another faulty motor

[Fishmanoz]

Now there’s a thought no one else has come up with Daedalus! What are the chances?

Is the outcome of this fault that you might get phase to phase or 415V (240V x sqroot of 3) across a wall outlet, or is it somewhere in between and can it be intermittent? Or am I right up the wrong tree?

Might be a candidate for Curly seeing 14V on his track when running a loco?

Hopefully someone on here is an electrician and knows?

[96RAF]

Now there’s a thought no one else has come up with Daedalus! What are the chances?

Is the outcome of this fault that you might get phase to phase or 415V (240V x sqroot of 3) across a wall outlet, or is it somewhere in between and can it be intermittent? Or am I right up the wrong tree?

Might be a candidate for Curly seeing 14V on his track when running a loco?

Hopefully someone on here is an electrician and knows?

 

 

Flashbang is/was a sparky.

[Rallymatt]

On a safety issue, any chance that a domestic supply could output 3Phase is a frightening thought!!! 😳

[Daedalus]

I'm not suggesting a 3 Phase supply. The mains in the road is 3 phase and a single phase is taken to a few houses and lamposts, then the next phase is used. That is why sometimes with a fault at the sub station not all properties are affected.

It is done to balance the mains.

However larger premises like schools, large shops. blocks of flats get the 3 phases which are balance around the premises, by floor etc.

[ateshci]

All domestic wiring is carried out by having one pole neutral/ground. If this connection were broken by chance, no voltage would be present at the output socket any longer. No other electric appliance in the house would survive if 415V were present, as it would come from the mains feeder into it. Be assured that your RR's power supply would be rendered useless immediately.

[SteveM6]

Surely it’s time to close this thread as it’s not going anywhere.

[Daedalus]

How do you know?

Mod note - stick to the script and don’t look to wind folk up.

[ateshci]

In the good old days one recommendation was to set up a test circuit with an ammeter for a newly bought loco to run it in. Any cheap multimeter with its 200mA range could be used nowadays to do this. When the loco is drawing more than 100mA when running light it is an indicator of a possible problem - be it undue friction in the drive train or an over-oiled motor ( the chinese seem to have a hang for that ) . The latter will cause carbon residue to fill the collector gaps within a short time. The resulting overcurrent will destroy the motor then. You have to take the motor out and clean it with some absorbent tissue, like Kleenex or so, soaked in lighter fluid. If you're afraid of having overdone it, you may use a needle's point to pick up some oil and transfer it to the motor's front and rear bearings afterwards. Check for the current to be within range then.

[96RAF]

On a safety issue, any chance that a domestic supply could output 3Phase is a frightening thought!!! 😳

 

 

My house in Cyprus was 3-phase. Pretty standard over there.

[Rallymatt]

it was established that the TT locos were drawing a 2-300 mAmp current, OO modern motors are similar but older ones are known for larger draw. Early (not that old) Heljan locos can draw in excess of 1 Amp…. Not sure 100mAmp draw is indicative of issues

[96RAF]

All domestic wiring is carried out by having one pole neutral/ground. If this connection were broken by chance, no voltage would be present at the output socket any longer. No other electric appliance in the house would survive if 415V were present, as it would come from the mains feeder into it. Be assured that your RR's power supply would be rendered useless immediately.

 

 

The instructions for the GM 100M controller specifically warn against connecting the track outputs of two controllers together with one unplugged as doing so will see a live mains potential on the unplugged plug. Similar is likely for any controller not powered from a separate PSU, I.e. hard wired to the mains.

[Rallymatt]

@ RAF really? When I had a workshop wired for 3 phase, National Grid and electricians were wetting themselves to tell everyone how dangerous 3Phase was. Fortunately no one in the team was tempted to lick the bare wires, but I made sure we put signs up just in case.

[SMR248]

I believe that most houses in Germany have 3 phase / 400V incoming power supplies. Some appliances (cookers?) there have 3 phase supplies. The standard sockets, however, only have single phase / 230V.

To get a 400V shock (which definitely wouldn't do you any good) you'd need to be touching two phases, I believe.

The chances of getting 400V across a normal single phase socket outlet in the UK seems to be unlikely. Also it'd probably destroy most other appliances on that circuit?

We're not really suggesting that Curly's house should be rewired, are we? (of course if it's suspected that there is a problem then it should be checked out by a competent electrician...)

And, no, I'm not an electrician.

[ColinB]

SteveM6 you are so very right. Some of the responses on this thread are so misleading. From what I read the loco has gone back to Hornby, once they realise it is not the first motor they have changed in this loco, they will probably dig a bit deeper or give the guy a new one.

[Daedalus]

I was not suggesting any UK domestic premises have a 3 phase supply. Some continental countries do have it, Netherlands is another.

I was suggesting the mains socket may have been incorrectly wired or the earth bonding may not be what it should be, it is not unknown for a metal pipe to be replaced with a plastc pipe or a plastic connector to be used for a repair and destroy the earth bond.

The neutral is not always 0 V hence the legal requirement in UK domestic premises for it to be bonded to earth.

As the secondary of an isolation transformer may be floating above ground wierd things can happen if the earth bonding is not correct and mis-wired sockets will still work.

[SMR248]

OK, I understand. Hence your suggestion about the plug in tester to see if the sockets are correctly wired.

[Daedalus]

If you're power supply is a floating secondary and you lightly touch one of your rails you may feel a very slight tingle as you are providing an "earth" with your body mass.

[ateshci]

There is no way for a faulty socket to deliver a higher voltage than 240V. Period.

Any transformer not properly connected between phase and return, i.e. low resistance in both paths, will be able to produce sizeable current at its rated secondary voltage.

[Daedalus]

Totally incorrect the peak to peak of 240 V RMS is 338 V and my domestic supply is ~ 250 V like a lot of the UK for historical reasons.

The reason AC voltages are quoted with an RMS value is that is gives the same power as the equivalent DC voltage.

And as I stated neutral is not always at 0 V.

[ateshci]

So be it 250V ( 4% more) if the grid is at the upper margin of the rated voltage's variance. The peak to peak voltage of AC is always higher than the effective one, but that is irrelevant when looking at a transformer. Only when the controller uses filtering capacitors on its rectifier's output and a stabiliser to deliver the rated max. voltage, a fault in this circuit my result in a higher than rated output voltage because the capacitors will charge to the peak voltage, which is 1.414 times the effective secondary AC output.

[Daedalus]

But the OP is claiming he has had 6 motors burn up some getting hot enough to melt the plastic body.

I myself had 2 motor failures, 1 complete and the other running OK in reverse but only running half speed or faster forward. The third motor has been OK for 5 months. I have another loco that has never had a problem.

I had the problem loco apart and tried the motors out of the chassis and neither motor, the first ran badly before it finally expired, generated any noticeable heat holding them.

So to mis-quote Conan Doyle if you eliminate the obvious you have to look for the unlikley fault.

Of course it could just be a wind-up by the OP.

P.S I once metered 269 V mains voltage in Staveley Derbyshire and the Electricity Board engineer agreed it was a bit high as he metered it at 267 V

[Curly 52]

update on brand new 08 shunter set back for being very noisy, now returned from hornby repairs stating NEW CHASSIS ASSEMBLY FITTED UNDER WARRANTY as i have put away layout will have to wait till next year to test it. tyanks

[potmill bridge]

I had blink Bonny away to Hornby for second time. Got it back with same reason as above,

 NEW CHASSIS ASSEMBLY FITTED UNDER WARRANTY, don't know why, they know more than Me for sure, but would have helped to understand the underlying reason.

When My locos are out of warranty in the not too distant future, it may become an expensive issue, so I truly hope that the quality control / design pre release is improved upon. Am sure they can focus on the issues people have had and use it for continuous improvement. Looking forward to 3 more locos on order first half 2024.

Do not wish this to be seen negatively, because customer service truly have really been A1, if You pardon the pun.

[ntpntpntp]

@curly52 ok so your layout is packed away right now, but better to test the loco up and down on a length of track just to prove is isn't DOA. Don't leave it for ages before testing. Even a fresh 9V battery across the wheels should be enough to confirm it's alive.

[Dave the Busker]

I've had all three of my locos fail this week. Is there anything I could possibly have done wrong with the electrics (Gauguemaster Model Q power supply) that could be making motors burn out, or are the motors that Hornby have put in them just terrible?