Brand new Tomix train making scraping sound

[100mega]

 

Just got this in yesterday and there’s clearly something wrong. The sound is even worse when running in reverse like it is in this video. I’ve disassembled it down to the motor and couldn’t find anything obviously wrong aside from a bogey being kind of tight. I’ve fixed that and it’s still doing this. I’m not sure how to go about testing the motor while it’s removed but I tried holding the train upside-down on the feeder piece and the sound seemed to be lessened, but still there. It sounds like ripping paper!

 

 

 

Thank you. 

[cteno4]

Mega,

 

that sounds like a gear tooth missing or gears not meshing right or a stripped driveshaft. Did you inspect all the gears carefully? Also could be a stripped drive shaft universal connector. If it uses a drive shaft that fits into socket connectors on the motor and truck feel the end of the drive shafts well as sometimes the little nubs (usually 4 at 90 degree points on the numb at the ends of the driveshafts) get torn of part way or completely and they  the sort of slip and grind when in operation. This can vary due to the position of the truck and the load the car is under (ie curves or on points where wheels can experience more friction on the rails. You really can’t see the numbs well, but you can feel them.

 

jeff

[100mega]

The nubs on the drive shafts seemed fine and sit snugly in the motor without slipping. Taking the bogeys off and rolling them on a soft mat gave no resistance in either direction and I could see the gears moving as I’d expect. No noise either. I took the motor completely out of the brace that it sits in. I don’t think the big gold parts are removable so I didn’t take it much beyond that. Looks like I could use a 9v battery and try to run the motor alone, but at that point a replacement motor is $20 before shipping and the train itself was $40. I initiated an exchange though I’m worried about return shipping to Plaza Japan. Last time I checked there’s no way to cheaply ship something however small from US to Japan. Might be taking the hit on this one. Talk about a bad first Tomix experience!

[cteno4]

Hmm. Does it feel/look like gears were lubed? If you have some appropriate oil you might hit the gears some ro see if that helps.

 

if you have some wire you can strip both ends and cram one end into a Kato power cable attached to your power pack and the other ends onto the motor contacts. 
 

you are not going to hear gear slippage by just rolling on the table like that. Only way to tell is look at the gears to make sure all teeth are there and no racked gears.

 

its just very bad luck I think. I have several hundred Tomix, Kato, greenmax, and microace trains (probably a couple hundred Tomix motor cars) and never had one come with something broken. I have had a few show up without lubing that were noisy and lubing them properly fixed it.

 

jeff

[Guest]

Honestly I’m sure nothing is actually broken or defective.  A pretty high percentage of my trains arriving have some piece dislodged during shipping. After having so many arrive like that, you know what to check for when unboxing.

[cteno4]

Yes I find more trucks popped loose in shipping as well these days, nothing broken but truck loose or all the way popped out. One reason may be I caught the DHL delivery guy a few months ago tossing a train box about 15’ to the front door! At least they didn’t put it behind the rear tire of the car, which they have in the past.

 

jeff

[100mega]

On 2/1/2024 at 11:13 PM, cteno4 said:

Yes I find more trucks popped loose in shipping as well these days, nothing broken but truck loose or all the way popped out. One reason may be I caught the DHL delivery guy a few months ago tossing a train box about 15’ to the front door! At least they didn’t put it behind the rear tire of the car, which they have in the past.

 

Ouch! That's terrible...

 

I think I've figured out the issue. The metal block that the motor sits in and the trucks snap into has a bump in the metal right where the truck sits on one side making it much harder to turn freely. The truck isn't moving properly in turns which causes the car to lift up a bit which then breaks the electrical contact enough to also make the lights flicker. So yeah, some kind of factory defect.