Frank's tender

nicebutdim

nicebutdim

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Hi everyone. I have a little issue with my Frank S, I noticed the other day that the loco seems to pull more that the tender, so I disconnected the tether wire and tried them separately. The loco still runs fine but the tender didn't shift at all. I've stripped it and found excess grease everywhere but luckily the motor still runs fine. Does the tender actually need to be wired to the loco to operate?
Many thanks,
Tim
(Analogue by the way)
 
Tenders running FASTER than the loco is the more usual problem - I believe that the analogue loco has circuitry onboard to slightly slow down the tender to deal with this, which means the two need to be wired together, but I have no idea of whether the tender should run by itself if that wiring is disconnected - logic would say no, it shouldn't, because in order to adjust the tender speed the cable must surely carry the feed from the tender's pickups into the loco's circuit board, then back from that to the tender motor. Thus there may well be no electrical feed at all to the tender motor when the cable is unplugged. Of course, I could be completely wrong!

My blue one (Nicki & Frank S) is chipped with two decoders, it came that way when I bought it from Dutchelm Mike on here, it has no cable connection but apparently Mike had to do a lot of fiddling around with the decoder CVs to get the loco and tender to run at anything like the same speeds.

Jon.
 
Zerogee said:
Tenders running FASTER than the loco is the more usual problem - I believe that the analogue loco has circuitry onboard to slightly slow down the tender to deal with this, which means the two need to be wired together, but I have no idea of whether the tender should run by itself if that wiring is disconnected - logic would say no, it shouldn't, because in order to adjust the tender speed the cable must surely carry the feed from the tender's pickups into the loco's circuit board, then back from that to the tender motor. Thus there may well be no electrical feed at all to the tender motor when the cable is unplugged. Of course, I could be completely wrong!

My blue one (Nicki & Frank S) is chipped with two decoders, it came that way when I bought it from Dutchelm Mike on here, it has no cable connection but apparently Mike had to do a lot of fiddling around with the decoder CVs to get the loco and tender to run at anything like the same speeds.

Jon.
Click to expand...
It wasn't my Blue Nicki & Frank Jon. I hope it's still in the cupboard (unless SWMBO has been selling off my stock). My N&F needs the tender plugged into the loco as the switch in the cab isolates both loco & tender motors. The 4 wires between the tender & the loco are a common, tender pick up, tender motor & tender lights. I think the operation of the DCC DIP switches disconnects the tender motor & lights from the loco & connects them to the decoder.
If you can get them to run without interconnection you loose the advantages of the pickups on 10 wheels & 4 skates.
 
It is a common problem with this model..

Again I run DCC and have adjusted the values so both run at the same speed but the cable is not required but i have it fitted as it doubles up the pickups.
 
dutchelm said:
Zerogee said:
Tenders running FASTER than the loco is the more usual problem - I believe that the analogue loco has circuitry onboard to slightly slow down the tender to deal with this, which means the two need to be wired together, but I have no idea of whether the tender should run by itself if that wiring is disconnected - logic would say no, it shouldn't, because in order to adjust the tender speed the cable must surely carry the feed from the tender's pickups into the loco's circuit board, then back from that to the tender motor. Thus there may well be no electrical feed at all to the tender motor when the cable is unplugged. Of course, I could be completely wrong!

My blue one (Nicki & Frank S) is chipped with two decoders, it came that way when I bought it from Dutchelm Mike on here, it has no cable connection but apparently Mike had to do a lot of fiddling around with the decoder CVs to get the loco and tender to run at anything like the same speeds.

Jon.
Click to expand...
It wasn't my Blue Nicki & Frank Jon. I hope it's still in the cupboard (unless SWMBO has been selling off my stock). My N&F needs the tender plugged into the loco as the switch in the cab isolates both loco & tender motors. The 4 wires between the tender & the loco are a common, tender pick up, tender motor & tender lights. I think the operation of the DCC DIP switches disconnects the tender motor & lights from the loco & connects them to the decoder.
If you can get them to run without interconnection you loose the advantages of the pickups on 10 wheels & 4 skates.
Click to expand...

Ooops, sorry Mike, I think the old memory is going with age.... (who am I again?) ;)
I know it came from someone on here, but it was a couple of years ago - for some reason I'd got it into my head that it was you - now I'm racking my brain trying to figure out who it actually was. Apologies for the confusion!

Jon.
 
I've read before about people having issues with this one on digital, but not so many with analogue. I'm wondering if some grease has got into the motor and onto the commutator, slowing it down somewhat. I'm feeling there could be a motor strip on the cards as per instructions on here.
Mike, your post clicked about the switch in the cab to isolate the motor, that hadn't crossed my mind. You gave me one of those 'oh yeah, of course' moments :D
 
It's worth making up a plug with the 3 switched wires joined together. Plug it in & bypass the switch.
 
I think I might well do that. For now I managed to get the motor apart as per Neil's excellent instructions http://www.gscalecentral.net/tm?m=1237&high=lgb+motor+brushes < Link To http://www.gscalecentral....high=lgb+motor+brushes I was unable to find my small point gas torch nozzle, but the large one (used for sweating up plumbing joints) worked a treat to get the worm off. Sure enough, once opened there was (actually still is) a thick black gunge over the brushes and commutator. Lovely. Meths and cotton buds at the ready! :D
 
Just a quick update. Cleaned up the motor and sorted. A big thumbs up to Neil for the motor instructions, made life a whole lot easier. Placed back on the track and the speeds are now perfectly matched. The whole locomotive now sounds a lot quieter too with the loco not fighting to pull the tender along.
I may leave the wiring for now, theory of 'if it ain't broke' coming to mind for the time being.
A big thank you to everyone for your help.
Tim :D
 
I chipped one of these some years ago with a pair of LGB decoders after a year or so the tender would not run in a revese direction after much experimentation I replaced the chip in the tender with a spare and I have had no further issues by the way I have allways had loco and tender connected eletrically
 
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