Large Scale Central

Re-motoring, some questions

Greetings, Large Scale Comrades,

I have a re-motoring project in mind and I would appreciate any pointers! Here are the details: I run Marklin 1 gauge. I have an Intellibox digital controller. I have one old Marklin analog engine that I would like to digitize. But the motor is A/C. I would like to re-motor it with a D/C motor, then digitize it.

There seems to be plenty of room to work. The engine is vintage 1990 or so. Very simple. The A/C motor sits crosswise. The pinion gear has 10 teeth. The idler gear has 37 teeth. The driver gear has 45 teeth. The new motor could be as big as 30 mm by 60 mm, but I’d like to use a smaller one if possible.

Motorman, a very nice supplier of surplus d/c motors has been helping me. I’ve yet to choose a motor, because frankly there are so many to choose from! I’m a bit immobilized by all the choices! But here is my current “plan of action” and if I’m way off, I’d love to know!

-Don’t buy a really expensive motor - it would be overkill in such a basic engine. Top budget: $30.00, maybe $40.00,no more.
-I don’t care about tons of power. I won’t ever pull a lot of cars with this engine.

  • I do care about very, very slow and smooth running. Like 1 scale mph, without any cogging.
  • I had thought about ordering a duplicate 10 tooth pinion gear and having it pressed on. That way, I could go back to the original engine.
  • I don’t know how to figure rpm on the A/C engine. I don’t want the top speed to drop.
  • I THINK I know enough to start muddling around, but I’d sure love to know more about the technical principles involved.

Many thanks!
Tom C.

Tom,

You might look into puting a Digitrax or NCE decoder in & using the AC motor… Digitrax has a section on their web site on how to install a decoder with a AC motor… You could use a Digitrax DG 583S, NCE ATL-O, NCE D408-SR, NCE D808-SR decoder… Hope this helps…

Thanks, Bob for the suggestion about using the existing AC motor… but I want to is try my hand at actually re-motoring an engine, and this is the ideal candidate. I’m pretty sure I can do it, the hard part is choosing the right motor! There’s not that much info out there on re-motoring large scale. What I must need is to ascertain how powerful a motor I need, how many rpm the existing motor turns at top speed, and the possible danger of using dcc with coreless motors. Stuff like that.

Regards,
Tom

Look at some of the replacement Aristo motors, they are pretty hefty, inexpensive, and fan cooled.

Regards, Greg