LGB’s electric pick-up ball bearing wheels are excellent for sending power to locos with minimal electrical pickup and powering lighted passenger cars. I use them with Hartland’s locos as one example.
Anyone found an equivalent – e.g. Aristo’s version and ? – considering the price and the difficulty in finding LGB, a cheaper equivalent alternative is appreciated.
Wendell
If you do not need power pickups, Train-Li has both ball bearing with and without power pickups in stainless I believe, call them and check it out next week (they are packing for the show this week).
Contact Train-Li, they have the equivalent, with all metal centers, none of the LGB plastic.
Not cheap, but high quality.
Other BB wheels for pickup are Aristo and AMS …
BUT I have to tell you that in general, high current is not a good thing for ball bearings…
lighted cars are marginal.
There is a reason the ball bearings in Aristo locos are NON conductive.
Greg
Greg-
Is the reason for problems electrically with ball-bearing wheel sets is because of arcing? Likely, I have been fortunate with the 0-4-0 LGB steamer and Hartland switchers.
Wendell
Yes, and if you check with any BB manufacturer, like Boca bearings, who make BB sets in our scale, they never recommend power through ball bearings.
Understanding this is actually simple when you think about it, the design feature that makes ball bearings very low in friction is a very small contact point of very hard materials.
So when you pass current through a ball bearing, all the current is concentrated on very small areas, and the current density creats arcing.
Arcing actually melts the metal for a small time and then it cools and solidifies again. But the surface becomes pitted.
If this happens enough, it ruins the free rolling and the electrical characteristics.
So, in my experience low current LED lighting works out ok, but not locos or incandescent bulbs.
If you ever wondered why very few manufacturers use ball bearings for power pickup, it’s because it really does not work that well in all instances.
Aristo locos (the latest generation) have “hybrid” ball bearings that CANNOT pick up power, the balls are ceramic. A different mechanism picks up power.
Their passenger cars use brass sleeves on the axle tips. USA Trains use pickup through sleeve bearings and wipers.
So, keep your current draw low… I use them on cabooses and LED lit passenger cars.
Hope this helps,
Greg
Greg is correct about trying to get power through ball-bearings. Isn’t going to work well!
http://www.accucraftestore.com/index.php?productID=1103
These are the replacement wheelsets I use on my AMS rolling stock. These are ball-bearing. I assume they get power from the wheels, not the bearings. Notice the brass tabs to solder wires for pickup to lights in the car. I ONLY use these wheelsets for the ball-bearings. I use batteries in my cars for lights. Wheel diameter could be a problem with these wheels. They are scaled at 1/20.3. Accucraft does make the same set for 1/32, so the diameter would be smaller. These are very expensive to use. Small market share.
Actually they do get power through the bearings themselves.
The way you know this is that the tabs stay fixed with the axle.
The wheels, well, obviously rotate.
So power transfer must be from the wheels to the outer race of the bearing, through the balls themselves to the inner race and then to the metal part the tab is connected to.
I do have these AML ones myself, in fact I have the Aristo, LGB, Train-Li, and these AML.
Just keep the current low, and for lighting, put in a simple “constant lighting” circuit… normally a full wave bridge and a capacitor, adding an inrush limiting resistor and another diode works even better.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Actually they do get power through the bearings themselves.
The way you know this is that the tabs stay fixed with the axle.
The wheels, well, obviously rotate.
So power transfer must be from the wheels to the outer race of the bearing, through the balls themselves to the inner race and then to the metal part the tab is connected to.
I do have these AML ones myself, in fact I have the Aristo, LGB, Train-Li, and these AML.
Just keep the current low, and for lighting, put in a simple “constant lighting” circuit… normally a full wave bridge and a capacitor, adding an inrush limiting resistor and another diode works even better.
Greg
I never noticed that they get their power through the bearings. Never used them for power. I just used them for the bearings to match my other AMS stuff OR had Phil re-bearing what I had. The only thing I could think of was some kind of internal wiper to transfer power from the wheels. I just removed the old axles and popped these into place. Never check any further.
Yep, the price is low enough to buy them just for the free rolling.
Just wanted to address Wendell question about power pickup.
Regards, Greg
I’m sure that the experts are correct about the pitting of the ball bearings. However, for many years I had LGB BB wheels on all of my rolling stock. Most of my rolling stock is of the field type. Every wagon had female sockets on one end and male plugs affixed to wire leads on the other. So every time I ran trains all of the wheels of that train sent power to the locomotive via the BB Wheels. My train speeds were and still are kept on the slow side. After I converted to Battery Power, best thing I ever did, I didn’t need the power pick-ups any more. The bottom line here is that all of the Ball Bearing Wheels still roll as freely as ever. Most likely due to the lower voltage, as has been pointed out.
Yes, low current situations usually work for a while, maybe a long time.
So your situation:
highest quality BB wheelsets, by LGB
lowest current motors, by LGB
spread the current load over multiple cars.
Made the best of the situation.
Greg