Hornby transition away from tender drive

[RobinofLoxley]

Is there any document or source anywhere that shows which Hornby models are tender drive/or ringfield type motors and which are worm drive? For example the Hornby Guide might say what kind of motor a unit has but thats not enough for me to tell.

[cypherman]

Hi Robin,

The easiest ways to tell are look at the coal in the tender. If it is a huge mound then it is likely to be tender drive as they needed the extra height to fit the Ringfield motor in.  I would not be worried about tender drive loco's. If you buy one just fit it with a CD motor conversion kit.

This web site is a good source of information. Plus all the service sheets you could want for Hornby engines.

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_menu.asp

[RobinofLoxley]

3 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi Robin,

The easiest ways to tell are look at the coal in the tender. If it is a huge mound then it is likely to be tender drive as they needed the extra height to fit the Ringfield motor in.  I would not be worried about tender drive loco's. If you buy one just fit it with a CD motor conversion kit.

This web site is a good source of information. Plus all the service sheets you could want for Hornby engines.

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_menu.asp

Actually a lot of the later releases dont have service sheet references.

 

Thanks for the tip about mounded coal!

 

But also, what about diesels etc, no coal involved; tank locos?

 

The info motor = 5 pole skew wound, is this enough to detemine non-ringfield?

 

FWIW I've been waiting for the conversion kit for an old (heirloom) Mallard from strathpfeffer, with 12v motor, but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming. Theres a conversion with a 6v but I was a bit nervous about using it. Its to make a heritage special hauling Pulllmans.

Edited February 24 by RobinofLoxley

[Steamport Southport]

I don't think any of the Hornby tank engines ever had Ringfield motors.

 

The Lima ones did, but Hornby have never reissued them.

 

 

 

Jason

[kevinlms]

55 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

 

The info motor = 5 pole skew wound, is this enough to detemine non-ringfield?

Well, those wouldn't be Ringfield drives.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

16 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

The info motor = 5 pole skew wound, is this enough to detemine non-ringfield?

Yes, if that's what Hornby state. The caveat is that a later owner or dealer may carelessly lob that term into a s/h sale description through ignorance or by intention...

 

The service sheets are available on Hornby's site. Here's one:

https://support.Hornby.com/hc/en-gb/article_attachments/5620233797138

 

But you have to learn how to read them. 

It's got the good black can motor, 5 pole, skew wound, in the loco where it should be.

 

It's also got a few dated design items:

The mechanically inept motor retainer/worm cover (I glue in the motors to take the load off this item in any model with this construction).

See the wire from the tag under the screw that holds the motor retainer in place? That tells you the chassis block is live, and the 'connection' via the chassis block to one of the pick up strips is by means of a cast pin that rests on it (eliminating this feature by removing the cast pin and the wire on the tag, and soldering in a wire connection from pick up strip to motor terminal or DCC decoder socket would be my choice, as it's a source of 'mystery shorts' in DCC operation).

 

Hornby started to get fully with the programme on steam products introduced all newly tooled from about 2006 with the Britannia: solid motor mount, all wired circuit from pick up wipers to decoder socket to motor, isolated chassis block. These go on the layout and work with no significant trouble.

50 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

But also, what about diesels...

The 08 has a good mechanism (but the Bachmann is superior thanks to a sprung axle which is a major aid to reliable pick up on a  short wheelbase model).

The twin bogie diesels, classes 30/31, 50, 56, 67, 73, HST, with centre motor drives are potentially mechanically decent but may need work. The motors are good, but IME the gear trains in the bogies have too much sideways slack so tend to be poorly meshed; addition of washers to keep everything centred is possible.

 

Never looked at their ex-Lima bogie drive traction tyre dependent diesels, these should have gone extinct long ago IMO. 

 

Straightforwardly, there's no substitute for doing the homework by searching through Hornby's service sheet files for the models of interest, and having picked what you want, then comparing the construction with the diagram. HTH

[cypherman]

Hi Robin,

To my knowledge there was only one Hornby diesel that had a Ringfield motor. That was the early class 47/Brush type 4. And mine still runs like a dream. But then again it has the early Ringfield motor that was designed by Fleischmann. It went in all the silver seal locos until they managed to cock up the production of that motor and had to  introduced their own version. You can tell the difference in that the later motor is all plastic. While the early ones had metal components. 

Edited February 24 by cypherman

[stewartingram]

Hornby called the "tender drive/motor bogie" the Ringfield motor. It appeared in many diesel locos, sometimes replacing earlier types.

47 - (replacing the initial Fleischmann type)

52 (new)

25 (new)

21/29 - (new)

37 - (replaced the 31 type bogie)

35 -  (replaced the earlier bogie)

110 - (new)

I'm sure I may have missed some, and haven't mentioned all the steam tyoes.

 

I've had hundreds of them through me in my repair shop days. Contrary to popular opinion, I've always thought of them as good motors, easily serviced, and if put together with tlc, actually better than new. Add a decent controller and they were a motor for life. No need to replace with anything different.

Past my time but I believe they were later changed to a 5 pole armature type as well.

 

Edited February 24 by stewartingram

[vikingsmb]

On 24/02/2024 at 10:34, cypherman said:

Hi Robin,

The easiest ways to tell are look at the coal in the tender. If it is a huge mound then it is likely to be tender drive as they needed the extra height to fit the Ringfield motor in.  I would not be worried about tender drive loco's. If you buy one just fit it with a CD motor conversion kit.

This web site is a good source of information. Plus all the service sheets you could want for Hornby engines.

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_menu.asp

why? serviced they are actually decent runners, no need for cd motor 

[The Johnster]

These 'Ringfields' or pancake motors are about as simple as you can get, and pretty much bombproof reliable.  They are not quite the same as the old Hornby Dublo cab-filling Ringfields, which had a vertically-mounted armature drivng the rear axle by worm & cog gears, and were heavier than Dark Star material, being hewn from solid steel by big blokes wiv 'ammas'n'chizzles, the sort of chaps who featured in Soviet-era Hero of the Glorious Revolutionary People's Republic posters.  The weak point of the pancakes was that they drove through plastic spur gears, which apart from being prone to splitting introduced a lot of friction into the drivetrain, which affected good slow running and smooth stops or starts, made worse by traction tyres which compromise good pickup performance and spread crud all over your layout...

 

This means that, although the motor can be made to run very smoothly and reliably slowly indeed on it's own, and there is a limited amount of improvement available from CD replacement motors, the higher torque of the CD motors makes them significantly better at smooth slow running in service in the loco on the layout, as they are better able to overcome the spur-gear friction.

[RobinofLoxley]

Whatever the rights and wrongs, I am going to do one conversion as a project. I have an old A4 with a motor with a maximum speed of two fifths of nothing and little pulling power. I could replace any of the parts until I get lucky, but I have decided that Im going to do a CD motor replacement.  I have increased the number of pickups in the loco, something I have already done successfully with others, this led to big performance improvements except in this loco (and I have already swapped the tender over as a further check) so I have to do something.

 

The idea is to run it as a heritage train on the style of late 50's early 60's excursions, with carriage stock being the matchstick body style 1920's pullmans, with lights. I want to haul up to 8, and up a 2% gradient. (This wasn't why I asked the original question, btw)

Edited March 3 by RobinofLoxley

[GrumpyPenguin]

There is nothing wrong with the concept of a ringfield motor. The problem arises when they are produced to a cost rather than a quality.

I remember back in the 70's when a certain company replaced the tender drives in the locomotives of their demo' layouts with Flesichmann ones.

[cctransuk]

30 minutes ago, chiefpenguin said:

... a certain company replaced the tender drives in the locomotives of their demo' layouts with Flesichmann ones.

 

..... and copied them when they produced their first 9F models.

 

CJI.