New Dapol Flying Scotsman, Noisy Runner

[Brooklyn]

Hello,

New to this forum, so I'm hoping to get some advice on a recent purchase. In question is a new N gauge Flying Scotsman from Dapol, Apple green LNER. The motor is in the tender and drives the wheels on the locomotive via a drive-shaft. I have the dcc ready model and run DC on my layout. The Locomotive runs fine, with smooth low speed performance. The annoying thing is, it's noisy. I've isolated the noise to the tender, and it sounds like a buzzing vibration, especially at low speeds. I will qualify my location, as I do reside in the USA, but I do use the best power supplies and none of my other locomotives (Graham Farish, Kato, and other Dapol units) act like this. I've gone so far as to insulate the tender with foam to eliminate the noise, and that has helped. The loco is fully run in with over ten hours of running time alone and under load. Could the motor be bad? I did lightly lubricate the bushes at either end of the motor, being careful to avoid the commutator. This did nothing to improve the noise. It's frustrating as the unit runs fine, it just sounds awful. Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.

Brooklyn  

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, Brooklyn said:

it sounds like a buzzing vibration, especially at low speeds.

 

Are you able to run the model on a rolling road of some form without the tender body on to see if there's any vibration or to see if you narrow the source down further. Does applying any pressure to the motor change the noise?

[woodenhead]

All of my Dapol steam engines were noisy, lovely runners but noisy.

[Kris]

Dapol tender locos tend to be very noisy in my experience. 

[Brooklyn]

Just as an update to my previous posting, I replaced the stock motor with a coreless one, and that solved the problem. There is a kit available that comes with a 3D printed bracket that pops right in with minimal fuss. The noise issue is now greatly reduced, the only noise coming from the locomotive itself as well as the trundle noise from the weight of the cast body. Shame that I had to go to such lengths to get a satisfactory result, but at least it is fixed. Thanks for your comments.

 Brooklyn