Bachmann 94xx

[The Johnster]

Quite possible, Niel, though of course one must 'filter' DJ's opinions.  In this scenario, Bachmann order x number of 94xx from Chinese suppliers and the Chinese suppliers buy motors for them, and as it happens the ones that are 1) available at delivery time required, 2) of the required size, rpm, torque, and power consumption, are in the event coreless.  AFAIK, and I am no authority on this sort of thing, the motors we use in our RTR models are mass produced for general purposes, not specifically for model railwaya, and there is no particular advantage in cored or coreless motors.  Coreless have a sort of cachet which is a hangover from the Portescap days, when that motor, also not specifically designed for model railway use, was the Rolls Royce item. 

 

A cheap Chinese coreless can motor is probably indistinguishable in performance from a cheap Chinese cored can motor; both are miniature miracles of engineering with amazing performance for the price, and highly suitable for model railway use, but we are talking volume produced low cost items here, low enough to make motor replacement cheaper than carbon brush replacement, not the 'scientific instrument' grade rating of the Portescap.

[PMP]

@Mikkel

 

I’d allow at least 40mm bearing in mind this isn’t the most accurate methodology!

[Norton961]

Does the fitting of DCC make a difference? Does the chip need to be matched to the motor?

 

David

[Pinehill]

1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:

  
 AFIK Bachmann appear to be the only manufacturer embracing this type of motor other than the late unlamented  DJM.I think you are confusing me with Legend in the matter of the Caley. Have you considered contacting both Gaugemaster and Bachmann on the issue ?

You might get a resolution.

Yes Ian, discussed the problem with both of them & really all I get is reference to each other’s warnings about using feedback & electronic track cleaners. Nobody appears willing to carry out a test of this new Bachmann coreless motor to see actually what happens when using it with a feedback controller & track cleaner. Maybe Bachmann will lose orders or get returns, I do not know. I appear to have 3 options, change my complete system to suit one new loco, take a chance using what I have or not bother to buy it. I suspect the last option & the end of Bachmann purchases of coreless equipped locos! 

[PMP]

21 minutes ago, Pinehill said:

Yes Ian, discussed the problem with both of them & really all I get is reference to each other’s warnings about using feedback & electronic track cleaners. Nobody appears willing to carry out a test of this new Bachmann coreless motor to see actually what happens when using it with a feedback controller & track cleaner. 

There’s no point if you want to retain any warranty trying these on active track cleaner layouts. Bachmann specifically say not to, so if I had a cleaner, I wouldn’t try it anyway.

 

I’m willing to try a Gaugemaster HH feedback controller and this locomotive. Let me know when you’re going to send it to me.

Edited December 7, 2020 by PMP

[Steamport Southport]

9 minutes ago, Norton961 said:

Does the fitting of DCC make a difference? Does the chip need to be matched to the motor?

 

David

 

Shouldn't have a problem with DCC. They are designed for it.

 

Trying not to be too technical as I'm far from knowledgeable about electrics. But the gist of the problem is some old controllers and some feedback controllers can damage the coreless motors. 

 

They can also be damaged by High Frequency track cleaners.

 

 

Personally I wouldn't be using a controller that grandad got with his Triang train set in 1965 with them. If so, time to get a new one I reckon. Your models will probably thank you. 

 

 

Jason

[Mikkel]

1 hour ago, PMP said:

@Mikkel

 

I’d allow at least 40mm bearing in mind this isn’t the most accurate methodology!

 

Many thanks, that's very helpful! Just what I needed. Enjoyed the review on the Albion Yard blog, too.  

[Dunsignalling]

17 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Shouldn't have a problem with DCC. They are designed for it.

 

Trying not to be too technical as I'm far from knowledgeable about electrics. But the gist of the problem is some old controllers and some feedback controllers can damage the coreless motors. 

 

They can also be damaged by High Frequency track cleaners.

 

 

Personally I wouldn't be using a controller that grandad got with his Triang train set in 1965 with them. If so, time to get a new one I reckon. Your models will probably thank you. 

 

 

Jason

The thing coreless motors don't like is any non-rectified or incompletely rectified AC current getting through to them.

 

The DC that comes out of old controllers is seldom fully rectified, sometimes intentionally, I.e. when you operate the half wave switch on H&M units.

 

Feedback controllers are designed to ramp up output in response to current demand.

Coreless motors (AIUI) "fool" them into increasing output when it's not needed and the result is overheating. Track cleaners do the same, but the output is momentary strong and pure AC spikes designed to vaporise dirt between wheels and track which have an even more drastic effect on these motors.

 

As others have indicated, coreless motors are becoming an industry norm for small motors with the sort of characteristics model trainmakers want. Over the next few years, mass market cored motors are likely to disappear and we will increasingly have to work around coreless ones or pay much more for the sort of high grade cored units that  MAY still be produced for medical or military applications.

 

John

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Dunsignalling
Extra word "cored"

[Miss Prism]

'Feedback' is not a binary quantity. The level of feedback can be varied, to suit different armatures.

 

 

[PMP]

10 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

'Feedback' is not a binary quantity. The level of feedback can be varied, to suit different armatures.

 

 

How do you do that with DC? 

[Pinehill]

16 hours ago, PMP said:

There’s no point if you want to retain any warranty trying these on active track cleaner layouts. Bachmann specifically say not to, so if I had a cleaner, I wouldn’t try it anyway.

 

I’m willing to try a Gaugemaster HH feedback controller and this locomotive. Let me know when you’re going to send it to me.

 

16 hours ago, PMP said:

There’s no point if you want to retain any warranty trying these on active track cleaner layouts. Bachmann specifically say not to, so if I had a cleaner, I wouldn’t try it anyway.

 

I’m willing to try a Gaugemaster HH feedback controller and this locomotive. Let me know when you’re going to send it to me.

I was thinking that Bachmann themselves might consider testing their new motors with feedback/track cleaners, in order to ascertain just exactly what might happen! Who knows if the risk was low more feedback users might buy the product! As I have said previously until you receive the model I can find no warnings on the Bachmann website or the dealer websites in regard to feedback controllers.  Not every modeller would be reading this forum & learning that a conflict exists. They might just go online, pay, receive & then be disappointed! 
In regard to your offer, thanks but no thanks, I can do my own test if necessary! Probably will not bother to buy!

[spamcan61]

3 hours ago, PMP said:

How do you do that with DC? 

DC electronics aren't really my bag, but varying the PWM frequency  is presumably the way to go, as this is what the DCC chips which 'tune' to the motor do.

 

The following thread  amongst the multitude of  "coreless motors: the work of satan?" discussions over the years is more informative than most IMHO:-

 

 

[Miss Prism]

4 hours ago, PMP said:

How do you do that with DC? 

 

If pure dc is used, a bemf will be produced (and will depend on the speed). Thus the actual voltage across the armature is less than the applied voltage. So 'feedback' is a redundant concept with pure dc. The vast majority of controllers are not pure dc however.
 

Or maybe I misunderstood the nature of your question?
 

 

[The Johnster]

I had a H & M power controller with a PWM slider many years ago, and rarely used the PWM as it made the motors (old Triang X04 generation open frame, mostly) noisy and hot.  I can see that feedback linked to BEMF might cause problems in very responsive motors (and the Portescap was certainly responsive), but I doubt that current volume produced coreless cans of the sort Bachmann and other manufacturers are using and may increasingly use in the future are any more or less responsive than their cored cousings that have been standard issue for the bulk of this century so far. 

 

My concern is slow running and smooth stops and starts, and there are different approaches as to how to achieve this.  For many years I was a major fan of the Ian Petherton method, split chassis with coreless motors (Portescaps) and flywheels, but perhpas failed to realise that what Ian was trying to achieve was smooth running on large main line layouts, rather than precision shunting, although those who were lucky enough to see 'North Shields' in action (a layout that had a huge influence on me) will tell you that it was effective in this role as well.  So, when Mainline announced a range of locos with split chassis driven by pancakes, I was delighted.  They were a disappointment in service, though, only the Manor running really smoothly out of my fleet, and the others a bit 'surgy' and noisy.  When the inevitable quartering problems kicked in, I realised that the Petherton system was perhaps not best suited to volume production RTR.

 

I gave some thought at around this time (late 80s early 90s) to how I might improve the running of locos on my own layout, increasingly the fast running pancake driving through a train of cogs and pulling trains with the aid of a traction tyre that was standard in those days.  Traction tyres were IMHO awful things, satan's snot, and ruined pickup and any chance of decent smooth stop/starts or slow controlled running, as well as spreading crud all over your layout; my default was to bin them.  This left the problem of the mechanisms, which I thought were simply unsuitably designed.  Matters a decade or so earlier had dictated that RTR models should have daylight beneath the boilers where appropriate, cab detail where possible, and the mech as hidden as possible, which was what had led to the pancakes in the first place.  They were mounted either in the tenders or the fireboxes, transversely, and were hopelessly feeble.  This is why they ran at such high speeds, it was the only way they would develop any useable power, and because of this they had to be geared down with the cogs to the final drive.  The cogs were cheap and nasty, nylon, and unreliable, with a tendency to split.

 

My thinking was that smoothness could be improved by flywheels, and I experimented on an old Jinty chassis with a mechanical system based on the friction motor of a push-along toy car.  I could get the mech to 'overrun' across a dead section 3 or 4 inches long from a scale speed of about 15mph, but there was no chance of using it in anything smaller than an 0 gauge Big Boy, so I abandoned that line of enquiry. 

 

The next move was to try to make an electronic flywheel, a stayalive but in DC.  Experiments with diodes and capacitors proved that an overrun sufficient to deal with insulfrogs and dirty track was achievable, but there was no room in a Mainline loco.  It worked in a Lima 08, but of course only in one direction, which was of no use to me!  The problem is that flywheels, mechanical or electronic, are least effective at low speeds and voltages, which is exactly when I want them to be at their most effective.  I now think that flywheels on 4mm scale mechs are pointless and a marketing ploy; a mech with a shiny brass flywheel looks as if it is very seriously engineered.  I'll concede that they probably do improve steady running at realistic working speeds, but there is no need for that on a small BLT where I doubt I ever get much above a scale 25mph.

 

Running on my (DC) layout, with can type motors from Bachmann or Hornby but there will be a kit built chassis powered by something else (possibly an open frame Anchoridge DS10 lurking in the bottom of a box in the next year or so), is pretty good at low speeds though truly smooth 'Pullman' type stop/starts and well controlled sub 1mph scale crawls still elude me and I hanker for a DC stayalive.  This is down to careful track laying, a vigorous cleaning regime, and care to ensure all locos run as smoothly as possible; incremental improvements in gear meshing, binding or fouling motion, untrue wheels, back to backs, all pay dividends.  Perfect, or as close as makes no difference, running can probably be achieved in DCC, but I can't afford that and anyway, it is sometimes not as simple as plugging a chip in and you have to find out which chip is best suited, a minefield I wish to avoid!

[Pinehill]

34 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I had a H & M power controller with a PWM slider many years ago, and rarely used the PWM as it made the motors (old Triang X04 generation open frame, mostly) noisy and hot.  I can see that feedback linked to BEMF might cause problems in very responsive motors (and the Portescap was certainly responsive), but I doubt that current volume produced coreless cans of the sort Bachmann and other manufacturers are using and may increasingly use in the future are any more or less responsive than their cored cousings that have been standard issue for the bulk of this century so far. 

 

My concern is slow running and smooth stops and starts, and there are different approaches as to how to achieve this.  For many years I was a major fan of the Ian Petherton method, split chassis with coreless motors (Portescaps) and flywheels, but perhpas failed to realise that what Ian was trying to achieve was smooth running on large main line layouts, rather than precision shunting, although those who were lucky enough to see 'North Shields' in action (a layout that had a huge influence on me) will tell you that it was effective in this role as well.  So, when Mainline announced a range of locos with split chassis driven by pancakes, I was delighted.  They were a disappointment in service, though, only the Manor running really smoothly out of my fleet, and the others a bit 'surgy' and noisy.  When the inevitable quartering problems kicked in, I realised that the Petherton system was perhaps not best suited to volume production RTR.

 

I gave some thought at around this time (late 80s early 90s) to how I might improve the running of locos on my own layout, increasingly the fast running pancake driving through a train of cogs and pulling trains with the aid of a traction tyre that was standard in those days.  Traction tyres were IMHO awful things, satan's snot, and ruined pickup and any chance of decent smooth stop/starts or slow controlled running, as well as spreading crud all over your layout; my default was to bin them.  This left the problem of the mechanisms, which I thought were simply unsuitably designed.  Matters a decade or so earlier had dictated that RTR models should have daylight beneath the boilers where appropriate, cab detail where possible, and the mech as hidden as possible, which was what had led to the pancakes in the first place.  They were mounted either in the tenders or the fireboxes, transversely, and were hopelessly feeble.  This is why they ran at such high speeds, it was the only way they would develop any useable power, and because of this they had to be geared down with the cogs to the final drive.  The cogs were cheap and nasty, nylon, and unreliable, with a tendency to split.

 

My thinking was that smoothness could be improved by flywheels, and I experimented on an old Jinty chassis with a mechanical system based on the friction motor of a push-along toy car.  I could get the mech to 'overrun' across a dead section 3 or 4 inches long from a scale speed of about 15mph, but there was no chance of using it in anything smaller than an 0 gauge Big Boy, so I abandoned that line of enquiry. 

 

The next move was to try to make an electronic flywheel, a stayalive but in DC.  Experiments with diodes and capacitors proved that an overrun sufficient to deal with insulfrogs and dirty track was achievable, but there was no room in a Mainline loco.  It worked in a Lima 08, but of course only in one direction, which was of no use to me!  The problem is that flywheels, mechanical or electronic, are least effective at low speeds and voltages, which is exactly when I want them to be at their most effective.  I now think that flywheels on 4mm scale mechs are pointless and a marketing ploy; a mech with a shiny brass flywheel looks as if it is very seriously engineered.  I'll concede that they probably do improve steady running at realistic working speeds, but there is no need for that on a small BLT where I doubt I ever get much above a scale 25mph.

 

Running on my (DC) layout, with can type motors from Bachmann or Hornby but there will be a kit built chassis powered by something else (possibly an open frame Anchoridge DS10 lurking in the bottom of a box in the next year or so), is pretty good at low speeds though truly smooth 'Pullman' type stop/starts and well controlled sub 1mph scale crawls still elude me and I hanker for a DC stayalive.  This is down to careful track laying, a vigorous cleaning regime, and care to ensure all locos run as smoothly as possible; incremental improvements in gear meshing, binding or fouling motion, untrue wheels, back to backs, all pay dividends.  Perfect, or as close as makes no difference, running can probably be achieved in DCC, but I can't afford that and anyway, it is sometimes not as simple as plugging a chip in and you have to find out which chip is best suited, a minefield I wish to avoid!

Agree with pretty well all you have said Johnster. Over the past 20+ years I have achieved excellent slow running (all I require) with Gaugemaster HH feedback units with no real problems. Not sure if the addition of HF1 electronic track cleaners have helped but not a huge amount of hand cleaning has been necessary. Now we have Bachmann introducing motors that I cannot use with my tried & tested system & that is immensely annoying! DCC is not practical due to the many locos I have & it would take more years than I have to convert! The only real option for me is to not buy the new model after waiting so long! A really annoying aspect of this is Bachmanns attitude of leaving the feedback using customer to find out the motor conflict after he has purchased the model. As most will buy online  

there is no mention of problems on their own website or any of the dealers websites that I can find so their first indication will be when the model arrives with its packaging & instructions after money spent. I have made Bachmann aware of this, which they have acknowledged & are looking at. 
 

[MikeParkin65]

1 hour ago, Pinehill said:

Agree with pretty well all you have said Johnster. Over the past 20+ years I have achieved excellent slow running (all I require) with Gaugemaster HH feedback units with no real problems. Not sure if the addition of HF1 electronic track cleaners have helped but not a huge amount of hand cleaning has been necessary. Now we have Bachmann introducing motors that I cannot use with my tried & tested system & that is immensely annoying! DCC is not practical due to the many locos I have & it would take more years than I have to convert! The only real option for me is to not buy the new model after waiting so long! A really annoying aspect of this is Bachmanns attitude of leaving the feedback using customer to find out the motor conflict after he has purchased the model. As most will buy online  

there is no mention of problems on their own website or any of the dealers websites that I can find so their first indication will be when the model arrives with its packaging & instructions after money spent. I have made Bachmann aware of this, which they have acknowledged & are looking at. 
 

This is only a suggestion but would a DCC fitted loco with a coreless motor work properly on DC where the basic non DCC fitted loco (like the current J72 and forthcoming 94xx) won't? Therefore a possible solution would be a £20 Zimo chip? No need to replace your controllers and reasonably economical if only an issue with a small number of locos.

[No Decorum]

20 hours ago, MikeParkin65 said:

This is only a suggestion but would a DCC fitted loco with a coreless motor work properly on DC where the basic non DCC fitted loco (like the current J72 and forthcoming 94xx) won't? Therefore a possible solution would be a £20 Zimo chip? No need to replace your controllers and reasonably economical if only an issue with a small number of locos.

I tried this with four DJ Austerities (Hatton’s decoders). Three responded well but I think the fourth was too far gone. They aren’t worked hard, so just how robust they’ll be I can’t say. I initially swore off coreless motors but on the strength of this experience, I’ve decided on an S&DJR 0-4-4T with a decoder. I thought I’d get best value by going for sound. A lot hangs on how it performs. At least Bachmann is putting a traditional motor into its V2.

 

An afterthought. My Kernow diesel hydraulics ran so badly, and I had heard such tales abut coreless motors being damaged, that I didn’t dare run them. Eventually, I fitted decoders and their running problems were solved, both on DC and DCC.

 

Perhaps it is worth adding that the particular coreless motors fitted to the DJ Austerities were weak examples of their ilk. During the course of the development of the Kernow diesel hydraulics, once DJ was no longer involved, a more powerful coreless motor was substituted for the weak example DJ proposed to use.

Edited December 9, 2020 by No Decorum
Adding an afterthought.

[dibber25]

As a general principle, manufacturers move forward with technology, sometimes by choice and other times because they are obliged to. We don't expect our 2020 Ford Kuga to come with the engine of a Model T. Manufacturers were obliged to move to engines which used unleaded fuel. They are currently being gradually forced to move away from internal combustion engines. In model railways we had the X05, XT60, Hornby-Dublo's version of a Ringfield motor then Lima and Hornby's, and so on. The hobby is moving increasingly towards digital control systems and in the process of moving  forward, feedback controllers and electronic track cleaners are becoming 'old' technology. I've found in recent years that manufacturers have an expectation that we will upgrade/modernise our control systems to match their state-of-the-art models. I still have the H&M controller that was used at Model Railway Constructor to test review models in the early 1960s. I have another more recent H&M that's probably a mere 40 years old. I don't use them to power anything other than accessories. We might prefer VHS tapes or vinyl records but it means we can't watch DVDs or download music. It's a hard fact, but the same is happening with model locomotives. If we don't switch to modern control systems then we won't be able to run modern locomotives - but we do have the choice. (CJL)

[Pinehill]

Interestingly I have discovered that Bachmann around 3 years ago actually carried out a test of coreless motors with a well known manufacturers hand held feedback controller (I suspect Gaugemaster). They ran a number of coreless motored locos for over 100 hours with five coach trains. There were no failures & no discernible degradation of performance during the tests. They also discussed the results with the controller manufacturer who confirmed they were unaware of any motor failures attributable to the current generation (3 years ago) of controllers & motors. Bachmann came to the conclusion that the received historical wisdom that coreless motors & feedback type controllers are incompatible would seem outdated when considering their current (3 years ago) motor specification used with the latest generation (3 years ago) of feedback controller. They mentioned that they cannot test every combination & that it may be the case that using coreless motors with older, less refined, feedback or pulsed controllers could have adverse effects.

Make of that what you will!

[spamcan61]

I think it still largely boils down to the PWM frequency of the feedback controller, the lower the frequency, as generally used in controllers 30+ years ago, the more likely there are to be problems with small, lightweight coreless motors.

[Pinehill]

2 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

As a general principle, manufacturers move forward with technology, sometimes by choice and other times because they are obliged to. We don't expect our 2020 Ford Kuga to come with the engine of a Model T. Manufacturers were obliged to move to engines which used unleaded fuel. They are currently being gradually forced to move away from internal combustion engines. In model railways we had the X05, XT60, Hornby-Dublo's version of a Ringfield motor then Lima and Hornby's, and so on. The hobby is moving increasingly towards digital control systems and in the process of moving  forward, feedback controllers and electronic track cleaners are becoming 'old' technology. I've found in recent years that manufacturers have an expectation that we will upgrade/modernise our control systems to match their state-of-the-art models. I still have the H&M controller that was used at Model Railway Constructor to test review models in the early 1960s. I have another more recent H&M that's probably a mere 40 years old. I don't use them to power anything other than accessories. We might prefer VHS tapes or vinyl records but it means we can't watch DVDs or download music. It's a hard fact, but the same is happening with model locomotives. If we don't switch to modern control systems then we won't be able to run modern locomotives - but we do have the choice. (CJL)

Yes but for someone who runs DC with close to 50 locomotives successfully & not with the inclination or time to convert those locos & to carry out any other necessary modifications what do I do? Give up the hobby?

[spamcan61]

1 minute ago, Pinehill said:

Yes but for someone who runs DC with close to 50 locomotives successfully & not with the inclination or time to convert those locos & to carry out any other necessary modifications what do I do? Give up the hobby?

Buying a new controller would be a less drastic option.

[MikeParkin65]

16 minutes ago, Pinehill said:

Yes but for someone who runs DC with close to 50 locomotives successfully & not with the inclination or time to convert those locos & to carry out any other necessary modifications what do I do? Give up the hobby?

It does depend on what you define your interest in the hobby to be. If it is collecting new loco's (and nothing wrong with that) then you have the choice of changing your controller, chipping the loco's, buying but not running or simply not buying.  Personally I'd go DCC but 50+ loco's is a significant expense. Best second option is a new DC controller I'd have thought.

[dibber25]

1 minute ago, MikeParkin65 said:

It does depend on what you define your interest in the hobby to be. If it is collecting new loco's (and nothing wrong with that) then you have the choice of changing your controller, chipping the loco's, buying but not running or simply not buying.  Personally I'd go DCC but 50+ loco's is a significant expense. Best second option is a new DC controller I'd have thought.

Yes, that's the best choice in the circumstances. I sympathise with those who have large collections and no intention of going DCC - I'm one of them. I run my British-outline on a Gaugemaster analog controller that' s best part of 20 years old and it's fine with the modern motors as well as the old. During the lock-down its been used to test review models - including the 94XX and our 16XXs - and they've been fine. I have DCC on my North American layout because I had a far smaller commitment in locos that I couldn't easily fit with decoders. Even so, I have one or two special models that I detailed and repainted, that I can no longer run. (I also have vinyl records - with a cheap modern player and VHS tapes which are now useless but which I don't like to throw away!) (CJL)

[Pinehill]

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

Buying a new controller would be a less drastic 

 

I already have an alternative quality non feedback controller! The locos I have just don’t run as smoothly with it as they do with the feedback unit. To run the new coreless models means losing the running qualities of the existing locos or changing the controller each time a different type of motor is run. Impractical & a pain.