Does it ‘hurt’ a locomotive’ electric motor to run it for extended period of time at a slow speed? I said it was a dumb question.
It shouldn’t. My understanding is that it is part of the break-in process.
Running at slow speeds on a heavy load on PWM could make a motor heat more than normal.
LGB was real paranoid about this.
Regards, Greg
David,
There is no such thing as a dumb question. If you don’t know the answer, just ask. Your sincerity will enjoin intelligent people to help find the answer for you and may learn something for themselves along the way.
The balance of the parable is: but there are a lot of dumb answers.
Barry - BBT
Ah, to the question.
When I had large test loops in my shop I used to run one of my demo locos (and a train of varying length) as slow as I could. Then I would go about my business and check back in an hour or so just to see how far it had progressed. I don’t think I hurt anything, it still runs very nicely and it never complained.
Barry - BBT
David
Not sure what you mean by slow speed. I run my trains at Christmas time for 5 to 7 hours non-stop with from 4 to 14 cars on them at (what I think is) a slow speed and have had no truble with my good locos. I did have a Loco die on me but it was junk to start with and Barry is going to fix that for me.
Hope this helps