Tomix Shinkansen motor car short circuit?

[Moritz1020]

Hi there folks,

 

I have an issue that slowly makes me question my sanity.

I bought a Tomix Shinkansen 0 years ago and DCC'ed it, however I got short circuits wenn adding the plastic cover (with the seat imitation) back on. It mostly worked when not completely clipping it back in, however. I now disassembled it to find the root of this issue. I thought maybe the springs to the motor were the issue, so I soldered the wires directly to the motor, but this didn't help.

When without the cover (wires from motor, cover and analogue transformator put together) the motor runs perfectly fine, but as soon as the cover is on, it stops working even when voltage is applied.

I even covered the whole metal strips (except the parts where the bogies are) with Kapton tape, but also to no avail.

Has anyone got any idea what I could try? 

 

Kind regards

Moritz

[Wolf]

Have you insulated the motor itself? Sometimes the weights run power, it might just be the little push from the cover that closes a circuit.

[Moritz1020]

38 minutes ago, Wolf said:

Have you insulated the motor itself? Sometimes the weights run power, it might just be the little push from the cover that closes a circuit.

Just tried by insulating it with Kapton tape, too, but as soon as the cover is on, nothing works (or only at a really high voltage) and the motor smells bad. As soon as the cover is off, back to normal. I also noticed that, just as before, if the cover is not clipped into the middle part, everything works as it should.

[SwallowAngel]

4 hours ago, Moritz1020 said:

nothing works (or only at a really high voltage) and the motor smells bad

 

I'm not sure what things you have already tried (i.e. using a multimeter or smt similar), but are you sure this is a short-circuit problem?

It may just be that the plastic cover applies excessive friction somewhere in the mechanism causing the motor to overload. TBH I have never seen a motor work during a short circuit situation, however the motor starting to smell does somewhat line up with motors burning out...

Edited November 25, 2023 by SwallowAngel

[disturbman]

Not a DCC-man, but I agree with SwallowAngel, you are not describing a short, but probably a motor overload.

My recommendation would be that you remove all isolant and reapply it cleanly to avoid any possible friction. In your second picture, the motor is clearly not sitting straight inside the chassis and your tape installation seems quite messy. The material is not thick, but at this size there isn't much tolerance if anything is wrongly applied. You could just cut and apply stripes of tape of the correct size.

Gilrashat had made quite a clear how to video back in the day, 
 

.

Edited November 26, 2023 by disturbman

[Moritz1020]

Hi,

 

thank you all, apparently it was that the motor was not perfectly in place. I pushed it down a milimeter and as of now, everything works as it should. Could have saved a lot of trouble if I had that idea sooner ^^

[cteno4]

Glad it’s working! Things like this are a bit of just fiddling and trying things until it’s working. But it’s all great experience and time not wasted as it really is great learning. If you used any kapton tape around the motor to isolate things that may have been why it didn’t quite pop in there all the way easily. The design is usually for the motor to pop in and contact made directly, so snug fit without any insulating tape added. With the motor not all the way down the drive train was probably binding up and stopping/slowing the motor.

 

jeff