Question about Faller's N Scale Ferris Wheel and 629 Motor

[carlso]

I hope there is someone that can help me decide on which gears to use in the Faller motor. It comes with 15 rpm gear set installed but includes the blue colored 4 rpm set. They are easy to change.

Have you had experience with the 4 rpm and found them to be too slow?

Appreciate any comments / suggestions,
Carl

[MK]

I would think for an N scale ferris wheel, 4 seconds for each revolution (15 rpm) seems kind of fast.

[carlso]

I think it would be too fast, however I failed to mention two important items.

The diameter of the wheel is 7-3/4" and the dia. of the sheave on the motor is 3/8". So 4 rpm on the sheave would mean a whole lot less on the larger wheel. Correct?

[MK]

Correct!

But is the drive belt entirely around the outer 7.75" diameter of the wheel?  Or is it around the much smaller diameter shaft of the wheel ?

You said the two gear sets are easy to change so why not just try both and pick the one that is the most visually appealing.

[peteski]

Is that one of those nasty AC powered motors?

When I was working on friend's carnival, I ended up gutting them and installing a small DC motor with gearhead in those motor shells.  Not only it was much more reliable, I could control the speed by changing the voltage going to the motor.

But I never worked with that Ferris wheel (my friend has the IHC Ferris wheel).

[carlso]

 MK  &  peteski

Thanks for the responses, I'll answer both together.

MK - There is no drive belt. The outside rail of the wheel sits on the motor sheave that has a rubber insert to grip the wheel. I have decided to go with the 15 rpm gear set and if too fast I'll change it out.

Pete -
Yes it is the ac motor. I am going to try it for now. The club has two Faller wind turbines that use this motor and they are good performers.


I like your idea of putting a small dc motor with gear head. That would probably be best but I'm getting tire of modifying everything to make it useful.

Thanks again and I'll post results in a week or two,

Carl

[carlso]

Here is  my result..

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Stayed with the 15rpm gear set for the motor sheave.

Carl

[MK]

Looks perfect!

[narrowminded]

Looks right to me!

[peteski]

Thumbs-up!