Loud Motor - Brand new Princess Elizabeth R3709

[Red Sea Eagle]

Hi All,

Hoping you can offer some advice.

I ecently received my brand new Princess Elizabeth (cracking looking loco).

When I ran it i immediately noticed it was loud - sort of reminded me of my locos from the 1980's. Is this right. I thought it might need lubrication so I iled it as per instructions and ran it in for an hour. However the noise is still there.

It seems to run ok at all speeds but sounds stressed at full speed.

Is this normal? Should I return it for replacements? I live in Australia so returning is a big deal postage wise.

Any thoughts/suggestions much appreciated.

[atom3624]

I've not noticed any other proud owners of the new Princess mentioning this.

Certainly the 2 examples of the previous Princess I own are near-silent.

All Coronations I have / have had are near-silent as well - which includes a new 6229 Hamilton - you have to really listen hard to hear the motor pitch / revs.

 

Some have mentioned it's relatively easy to remove the body - be careful to follow instructions and beware of all detailing parts, but if you're feeling up to it, perhaps you should take a little look - might be a loose screw somewhere.

 

Others may say it's under warranty so don't touch it - again, sound advice - and if not happy, then return.

 

Perhaps you should video it and mention this to the shop you purchased it from and see what they say.

 

Al.

[walkingthedog]

You say run at full speed. Not a good idea.

[The Duke 71000]

New Hornby R3709 (Not DCC fitted). 

If the sound is a gentle humming, then it is possible the loco has large flywheel(s), as these can cause a slight background hum. My new Merchant Navy has a large flywheel which creates a slight humming sound. Flywheels mean the loco shouldn't stop dead if you switch off the power at full speed, it will cruise on possibly as much as 18 inches. If you test the loco this way the hum will slow down as the loco does.   

If it isn't flywheels then the other possibility is the loco does not like your controller. If your controller is a "Half Wave" or "Feedback" type these will cause problems with modern motors, and electrical humming is the first indication. Indeed they will reduce the life expectancy of the motor, because they are NOT putting pure 12v DC in the rails. "Half Wave" type controllers are not normal today they were a late 1970's early 1980's fad. They simply chopped 16v AC in half which resulted in "jitter" in a DC motor and caused it to heat up more than was good for the motor.

"Feedback" was supposed to be an advance on "Half Wave" and became popular in the mid-late 1980's, particularly in the USA. The idea of "Feedback" was that the controller supposedly talked to the motor to see what it wanted (power wise) and adjusted the supply slightly accordingly. However any mention of "talking" to the motor means AC is being overlaid on the DC, and any AC getting to good quality motors means problems. Overheating being the most obvious, which again shortens motor life.

DC motors need pure unadulterated DC, anything less means problems sooner or later.  

 

The Duke 71000                  

[ColinB]

I have just tried my brand new BR Princess Royal Class, Priness Marie Louise (the same one with the duff DCC socket, earlier post) and it is incredibly quiet all I could hear was it clomping over the gaps in my rails.

[atom3624]

That is typical of the breed.

 

Al.

[ColinB]

Actually I am not so sure about the comment unregulated DC on electric motors, lets face they are highly inductive so basically they effectively filter the waveform as for half wave, rectification the reason you don't use it is really inefficient. The bigger issue is without regulation you are endanger of getting high voltage peaks which could cause damage plus I think the peak voltage is 1.4 time the nominal voltage, so for a 12 volt supply you could get a peak of nearly 17 volts, that is what causes the damage. 

[PS56PTS]

I ran my Princess Elizabeth this afternoon and it's motor is very quiet. I do agree it is a very lovely Locomotive. I do have an analogue set up.

Pete.

[Slingers]

Hi Red Sea Eagle.

I am wondering if you have fixed your issue.  

I have just started the run in of my New Princess Royal, and have exactly the same issue.

Stunning Locomotive but as soon as the motor starts turning it kind of jumps into life, and then has a whinning sound.   After completing the run in perod it has not changed.

I also live in Australia so wondered if you had any luck.

Thanks in advance

Dave 

[zappa]

Same problem. I bought this (LMS, Princess Elizabeth) a few months ago (UK); just got around to running it in today. This was noticeably noisy from the start - like something pre-2000. After an hour of gentle running-in (only forwards so far), the lawn-mower/cement-mixer sounds have softened somewhat, and a very brief fling at speed did not sound too offensive (though not great). But back to slower/running-in speeds, there is an industrial/grumbling sound that I have not found in any other loco made in the last twenty years... 

[LTSR_NSE]

Obviously with a brand new model the usual disclaimer/steps need to be considered first (i.e. seeking advice, repair, or replacement from the retailer/manufacturer).

 

However for anyone who finds this impractical (and is willing to risk voiding their warranty)...  😮

 

My Princess Elizabeth (from Centenary Rovex train set) arrived running smoothly & silently in reverse, however going forwards it sounded like the gearbox was made of gravel !!  🤐

 

I therefore used the enclosed maintenance instructions to (extremely carefully):

• unscrew & remove the plastic body from the metal chassis.
• check whether the motor was correctly seated in its retaining bracket (mine was)
• unscrew & remove the worm-gear cover plate
• un-clip the motor from its retaining bracket & remove the (in my case, incorrectly seated) plastic driveshaft from the motor’s flywheel

 

I then re-assembled everything correctly, after which it has run smoothly, silently and beautifully ever since!  😆

 

Please treat the above with due care & consideration - I don’t recommend anyone to attempt any repairs of a brand new model.

I am simply posting this as information for those that (a) already have experience of repairing locomotives or (b) are actually  unable to use the recommended approach.

[zappa]

That's really useful to know LT&SR_NSE. I was still running-in (forward, at length!) when I posted last night, but when I came to run-in in reverse found it sounded noticeably smoother. Like a bag of nails again forty mins later back on forward! I shall dismantle and investigate when I get a moment...
(For the record, while the noise was nasty and the running nothing like as silky as a 20-year old Merchant Navy, I should add that it wasn't juddering at any speed.)

[Chrissaf]

Zappa,

Please note that the 'Blue Button' is not a 'Reply to this post' button ... see the 'How to reply' TIP below:

 

TIP: As a newbie poster on the forum, just be aware that the 'Blue Button with the White Arrow' is not a 'Reply to this post' button. If you want to reply to any of the posts, scroll down and write your reply in the reply text box at the bottom of the page and click the Green 'Reply' button.

 

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https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/tips-on-using-the-forum/

 

[Eyesgoing]

Looked in here to see if anyone else has had the same issue, as I recently acquired a very good looking second hand R3709 Princess Elizabeth which ran near silently in reverse but grumbled loudly when running forward.

Having read through all the above and compared the internals of a contemporary model of 6205 Princess Victoria which runs silently, I noticed in comparison that there was a lot of ‘end float’ on the motor shaft on Princess Elizabeth - in other words the shaft moved freely fore and aft in its bearings. In reverse, the quiet direction, the motor shaft naturally shuttled back towards the cab end. In forward, the flywheel oscillated rapidly fore and aft and appeared to be the source of the racket.

After some thought, I dug out some PTFE tube of an internal diameter which is a good friction fit over the cab end of the motor shaft and cut a 1mm ‘washer’ then slid it over the shaft end and close up to the motor body. Once the shaft is pushed back towards the cab end, locking the shaft’s freedom to float, and with the length of the shaft’s fore and aft travel now very much restricted by the PTFE washer, stopping it from shuttling forwards, the grumble disappears completely and the loco is smooth as silk in both directions.

Hope this is some help for anyone feeling as disappointed as I was with a very noisy loco; mine’s transformed and now runs better than Princess Victoria which is a great relief as I initially thought I’d bought a lemon

[Brew Man]

Well done, definitely a fix worth noting.

[Rana Temporia]

I have noticed the floating back and to armature problem in a couple of X03 motors causing erratic running in one direction which took some time to diagnose. As Eyesgoing found, a simple shim fixed the problem 

[threelink]

I've been using the shim trick for many years on X03s and4s and can vouch for its efficacy. Being an idle sort, I cut rough shims from the plastic glazing material used in cake and chocolate boxes - I think it's acetate - drill a central hole slightly larger in diameter than the armature shaft, cut a wedge shaped section from the outside to the hole (narrow end at the hole) and slip it over the shaft between worm gear and front bearing. Two thin shims are better than one thick one and they need to be kept well lubricated (I use Vaseline and 3 in 1 oi). They will wear eventually but are simple to replace. I had a Triang/Hornby B12 that was unusable because of the row it made. The shim trick silenced it completely. It really does work wonders.