Well its being a rainy day, so thought its a good time to see if a Mashima MH1015 motor will fit in a Farish 66. I've found the slow speed performance of the first production batch of Farish Class 66s (EWS 66 135 / Freightliner 66 610 / GBRf 66 701) woeful.

 

Now considering the circuit board PCB is the same revision as the second batch locos (I have GBRf Medite 66 709), and the slow speed performance is much better lead me to thinking the motor is the issue. Also I have noted on this loco when changing direction the bogies rock, much like the Poole Farish 158, which is caused by the armature sliding.

 

So after so investigation, the Mashima MH1015 is dimensionally almost identical, plus has the advantage of being 5 pole and of Japanese manufacture. Therefore I purchased one, and below is how I went about fitting it:-

 

 

Dimensionally the Mashima MH1015 is almost identical to the motor Farish supply from the factory. However the Mashima is made in Japan and is a 5 pole motor, with 1.5mm shafts, being a double ended motor. Resistance of the original motor was 84 ohms. The Mashima 176 ohms.

 

 

The flywheels and ball joint sockets are removed from the original Farish motor:-

 

 

Flywheels are now drilled out to 1.5mm:-

 

 

Shafts on the Mashima MH 1015 are reduced in length to 5mm to match the original Farish motor:-

 

 

Now the Mashima MH1015 has the flywheels & balljoint sockets attached to motor shafts. A dab of superglue is applied to secure them:-

 

 

However fitting the new motor was not so simple, because the original has a keyway to prevent the motor from spinning within the chassis!

 

 

So the Mashima MH1015 had keyways cut into the plastic back plate at the same locations:-

 

 

Additionally the plastic location plate had the diameter of the hole increased to 4.8mm of the Mashima MH1015. This allowed assembly of the new drivetrain:-

 

 

The chassis reassembled:-

 

 

Next the PCB control circuit board was refitted. The copper contact strips that connect to the motor terminals, where bent to a new profile to suit the smaller terminals of the Mashima motor:-

 

 

Once the under frame moulding was fitted and bogies clipped in, it was time to test. The results where interesting to say the least. My test was the time to cover 60mm at the slowest speed possible without the motor stalling. All tests where under DC control using a Gaugemaster Combi controller.

 

Using the original motor, the loco took just 17 seconds, which equates to 3.53mm/sec or 0.0078964mph.

 

 

 

With the Mashima MH1015 motor, the loco took 138 seconds to cover the same distance, which is 0.43mm/sec or 0.00096188 MPH!

 

 

 

As a comparison is my Farish 66 709 with no modifications also running the same test. This took 75 seconds, which is 0.8mm/sec or 0.0017895 MPH

 

 

 

Therefore I think I conclude the motor is the culprit for poor slow speed running for the at least 66 701 which was from the initial production run of the Farish Class 66 . The loco is now also quieter too, with no bogie rocking when changing direction. The later Farish Class 66s, 66 709 was from the second production run, has more satisfactory slow speed performance out of the box.

 

Overall happy with the result. Although it would be an expensive exercise to cover other locos such as later production Class 66s and Class 60s!

 

Just need a solution to cracked wheel set gears, although the 2mm FS Association do produce wheel sets with metal gears, just they are £4.50 a set, compared to the £2.50 ish for Farish replacements (which have no guarantee the nylon gear won't split again). If only they didn't use an interface fit, which puts the gear under stress! A slid fit with a dab of Loctite would be much better, but drive up production labour time costs!

 

These are reasons why I sadly don't tend to buy many N Gauge locos . . . .