Overland Brass Little Joe Question

[mmagliaro]

Mark,
I note that solder you mentioned.  Have you tried separating the halves and running just one to see if the noise
is specifically coming from one side?  Since the behavior changed when you got that loose flywheel stuck to its shaft,
I would suspect that side as the culprit.

Does it make this noise in your hand on the workbench, or only on the track?

My first thought was like Victor's, that you could have a squealing motor bearing.  Those often
exhibit this behavior where they will stop making noise at higher speed.   But your description of
the noise isn't what I usually expect from a bearing.  I would expect tightness and squealing, not
a coffee grinder sound.

Finally,

Can you take some CLOSE pictures?  Get in near the motor, flywheel, and the worms with you camera on a
"macro" or "close up" setting.

[spookshow]

Max, with the two sides separated electrically, they do perform differently. Running wheels up on my workbench, the side that I fixed (the one that had the loose flywheel) makes the same sound at all throttle levels (a little loud, but nothing out of the ordinary). The other side is much louder at lower throttle settings, and then smooths out to match the sound levels of the "good" side when more throttle is applied.

I tried oiling the motor bearings, and although things might run slightly smoother/quieter overall, it certainly wasn't a quantum leap.

Cheers,
-Mark

[spookshow]

I tried oiling the motor bearings, and although things might run slightly smoother/quieter overall, it certainly wasn't a quantum leap.

Oops, I take that back. After lubing the motor bearings I can now get it to smooth out in both directions (once sufficient speed is attained). Baby steps 

Cheers,
-Mark

[victor miranda]

that is why I said oil them again...

the general growling/howling may have the dry motor bearings adding to the noise.
The jump in speed is how I knew the motor bearings needed oiling.

If they are that dry, it will take a couple of applications to get them up to good.
It takes a few hours for the oil to get adsorbed into the(I am assuming...) sintered bronze motor bearing.
so wait for a an hour or so before adding more.

victor

[spookshow]

I did apply the oil twice, but it was only about 15-20 minutes between applications. I'll try again tonight.

Thanks,
-Mark

[mmagliaro]

I did apply the oil twice, but it was only about 15-20 minutes between applications. I'll try again tonight.

Thanks,
-Mark

Yes... be careful about that.  Run it for a while, wait, and then maybe try once more.  If you overdo it, the oil will find its way inside
the motor and make great fun for the commutator (in other words, make for an oily, dirt-collecting, black film that
makes the motor quit working at all, or exhibit bad behaviors like running, then mysteriously slowing down, drawing lots of current,
then speeding up, and so on). 

[victor miranda]

Hi Max,
partially burned oil on the commutator causes erratic motor speeds?
I am not disagreeing with that. 
I just blamed the stickey goo on the brushes for holding the brush in the barrel.
.... could be both I suppose...

well, who knows? the previous owner may have used corn oil for lube.

Spookshow,
As Max says, with care.  Just right is good.

victor

[spookshow]

I think I've taken the lubrication / break-in solution about as far as it's gonna go. It's not hugely noisy at slow speeds (mainly 'cuz things aren't moving around all that fast), it's distractingly noisy/grindy at mid-level speeds (due to "who knows what") and it's smooth and quiet at high speeds. Direction doesn't seem to matter much anymore.

At this point I think I've used up all of the arrows in my admittedly limited quiver. Fortunately, Ron has volunteered to take a look at it for me, so prepare to be dazzled and enlightened! 

Cheers,
-Mark

P.S. If you're looking to purchase one of these things, do drop me an email. I'm going to go out on a limb and flat out guarantee that once Ron has spent a few minutes with this baby that it's going to be the best running Little Joe out there 

[nkalanaga]

I have two of these things - very disappointed.  But they're nice and quite, and run smoothly on straight unobstructed track.

One derails on 16 inch radius curves, even after relaying the track to eliminate kinks.  Nothing is binding, the inner axle of the trailing power truck lifts over the outer rail.  It doesn't matter which way the unit is turned, which direction it's running, or which way the curve goes. 

The bigger problem is that the power truck frames on both are either bent or misassembled, causing the corners to snag on turnouts.  Since I can't very well beat on them with a hammer, and they won't bend by hand, the units are still in their boxes.

On the other hand, they're too big for my MILW interchange anyway, so wouldn't be run much even if they were perfect...  And they are quiet.

[Chris333]

Ron will have it spread out on paper plates in no time. 

[spookshow]

I have two of these things - very disappointed.  But they're nice and quite, and run smoothly on straight unobstructed track.

One derails on 16 inch radius curves, even after relaying the track to eliminate kinks.  Nothing is binding, the inner axle of the trailing power truck lifts over the outer rail.  It doesn't matter which way the unit is turned, which direction it's running, or which way the curve goes. 

The bigger problem is that the power truck frames on both are either bent or misassembled, causing the corners to snag on turnouts.  Since I can't very well beat on them with a hammer, and they won't bend by hand, the units are still in their boxes.

On the other hand, they're too big for my MILW interchange anyway, so wouldn't be run much even if they were perfect...  And they are quiet.

That's at least one problem I don't have - mine has never derailed (even zooming through 11" curves).

Cheers,
-Mark

[nkalanaga]

That same one works fine on 18 inch curves, and the trucks will turn freely on 11 inch.  It isn't the trucks binding, or catching on anything.   It just won't RUN on 16 inch...

I have three old pieces of code 80 11 inch radius track just for such tests.  No idea what brand, but it's magnetic...  I also have 11 inch radius industrial curves, but only 4-axle power goes there.

My MILW runs with a Kato motor.  Wish I could get a real EF-1 boxcab, but I doubt that it would be commercially viable in plastic, and I can't afford today's brass prices, even if there was one.

On the plus side, I bought enough extra Overland pantographs to equip all of my Kato motors, and they look and work nicely.

[u18b]

The Little Joe arrive.

I studied it for about 120 seconds and already identified some problems.

1.  Motor mount is soldered to the frame- not a problem except......  Flywheels rub that solder blob.  You can see marks on the flywheel.

2.  Motors float.  They are not really locked down.  This is asking for noise.

3.  When you take a small screwdriver and move the worm, it does move as it should- just a little.  BUT! When it moves, the flywheel moves too.  That means the hex-type shaft that fits into the flywheel is too tight.  It does not slide easily.  This is REALLY going to make more noise and slow down on curves.

4.  This may not be a problem, but it is a "danger" spot.  The solder joints on the motor poles stick out a good deal.  There would be a shorting danger as far as I'm concerned.

5.  This is a design issue.  As far as my experience with BOTH the EP-2 and the Baldwin Centipede, drive trains which use 2 motors are generally crap.  The two motors MUST run at exactly the same speed or you will have a. excess noise (as they fight) and b. a loss of traction (one will be actually pulling the other).

The motors MUST run the same speed for maximum silence and performance.  But....
It is a fact- motors can run slightly different speeds due to the variables in the motor.
Also, it is VERY hard to guarantee the exact same amount of friction in either half-  so even if the motors were almost identical, one may have more friction in the worm/truck/etc and make it run slower.

The reason I got my EP-2 to run so well is that is has TWO decoders which effectively allow me to speed match the two halves.

Bottom line- I'm not a fan of two motors and think locomotives like this could be TRANSFORMED by placing a HUGE motor from an old Life Like E unit in there.

I have not had a chance to run it yet.  It may be a little while before I get a chance.
But I will report back what I find.

[spookshow]

1.  Motor mount is soldered to the frame- not a problem except......  Flywheels rub that solder blob.  You can see marks on the flywheel.

3.  When you take a small screwdriver and move the worm, it does move as it should- just a little.  BUT! When it moves, the flywheel moves too.  That means the hex-type shaft that fits into the flywheel is too tight.  It does not slide easily.  This is REALLY going to make more noise and slow down on curves.

4.  This may not be a problem, but it is a "danger" spot.  The solder joints on the motor poles stick out a good deal.  There would be a shorting danger as far as I'm concerned.

Bottom line- I'm not a fan of two motors and think locomotives like this could be TRANSFORMED by placing a HUGE motor from an old Life Like E unit in there.

1 - I noticed the flecks of flywheel brass accumulating on the chassis but couldn't for the life of me figure out where they were coming from. Nice catch!

3 - I have no idea how the flywheel/driveshaft assemblies are supposed to work. But on that model, one of the flywheels was completely "not spinning", so I glued it to its outer hex connector. That turned out to be the "not noisy" side. The other flywheel is firmly fixed to its driveshaft, but it's also much closer to the motor.

4 - That one's on me. I couldn't get those forked tabs to reliably conduct current to the motor contacts (IE the motor wouldn't spin), so in a fit of frustration I finally just soldered them down.

If the noise problems turn out to be motor-related, I'm all in favor of tearing that thing apart and going with a single motor solution (especially since that's how it should've been done in the first place). But before you go down that road, I'd be interested to see if the noise is caused by something other than mis-matched motors (y'know, for review purposes).

Thanks for taking a look at this thing, Ron. From what I've heard, they all have some problems. So any homebrew solutions that you can come up with will no doubt make a lot of Milwaukee Road fans happy 

Cheers,
-Mark

[u18b]

Snip--  One problem I've found is that one of the flywheels isn't really attached to the driveshaft very well (half the time, the driveshaft spins and the flywheel doesn't). .........

Snip--  3 - I have no idea how the flywheel/driveshaft assemblies are supposed to work. But on that model, one of the flywheels was completely "not spinning", so I glued it to its outer hex connector. That turned out to be the "not noisy" side. The other flywheel is firmly fixed to its driveshaft, but it's also much closer to the motor.

Cheers,
-Mark

Mark, let me get a little more clarification here.

In the early post, you said a flywheel was loose (my word).  Motor turned, but not the flywheel.  (to me, that means it was coming loose on the shaft (which is bad, BTW).

But in the second post you seem to say you glued the hex/worm shaft to the inside of the flywheel.

I don't see how those two are connected.

Did you re-press the flywheel onto the motor shaft?  Was it really loose?

Did you glue the flywheel to the shaft?