Motor brushes

[railzilla]

Hello

 

I lost a motor brush while installing a DCC Decoder in My Kato Allegra. I was not able to find it. As the motor brushes are replacable they should be available as a spare.However i could not find it on hobby search or other stores.

 

 

[velotrain]

And yet they say that going with DCC imposes no potential danger . . . . . . . ;-)

[HantuBlauLOL]

how did you miss it?

 

imho you should get a whole new motor instead.

[railzilla]

Most recent Kato Rolling Stock is otepared for DCC. Just drop an Em13 Decoder. Thus can be done without opening the vehicle. The Allegra hovever is made like a Tomix train and difficult to convert. The motor is between two metal parts there is no PCB. To install the decoder it us necessary to solder a wire to the motors.To do so the caps if the brushes have to be removed. Unfortunately the springs can launch the motor brushes quite far.

And without this 1cent worth of graphite the train will not.

 

 

Maybe I can use a thick pencil.

[kvp]

A harder graphite brush could destroy your commutator, so please be careful. Also, the motor brushes have spring tabs, that could be soldered to without removing the brush assembly from the motor. Even tomytec trains have these solder tabs.

 

The normal way of doing the digitalisation is to slip a small piece of shrink wrap tubing on the decoder wires, solder the ends to the tabs, then slip the tubings over the tab+write end and shrink them tightly. This way the isolation is done without butchering up the metal half frames.

 

ps: As most motors today are sealed for life, the easiest way to fix one is to replace the whole motor. I'm pretty sure spare motors are avilable for the Allegra.

[railzilla]

The motor an open frame and the brushes are removable. Unfortunately the spare brushes are not available anymore. I have to wait until they are restored. A spare motor us a good idea anyway.

Good to with the shrink tubes. But this time I placed the decoder under the plastic of the floor. Everything is a bit tight.

[railzilla]

Just for the record.

 

I used solder wire which is about the same thickness of the motor brush. Still trying to get new brushes but for the time being it dies the trick.