SP H-12-44 Project

jwaldo Nov 11, 2022

  1. tehachapifan

    tehachapifan TrainBoard Member

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    That came out awesome!!!:eek:

    Seriously, that's a 5-star build!
     
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  2. Sumner

    Sumner TrainBoard Member

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    Agree....

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    Hard to believe you turned the 'before' into the 'after'. Great work,

    Sumner
     
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  3. SP-Wolf

    SP-Wolf TrainBoard Supporter

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    Outstanding!!

    And - thanks, -- now I will have to revisit mine. A rebuild will be in the works.

    You are a true inspiration!!

    Best regards,
    Wolf
     
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  4. jwaldo

    jwaldo TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks y'all! This has definitely been an interesting project from start to finish. I'll have to revisit some of my other 'outdated' models!

    I put the headlight covers in place and ran it on the club layout for a couple of hours. It runs flawlessly, although I still need to tweak the speed table; it doesn't take off until the throttle hits 30%, then I can back it down to a nice slow speed. At least the lights all work like they should!

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    Once the UDE light lenses are in place, this loco will be as good as done.
     
  5. jwaldo

    jwaldo TrainBoard Member

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    After a year of mostly being a shelf queen number 2381 is back on the bench for a prime mover upgrade and a new lease on life. The original motor was pretty worn out and performance was unacceptable for a switcher. No amount of fiddling with CVs for BEMF, dither, starting voltage, speed tables, etc. could coax decent running out of it.

    Luckily micromotor.eu offers a remotoring kit for this locomotive. Mine arrived from a shop in Germany yesterday:

    IMG_5875.JPG

    The kit includes a small coreless motor, driveshaft extensions, worms, a 3D printed housing to hold the coreless motor inside the Minitrix chassis, and some wire. Only the black and red wires are part of the kit; the other wires in the photo came out of my parts drawer. I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d need to lengthen the motor wires to reach the smaller new motor, but if I did I wanted to use the NMRA standard orange and gray. No instructions are included, but they are available to download from the company’s website.

    After fitting the parts together to check how they fit I made a couple of small adjustments to the motor housing. First, I used a Dremel burr to slightly enlarge the slots for the motor shafts, which were a VERY close fit. Second, I filed a small notch in the housing to route the motor wires through:

    IMG_5879.JPG

    Finally I checked the wire lengths and determined I had enough length to solder the decoder wires directly to the new motor. The spare wire went back into the parts drawer.

    First everything gets attached to the motor:

    IMG_5878.JPG

    There’s a little + symbol next to one of the motor terminals, but the motor polarity isn’t too critical since the direction can be flipped via CV. The shaft extensions and worms were glued to the motor using Loctite. I used the blue kind, because with my luck lately I can’t be trusted with the red stuff. :cautious:

    The 3D printed adapter drops right into the motor slot in the frame, and a little canopy glue secured the motor in the adapter well enough to keep it from spinning, but not so permanently that I can’t remove if I ever need to. After letting everything cure overnight I added a little grease to the worms, tidied up the wire routing, and it was good to go:

    IMG_5882.JPG

    Wow, what a difference! Its minimum speed is a little faster than a modern loco thanks to the truck gearing, but it starts moving at the first speed step, and runs quieter than some of the modern locos in my fleet. Now I can put it back into switching duty.
     
  6. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    That's a very nice upgrade for a good looking engine sir. Nice work. (y)(y)(y)
     
  7. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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    Too bad it didn't come with a way (new chassis?) to add flywheels to that motor...
     
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  8. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    This thread reminded me that I have this shelf queen. Since I model modern era, I'm not sure if it would be worth re motoring or not. Step 1 would of course be to strip that horribly done paint job off it.
    20240307_200607.jpg
     
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  9. Carl Sowell

    Carl Sowell TrainBoard Supporter

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    R.J. - a truly great project on your part ! You have quite a talent there mi amigo !

    A lot of great input from all, that's what is cool about TB !

    Now I'll show my ignorance and ask if the following images are the same loco as discussed above. I was given this loco approx. 30 years ago by our churches female Minister. Her father had given it to her when she was very young, however she did not play trains. The original box was not included so I have, I think, identified it as a Minitrix 2005 Santa Fe FM H-12-44. I sure hope I am right as I just placed an order with DM-Toys for the conversion kit.

    It ran very well about 30 years ago when I tested it. All the truck gears are metal. I have not stripped it down.
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    I am right ? ? ?

    Thanks for looking and above all be well !
     
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  10. jwaldo

    jwaldo TrainBoard Member

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    Yep Carl, that's the one! In my experience the older specimens actually run better than the newer ones. Something to do with the drivetrain tooling wearing down over time, I believe. The conversion kit turns it into a great little puller.
     
  11. Sumner

    Sumner TrainBoard Member

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    Great write-up and I'll have to think about possibly doing this at some point to the one I have.

    Carl you probably don't need it but....

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    ... I did one of these and have the tear-down and decoder install starting ( HERE ). Not too bad a runner as is but looks like the motor upgrade really helps.

    Sumner
     
  12. Carl Sowell

    Carl Sowell TrainBoard Supporter

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    Oh my gosh what a wonderful sharing of your talent Sumner ! For sure I need the help and really appreciate all the help I can get. ! Muchas gracias ! That is a great source for an old fart to have to help with the project. In my case it will be converted to SP unit without all the great detail work that R.J. did on his, a true artist. I ordered the conversion kit from DM-Toy in Germany yesterday. Will be one more project in the que.

    Be well !
     
  13. jwaldo

    jwaldo TrainBoard Member

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    One addendum I'll add after playing with the remotored unit for a while: if has a DCC decoder you'll almost certainly have to adjust some CVs to accommodate the coreless motor. The TCS decoder in 2381 needed its Back-EMF disabled and the dither settings adjusted; the BEMF algorithm is calibrated for a traditional motor, and the coreless motor confused it into going nearly to full throttle at speed step 1. I believe ESU decoders have specific settings to handle coreless motors, but I'm not sure about other brands.
     
  14. tehachapifan

    tehachapifan TrainBoard Member

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    I also started work on one of these quite some time ago but stopped. This thread has the juices flowing on it again, although I don't think I can achieve quite the same results as the fantastic model in this thread!

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  15. Carl Sowell

    Carl Sowell TrainBoard Supporter

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    -RJ, please pardon my hi-jack of your thread.

    Here is the one, if I still have the decals, I am thinking of doing (Niles Canyon) :
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    Be well !
     
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  16. Sumner

    Sumner TrainBoard Member

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    I forgot to mention in the other post about downsizing the wheel flanges if needed. In the video I posted one can see it ran on my ME code 55 track but did make some noise on it so I downsized the flanges. Doesn't take long and....

    [​IMG]

    .... isn't that hard except...

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    ... for the disassembly part. More info on how I did it here....

    https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Locos-1/page-6.html

    Sumner
     
  17. Carl Sowell

    Carl Sowell TrainBoard Supporter

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    I must say thanks to all who posted on RJ's thread, a great deal of valuable knowledge. Well guess what ? My conversion kit came in from Germany after only a 4 day trip. Not too bad !
    This be it :
    [​IMG]

    So this project will be added to the que along with my :
    1. 2nd AC-9 bash
    2. GS-1 bash
    3. GS-4 re-do
    4. IM F units
    5. n scale 18 wheelers

    Thanks RJ for your patience with my interrupting of your thread. This 3D motor case looks a tad different from yours, do you think I need to soak it ?

    Be well !
     
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  18. jwaldo

    jwaldo TrainBoard Member

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    Carl,

    I didn't soak mine, just gave it a very light sanding with 800-grit sandpaper then wiped it down with rubbing alcohol. So far the minimal surface prep hasn't caused any issues (knock on wood!)
     
  19. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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    Carl Sowell: First of all, your queue is sure shorter than mine but we share several models (AC-9, GS-4) but it took me a second to realize what you meant with the 18 wheelers...I know that SP had 10 wheelers and 12 wheelers, but an 18 wheeler(?)...then I realized you were talking trucks :confused:
     
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