Any cure for waddling Bandai chassis?

[Beaver]

Title says it all. There seem to be quality control issues: some chassis are fine, some waddle a lot. It is a lottery.

 

I know from larger scale experience that waddling is usually difficult to amend without actually replacing the entire wheelset etc, but there might be some trick that can be done?

[cteno4]

Have you tried pulling off the trucks and reseating them? Also check out the traction tires as well, I’ve had some end up with lumps in them (not Bandai) causing wobbling or bumpy running.

 

i only have a few of the Bandai mechs and not used them much but I’ve not noticed any wobbling so far.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

13 hours ago, Space Beaver said:

Title says it all. There seem to be quality control issues: some chassis are fine, some waddle a lot. It is a lottery.

 

I know from larger scale experience that waddling is usually difficult to amend without actually replacing the entire wheelset etc, but there might be some trick that can be done?

 

What does waddling mean? I know that ducks waddle, but I'm guessing you're not making that analogy. It sounds like you're using a specific train modelling term. Can you explain what it means?

[Beaver]

Waddling: means that a rail vehicle rolls from side to side and/or up and down instead of just moving forward. Like how a duck makes a regular swaying motion while walking.

 

It is usually caused by:

 

The ends of an axle being at different heights.

 

Wheels not at the correct angle to the axle or parallel to each other.

 

Axles not being straight.

 

In this case it seems to be a combination of 2 and 3

 

Picture of 3 type 3 chassis.

 

Top chassis: almost completely smooth.

 

Middle chassis: noticeable waddle.

 

Bottom chassis: severe waddle.

 

I hope it is visible that the bottom chassis in particular has wheels at an angle to each other.

 

I have been able to make some improvement to the middle chassis by swapping its bad wheelsets for good ones from another chassis but could not complete this as I did not have a suitable replacement traction tyre wheelset.

 

Since seperately sold spares for these chassis are not available, this means caniballising multiple bad chassis to get one good one. Not the solution I would like. Especially when the next one chassis bought might be perfect out of  the box like a few others have been.

[gavino200]

13 hours ago, Space Beaver said:

Waddling: means that a rail vehicle rolls from side to side and/or up and down instead of just moving forward. Like how a duck makes a regular swaying motion while walking.

 

It is usually caused by:

 

The ends of an axle being at different heights.

 

Wheels not at the correct angle to the axle or parallel to each other.

 

Axles not being straight.

 

In this case it seems to be a combination of 2 and 3

 

Picture of 3 type 3 chassis.

 

Top chassis: almost completely smooth.

 

Middle chassis: noticeable waddle.

 

Bottom chassis: severe waddle.

 

I hope it is visible that the bottom chassis in particular has wheels at an angle to each other.

 

I have been able to make some improvement to the middle chassis by swapping its bad wheelsets for good ones from another chassis but could not complete this as I did not have a suitable replacement traction tyre wheelset.

 

Since seperately sold spares for these chassis are not available, this means caniballising multiple bad chassis to get one good one. Not the solution I would like. Especially when the next one chassis bought might be perfect out of  the box like a few others have been.

 

 

Thanks for explaining. I think, if anyone can answer your question, it would be @nickhp

[nickhp]

Only thing I can add is that the Bandai wheels are not as precisely machined as Kato wheels, I have several on powered and trailing trucks that are pretty bad. 

 

One thing you might want to try is pulling apart the offending bogie, removing the axle with the offending wheels, and trying to pull the wheels out of plastic gear center (I'm thinking the powered wheels are wheel/axle halves pushed into a central plastic gear piece).  If you can do this, then you can probably replace the wheels with ones from the dummy trailing trucks which are cheap, assuming you have some of those to hand.

 

I was actually planning to do this to replace the wheels with traction tires on them for my trams, since these do not pull any weight they really don't need traction tires.

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

[Beaver]

Thank you all for the advice.

 

The power chassis axles do indeed use plastic centred axles but I will need to check the unpowered chassis. Though it is likely the same as the wheels and axles are not insulated from one another, and the entire B-train ethos seems to be making everything from a limited range of standard parts to cut costs.

[defor]

On 9/19/2018 at 1:15 AM, Space Beaver said:

The power chassis axles do indeed use plastic centred axles but I will need to check the unpowered chassis.

I've also encountered a similar issue, and have yet to find a decent solution.

as far as unpowered freight bogies go, they're all a mess, but theres a bit of leeway in movement due to the plastic tube center axle, and can be reasonably recentered.

I also find adding substantial weight to the koki's via lead sheet has helped a lot to at least minimize both waddle and bounce.

on my power Unit 1/5's, i still dont have a great answer.

 

I really wish there were viable Kato power units for de10's...

[Beaver]

Turns out wheel swapping from unpowered bogies will not work. The design of the half axles is different.