Life-Like SW-900 supposed to be noisy?

[craigolio1]

Hello all.

I ran for the first time an SW-900 I’ve had for a while. It’s pretty quiet on straights but is noisy in curves. I looked it up on YouTube and it’s just as noisy in the videos. Is this normal? I guess I’m not used to locos being this noisy.

Thanks.

Craig.

[Joetrain59]

Does loco have brass worms, or plastic? If plastic, get brass worms from Kato. Don't have part # at hand. But noisy just on curves could be something in drivetrain not assembled properly. My 2¢.
 Joe D

[mandealco]

Hi Craig
I'm guessing this is the donor mechanism for your S-13 kit.  It could potentially be corrected in the transplant process.  I will be following your thread on the S-13.  My RS-23 kit has yet to arrive, but the photos you posted and the ones in the instruction guide look great.

Cheers
Steve
NZ

[spookshow]

"Noisy" is a relative term, but apart from some motor whine I've generally found them to be quiet runners. Sources of noise could be the worms (if you have an older one with potentially out-of-round plastic worms) or truck gear mesh issues due to the shell contacts being improperly bent (if they're pushing down too hard on the truck wipers this can result in some gear noise).

-Mark

[craigolio1]

Hi Craig
I'm guessing this is the donor mechanism for your S-13 kit.  It could potentially be corrected in the transplant process.  I will be following your thread on the S-13.  My RS-23 kit has yet to arrive, but the photos you posted and the ones in the instruction guide look great.

Cheers
Steve
NZ

Thanks for the input everyone. I was aware of the plastic vs brass worm but this as pointed out felt more like drivetrain issue as in curves it sounded like a coffee grinder but was quite good on straights. I did some investigation and found the gauge to wide on the ring truck. Now that that’s corrected it sounds normal. I’ve compared it to an untouched model and that are the same.

Steve, yes this is for the S13 and the transplant is already done (the test run was when I discovered the noise) Jeff’s chassis design works great but I did make a couple of modifications which I’ll add to the thread. Unfortunately not for a few days as I’m away camping with my kids for the week. But, I have a running chassis now so once I get all the wires tucked in I can move onto the details.

Craig