I tried this back in June of this year with an old analog Athearn loco. The motor lasted 2 1/2 hours before the brushes burned out.
Now I'm trying it again. The subject is an old MDC RS3 that has an Athearn motor in it. I've placed it on a spur and flipped the switch to power that spur with the DCC current. How long can the motor last while sitting idle with the DCC current flowing through it? It's already been 2 hours and the shell isn't even warm. I'm guessing the loco I used before had a bad motor to start with, because it got hot after an hour, but never hot enough to melt the shell. Well, we all know how tough Athearn BB shells are. At 1:50 pm it will be 2 1/2 hours. How much longer can it last? Anybody care to speculate? Maybe this is an especially tough motor.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Is it making the Buzzzzzzzzzzzz?
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
I think that for many motors this will be the case. They draw very little current, hence they don't get hot. If the motor drew a bit more current, it would get hotter, and it would need to turn to cool it down. I think the lesson here is that SOME motors will burn out, SOME motors won't and it might be difficult to predict which is which. All of which makes the recommendation to remove power from a DC loco that is stationary on the DCC layout a good one. The noise makes it unlikely one would want to operate that way in the long term anyway, I think!
-Morgan
Are you killing your SP RS-3?
BAD JEFF! BAD!
Hoople wrote: Are you killing your SP RS-3?BAD JEFF! BAD!
jeffrey-wimberly wrote:Six hours and some change and it's starting to make some wierd noises.
YTou realize ypur power bill is about to hit the floor
UP2CSX wrote:Keep a fire extinguisher handy. It'll probably burst into flames when she finally blows.
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
steemtrayn wrote:What's you're next experiment gonna be? Worms in the microwave?
Jeff, don't you know that running a DC locomotive under DCC is WRONG! Stop before you are hit with a bolt of lightning. Besides, once you "go DCC" you aren't even supposed to HAVE any DC locomotives. ALL your fleet must be DCC now. And so it was written. And, to top it off, you don't REALLY have DCC, you have a Bachmann!! So it DOESN'T COUNT!!
Just a side note, I once let one of my Bachmann engines idle all night (forgot to turn the power off). Didn't seem to hurt it. The only one I ever hurt was that little (N scale) Galloping Goose by Con Cor. First symptom, it STANK (melting rubber/plastic smell). A few engines won't run at all under DC over DCC. Most run fine. Some will burn up. All depends. Not sure why all the differences, must be different engine designs.
jeffrey-wimberly wrote:Eight hours, fifteen minutes. Catastrophic failure! With a very visible arc, the motor finally died. I think one of the brushes is welded to the commutator. I won't know for sure until I take it apart. Now we know for sure, Athearn motors are TOUGH!
Now we know for sure, idling DC motors on DCC isn't a good thing to do. The first motor you did was a weak one, but the second one proved that even a solid motor shouldn't get this kind of treatment.
Y'know, you should write up this scientific experiment and send it to MR. The idea that idling DC motors on DCC would eventually fry them has been kicking around for years. It's been campfire lore for a long time, but you've finally proven it conclusively. While they might not publish it as an article, certainly a Letter to the Editor is justified.
You're right up there with Albert Einstein. And with Heisenberg, I think.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Get this. I took the brushes out of the motor, or should I say brush, one of them was completely gone, I replaced the brushes and put the motor back in the loco and tried it on the layout. It still runs! Don't get me wrong though, the motor is damaged. The armature windings that were a bright deep green are now a dull, blackish green and the commutator is burned, but it still runs, albeit a bit slower than it did before. I'll put a new motor in it tomorrow and put it back in the display rack.
Before:
After:
dinwitty wrote:has it gotten out of its chair and start terrorizing the countryside, Dr. Frankenstein?