Recently bought a DC Bachman S4 and took it to my brothers layout where we broke it in. At first it had some gear/motor noise and ran better in reverse than forward. Overall it ran wonderful right out of the box. Wouldn't complain about either comments as they were very minor issues. Figured the gear/motor noise was a free version of "value sound". After about half hour in each direction the speed/voltage settled down and ran equal in both directions pulling about a 20 car train on basically 0 degree grade. No warmth and the thing just runs great, slow or fast. Crawls as nice as anything from other mfg. So the million dollar question is how others have done and anybody ran these long term with any problems? I was very pleased with mine and the cost for a DC version was cheap in my book, very good value so far.
Also on same visit took an old ALCO brass S1 that I shouldn't of bought but did. Looks great but had dead short and wheels show lots of use. My brother is a accomplished modeler and incredible mechanic/enginerd. He took out the wiring for the lights and an after market "resister" and wired back to stock. The pitman motor was in great shape but dirty, so he removed and cleaned the motor and brushes. It ran after a while but had electrical pu issues and was very erratic. After some more tweaking he gave it back to me to put the shell on. It seemed that the shell was contacting the top of the brushes or motor and the tape we put in to insulate wasn't working well. Was ready to just say the heck with it and cut my losses. Put the shell back on and put it on rails not expecting much. The darn thing started running, erratically but still running. So we put it on a train and ran it for half hour. The speed picked up and voltage remained same. Eventually she ran very well and even at slow speeds. Growls like a mad dog but actually ran almost as nice as modern Bachman, Atlas, Kato/ proto 2000, almost that is. My how these plastic locomotives run so nice. The all wheel electrical pu is wonderful when you compare to the old brass which I have a lot of.
With problem free plastic models I do not know how much or on long run this old ALCO S1 will run as the motor does get pretty warm with extensive long run use? But I also kind of like the growling, kind of reminds me of 1:1 gauge, along with all the mechanical/electical issues.
Cheers, John.
Also on same visit took an old ALCO brass S1 that I shouldn't of bought but did. Looks great but had dead short and wheels show lots of use. My brother is a accomplished modeler and incredible mechanic/enginerd. He took out the wiring for the lights and an after market "resister" and wired back to stock. The pitman motor was in great shape but dirty, so he removed and cleaned the motor and brushes. It ran after a while but had electrical pu issues and was very erratic. After some more tweaking he gave it back to me to put the shell on. It seemed that the shell was contacting the top of the brushes or motor and the tape we put in to insulate wasn't working well. Was ready to just say the heck with it and cut my losses. Put the shell back on and put it on rails not expecting much. The darn thing started running, erratically but still running. So we put it on a train and ran it for half hour. The speed picked up and voltage remained same. Eventually she ran very well and even at slow speeds. Growls like a mad dog but actually ran almost as nice as modern Bachman, Atlas, Kato/ proto 2000, almost that is. My how these plastic locomotives run so nice. The all wheel electrical pu is wonderful when you compare to the old brass which I have a lot of.
With problem free plastic models I do not know how much or on long run this old ALCO S1 will run as the motor does get pretty warm with extensive long run use? But I also kind of like the growling, kind of reminds me of 1:1 gauge, along with all the mechanical/electical issues.
Cheers, John.