramic magnets. I have three "Flying Scotsmen" where the magnets were so weak the motors wouldn't turn even with the gearing disconnected, though brushes, commutator and armature were in good condition. I was unable to find a source of replacement magnets and have repaired one of these locos with a can motor, which seems to work fine. I must measure the tractive effort and power consumption on this loco to see how it compares with ones with good, original, ringfield motors.

If anyone does know a source of ceramic ringfield magnets I would love to know.