Large Scale Central

One of my LGB Moguls takes more track power to run

General Discussion
#1

One of my 6 LGB Moguls (LGB 23191 Mogul) takes more track power to run than the other 5. This particular mogul is the newest which I purchased brand new many years ago. All my other moguls are much older and I purchased them all second hand. It’s never run as well as my other LGB moguls. I need to turn my LGB power supply up to 2 and a little beyond where I only need to turn it up to 1.25 to 1.5 for the other 5 moguls. Also, this particular mogul slows down in the few areas of my indoor layout that has the 1200 turns where my other 5 moguls don’t. Any ideas as to why this is happening?

IMG_0459 (Small)

2023: The Year in Review
#2

Tim,

I’d turn this one over and see where it was made, then compare that to your older ones. Older LGB are marked “Made in Western Germany.” There was a period in the’90-s where LGB made their stuff in the People’s Republic of China, and these locos suffer from quality control issues, I am told. Post bankruptcy, Maerklin bought LGB, and the new factory is in Hungary. These locos bear model numbers that are longer than four numbers (i.e., LGB labeled the mogul 2018D; that current Coca-Cola mogul is 20282). I am told that the Hungarian-built models have the quality of the old German-built ones. This history could explain the difference.

Our mogul, built in W. Germany, has always been decremental, by the way. I suspect, however, that this was due to age. Very early models also were apparently gear eaters, so this could also be part of the issue.

Eric

#3

If the gears are good and are lubed up, check the gauge of the drivers. If everything checks out, I would say the motor is just not up to snuff. The fact that it slows going through a curve makes me lean toward a wheel gauge problem. Check it out.

1 Like
#4

Don’t forget a good cleaning and new grease and oil may help, with a bit of bench running on rollers to help the lubes work into all the crevices :sunglasses:

#5

another possibility:
if the other locos are honest, oldfashioned DC, and the slow one is more modern and made DCC compatible, it might have a lot of energy-eating DCC gimmiks inside.

#6

The number of this mogul is LGB 23191. So it appears to be the longer number. While it is still a beautiful mogul my thoughts have always been that it was not quite up to the quality of my other 5 older LGB moguls. However, it does say “Made in Germany”.

I did open up the bottom yesterday and lubed the gears. All the gears look good. The gauge of the drivers also looks good.

20231222_064345 (Copy)
20231222_064345 (Copy)1600×1131 279 KB

#7

I did some more test runs this morning on this locomotive. I’ve run it for a while both forward and backward and then around my indoor layout with just the loco, tender and one coach in both directions. It ran just fine. No slowing down in the tight turns. However, when I connect up a total of 5 coaches (as I do most of the time with my 5 other LGB moguls) it slows way down going through the tight turns. I am really wondering now if the motor is just not up to snuff. As I mentioned prior in this post, it does require that I turn up the transformer much higher than my other 5 moguls just to even get the thing to run.

I tried testing it out this morning using one of my spare transformers (Tech 4 MRC 200) and this loco won’t even budge even with the transformer on full blast.

#8

Bummer… hope a fix is found…

#9

Before buying a new motor, maybe you could open up a “donor” mogul, swap motors, and see what happens. If the donor suffers the same performance drop as the subject, then you I’d think that would point to the If motor as the most probable issue. If, however, the donor runs fine on with subject loco’s motor, it might suggest that the subject suffers from some sort of binding or, like your mallet and my Olomana, a bad connection between motor poles and pick up buses that is reducing the efficiency of power flow within the locomotive.

There are probably really clever ways to do this with a multimeter, but, frankly, I have a real dead spot in the brain when it comes to things electrical. I have had to learn by opening, inspecting, probing, and testing. LGB’s robust construction makes this relatively easy, even for me!

Eric

#10

P.S. This implies post-reunification construction, or sometime after 1991. I am not sure the timeframe that LGB experimented with Chinese factories, so “Made in Germany” might mean “Assembled in Germany” for this model.

Eric

#11

Probably nothing, but in your photo …

I notice that that top rod is not parallel with all the rest like the bottom rod. Might it be causing binding?

#12

I do not know anything about these locos however I wanted to note that while thinking about the issue. I see this “newer” one is analog/digital (from the above picture) are the older Moguls the same or are they just analog? Perhaps that could be the difference in power consumption? As for the MRC transformer what is the amperage output perhaps it’s not enough amperage?
Just a thought?

#13

That was mentioned on one of the other forums where Timmy posted this same question. Current LGB locos have an MTS decoder that supports operation in analog mode, unless it detects a DCC signal and flips to DCC mode. So the MTS decoder is always active and the loco presumably needs more juice to operate.

#14

Well I found this and it appears that the loco requires at least 1 amp minimum for power and I don’t even like steam locos or 4’ DIAMETER curves.

However in my career there is a thing called TSB’s and sometimes the NTSB gets involved and many times the NTSB listens and the TSB’s are correct! So I am reading this on LSC and I feel there is no need for a TSB on this issue as I personally have no experience with LGB on TSB’s on LSC . However if Timmy finds his answer on another forum perhaps he can post a TSB on LSC of his findings?

Does that make sense?

#15

no. - because he got all the same answers by all the same people everywhere.
(he now has just to decide which answers from where he wants not to ignore)

1 Like
#16

OMGram …LMAO …OK!
Well I re read it and it made sense to me anyway?
:rofl:

#17

I’ve given up answering the same question on the different forums. I answer here and let the rest go.

#18

Getting lost in the above acronyms* reminded me of the late great Alan Sherman’s Harvey and Shiela

CLICK ON THE ALBUM TO HEAR

  • Alphabetical Code for Remembering Odd Names You Make up
2 Likes
#19

I wanna make sure I am understanding this… The lam blasting here is because I posted the same question on this forum and MLS at the same time? Is that correct?

#20

no, it isn’t.
the “lamb blasting” and the thumb-down are (in my case at last) because you ask questions - and then cherrypick, which answers not to ignore.

maybe, if you re-read your last few question threads, you might notice it yourself.