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Triang/Hornby Rocket


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Was asked to investigate the possibility of chipping a Rocket by someone I met at the Mansfield Show as well as getting his childhood toy working again.

 

I love a challenge me :lol:

 

So, after fabricating a new carbon brush and getting the old girl working again my eyes fell on the TCS-Z2 I bought a while ago.

 

Here's what to do:

 

Strip the loco down, remove the black wire clip from the chimney and unclip it from the top of the firebox. Ease the chimney up and unhook the finer wire stays from the clip at the front of the firebox. The body clips on and can be eased off with a screwdriver.

 

Unsolder the capacitor from the tags either side of the worm gear and also the smoke unit/resistor. This leaves room to fit the decoder above the worm gear.

 

Dispose of the smoke unit as it's not possible to drive this current hungry device with a tiny decoder.

 

Fabricate another brush clip from 5 thou sheet and cut the insulating sleeve on one brush spring in two so you have a bit to insulate both brushes.

 

remove the lighting wires from the decoder and trip the red, black, grey and orange wires to approx 20mm long. Strip and tin the ends.

 

Solder the orange and grey wires to the brush tags and the red and black wires to the chassis tags either side of the worm.

 

post-6717-0-12160500-1302096494_thumb.jpg

 

post-6717-0-94580200-1302096505_thumb.jpg

 

Test

 

Slip the decoder into the roof of the body as far forward as it can go and carefully clip the body back on.

 

Test

 

Refit the other body components and Robert is your Father's brother as they say :D

 

CV settings supplied by John at Bromsgrove models are as follows:

 

Use 128 speed steps - set CV5 to 120 and CV6 to 80

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Problem with the TH Rocket is that really needs steel track for its magnetism to work and allow it pull a reasonable load. I opted to pack the body space with liquid lead and put the decoder (a TCS M1) under the tender with extra pickups off the tender wheels. Either way the one thing that grates is the steamroller dimensioned driving and trailing wheels - replacing them seems awkward given the split chassis form of the model.

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  • 2 years later...

I replaced the x500 with a Mabuchi open frame micro motor (see my video on YouTube "Triang Stephensons Rocket with Mabuchi motor") this is a 5 pole motor and is slightly smaller than the original so fits perfectly into the Rocket. A couple of problems the x500 motor shaft is imperial size, the nearest metric size is 1.5mm so having removed the worm gear I found it was a slightly loose fit, but superglue fixed it in place very well, the motor shaft is also slightly too short due to using the old motor clip as follows. As stated also used the white plastic motor clip from the x500 motor and cut off the top part where the brushes sit flush with the inside end so the plate could be superglued to the end of the Mabuchi motor, fitting this ensures the worm gear will line up correctly with the drive gear on the axle as it has a lug that engages with the chassis plate. It is also necessary to cut off the shaft from the other end of the new motor to allow room for the body, this I did with a diamond cutter on my mini drill.

 

I also removed the resistor and suppressor.

 

Having done all this the Rocket performs very well and will pull six of the four wheel Rocket coaches on the level!

 

My next project was to install a decoder, the solution for which has now been answered!

 

Jim

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