I have a SD 45 that I purchased new in 2003. It has had an in motion growl since day one. I’ve been told that there is a fix for that, but for the life of me, I can’t find anything on it.
Anybody have any ideas?
Thick gear grease.
Steve,
Both motor blocks?
Paul Burch said:
Steve,
Both motor blocks?
I’m pretty sure that’s the case. It’s pretty loud.
Motor misalignment…
Second to last on the “Prime Mover” issues page
https://elmassian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215&Itemid=248
It is a long page… more than you ever wanted to know about the motor block.
Pretty easy to fix…
Greg
Thanks, Greg. I think I understand what you are saying. I’ll have to go look.
Pics? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
So far the technique described has worked on the blocks that “grind”.
Almost impossible to get a good shot of the metal “forks” that the motor “tabs” engage, they are deep in the slots on each side of the motor block. In fact it’s normal to melt a little plastic in that slot getting the soldering iron in there. I’ll try to get some pictures added to my site, I just noticed I have no shots even showing where the “access slots” are to see these connections.
It’s a funny situation, the original design allows the motor and drive train to flex, and pretty much auto-aligh, but has bad long term electrical issues. (rotation and movement of the motor affects electrical contact).
Soldering the motor contacts fixes the electrical issues, but normally the motor and drive get misaligned, since soldering fixes the motor in place.
You just can’t win sometimes ha ha!
Greg
p.s. some of the original systems that had nylon hex drives will just fail, the nylon self destructs, but this is only in the very old units.
I breathlessly wait.
This particular SD45 also has other electrical issues, ie melted wiring because I tried running it in a consist, powered by a batterycar, without applying Marty’s electrical runaround. Sigh.
If you pull the cover off the block, and some of the wheels, you can see the slot and the metal “fork” inside that has a thin slot that the motor brush “tab” engages.
That’s where you reach in to heat the soldered joint.
I’ll see what I can do about pictures this weekend.
Greg
Thanks, I appreciate it.
I bought a boat-load of their 2 and 3 axle blocks not too long before they went away. Figured I’d have a reason to use them some day. They are all fitted with the one-time only SS wheels too…
Greg
Greg, email sent.
email not received… yet
I did not intend my last post to imply I have motor blocks for sale, I was merely mentioning that I anticipated the need.
Greg
I fixed it!
After watching Ray Man’s tutorial a bazillion times, I worked up my courage to attack my SD45 3 axle block with a hot soldering iron. Sonofagun, it worked. The growl is history!
Greg Elmassian said:
snip…I’ll see what I can do about pictures this weekend.
…snip
Greg
Greg, all - I have a picture that may be helpful.
The rear motor block in my late production run MRL SD45 had an open circuit on one electric motor lead due to a cold solder joint at one of the “forks” that supplies power to it. This caused only one of the two motors in the rear block to operate - resulting in delayed response, slow operation and weak performance. See below illustration of motor block slot, etc:
This info. is about half way down in Vignette, title:
Aristo SD45 weights & railing installation Vignette
-Ted
Interesting, Ray leaves the wheels in place and get the iron down from the bottom.
If you have the open slots on the side, I much prefer the way Ted and I do it.
For one thing, you have your hand pressing on the motor and I like keeping that hot iron away.
I’m glad that nearly a year later it is done. It’s pretty clear that the factory just lays the motor/gearbox assembly in the motor block and solders it, without any pressure while doing so.
Greg
I’d go Ted’s way too, but first I’d remove that blob and make sure both contacts are tinned, before joining with a smaller puddle. I can’t verify by looking that the fix took on the bottom, could be resting on the flux… with minor contact.
The question was not about an open circuit, it was about a misaligned motor/gearbox. I’m not sure that Ted’s approach would fix that. I know that Ray’s approach did.
No matter. Thank you, Ted for adding to our corporate knowledge.
Steve, Understood and thank you, too!
I merely posted the picture until Greg does his own so it can be seen how the forks make contact with the motor leads as seen through the “U” slots. What I was repairing here was an open circuit connection because of the a bad solder joint.
That said, the Aristo design is such that the forks intersect the motor leads at right angles, so there is minimal mechanical surface contact. Whilst this is a clever method for a friction fit to the motor leads as originally intended - since fraught with the problem of this thread, it’s very poor for establishing a decent surface for good solder connection.
Hence, the reliance on the solder blob in an attempt to adhere to both right angle surfaces - that would seem to invite failure from vibration over time.
As to pre tinning the motor leads before soldering, there is so little space to do a good job, it seems best to remove the motors, tin the leads with minimal solder, then put the motors back into the block.
-Ted
Yeah, my site referenced Raymond’s discovery of why things growl (I did not buy a 3 axle Aristo diesel until the E8 came out).
I beefed up my “Prime Mover” page, with the way I do it. I’ve updated my Aristo “Prime Mover” page with all the problems I have seen (diesels and steamers) and added Ted’s picture in the appropriate place.
https://elmassian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215&Itemid=248
I also agree with Ted, you have to pull the motors to clean the terminals well enough.
A very funny story that happened back in the Aristo “heyday”… people were complaining about the grinding noises (which happened soon after Aristo started soldering these, they were originally manufactured to not be soldered)… One of the “faithful” came in and basically said “that never happens, all my locos are perfect”… well a bunch of people had the problem.
After numerous posts, this person revealed that as soon as he received his new locos, he UNSOLDERED the motors, allowing them to float and seek alignment. Pretty funny, since he KNEW that soldering the motors could allow them to be misaligned.
By the way this worked as designed except that the movements of the motors eventually “opened” the “forks” and made intermittent electrical contact… so Aristo started soldering them… unfortunately, some soldered in “aligned” and some not.
Greg