A LOOK AT THE INSIDE OF THE NEW LIONEL STRASBURG 2-10-0 #90

Much sloppier wiring than many of the recent steam products, lots of wires strung between the boiler and the frame to get in the way when you try to put it back together!

Wow!!! and you have some courage to open that up!!! Thanks for the video..

Merry Christmas!!  Steve

Rear facing Mabuchi?

@rplst8 posted:

Rear facing Mabuchi?

Yes, same setup as the h10

Curious what this hole is for in the bottom of the loco:

@Crazy Train posted:

Curious what this hole is for in the bottom of the loco:

That's one of the holes the mounting screws and wingnut lock into for securing to the metal base packaged with it.

Thanks for opening this one up Alex! Very solid setup all things considered, especially as an all new tooling.

Any chance we can see into the motor gearbox?

I only ask just to see what kind of gear assembly we're dealing with here. Lionel's track record of gearboxes has been a bit of a roll of the dice (with the K4's, Mikes, H10's especially) so it'd be very beneficial to look into it and see if there's any excessive play.

And if Alex is kind enough to open it back up, or perhaps the next time he peeks inside a loco, it would be great if we could find out the overall gear ratio.

Back in the day, companies like Lobaugh, Max Gray, and US Hobbies used to publish the motor type and gear ratio right in their magazine ads.  With speed control, it's not as important as it used to be, but it would be nice if this info were more readily available.

Alex your work is amazing, and I appreciate all of the effort that you put into sharing these on the Forum.  Thank you!

great Job as usual always give a great video n very detailed, we always look forward to your videos which helps all forum members!

Alan

I was hoping there would be a custom run of these in Western Maryland. It's interesting that Lionel has five pick-up rollers on this model and MTH only used the two on the tender. I assume that this upgrade will make it much better on switches.  It also appears that Lionel used the smaller marker lights from MTH. I think the smaller ones look more realistic.

My question on. This engine is what happened to the infrared tether?  Why do I have a 20 pin connector now

@Alex M posted:

This is a real beauty, Luckily mine is running well, Although i didn't try the smoke units yet. Only issue i had was one cab window popped out (easy fix) . It really is a beautiful model. Pictures and video to follow

Thanks for looking, Alex

It looks like it was pretty easy to get the shell off.  Was it just 4 screws?

I always wondered why they do quick disconnect's on some wires between the shell and frame and not others.  Those are the one I always end up breaking off by moving the shell around.

@speperak posted:

I was hoping there would be a custom run of these in Western Maryland. It's interesting that Lionel has five pick-up rollers on this model and MTH only used the two on the tender. I assume that this upgrade will make it much better on switches.  It also appears that Lionel used the smaller marker lights from MTH. I think the smaller ones look more realistic.

Different decapod, this isn't the Russian.

Alex, is the duct tape something you added to keep things together or did it come that way?

Petr

@bluelinec4 posted:

My question on. This engine is what happened to the infrared tether?  Why do I have a 20 pin connector now

The Strasburg #90 has the IR tether.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

The Strasburg #90 has the IR tether.

Wow  Why does that have it and the Russsian Iron one not

Hi Everyone ,

John, yes i was hoping the wiring was as neat as the Dreyfus

cincytrains, thanks.

Crazy train, the holes on the bottom chassis are for mounting it to the plate it comes with from the factory. The tender has them too.

Thomas, I don't have the time to open it up again, i will try and check after all the holidays

Ted S, I don't have the time to open it right now, i will do it again after the holidays

Alan, thanks

Ben, it has an IR tether, i'm not sure why your engine has a 20 pin wired tether.

Sean, to take off the shell is actually 6 screws, I originally thought it was 8 . I also agree with you about the wiring, all wiring should have disconnects so everything can be unplugged if needed .

Pete, the black tape is something they added, it looks like it wraps around the entire LCP3 PCB, under the PCB is a protective plastic to keep solder joints from touching chassis .

Thanks everyone for your comments and input, if i have time soon i'll open it up again and see if i can answer more of your questions.

Thanks, Alex

@bluelinec4 posted:

Wow  Why does that have it and the Russsian Iron one not

I would guess because they were able to jam the LCP board in the engine in the Strasburg engine but not the Russian. I can attest there is no room for that board in the Russian. The IR can transfer serial data but not power which it would have to do if the LCP was in the tender.

Pete

@Norton posted:

I would guess because they were able to jam the LCP board in the engine in the Strasburg engine but not the Russian. I can attest there is no room for that board in the Russian. The IR can transfer serial data but not power which it would have to do if the LCP was in the tender.

Pete

Well, they could design a whole new bi-directional IR link and do what MTH does with PS/3, have a small board in the locomotive that actually does all the power handling.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, they could design a whole new bi-directional IR link and do what MTH does with PS/3, have a small board in the locomotive that actually does all the power handling.

Or just get the MTH engine. Works for me.

Pete

@Norton posted:

Or just get the MTH engine. Works for me.

And that would be another solution!

@bluelinec4 posted:

My question on. This engine is what happened to the infrared tether?  Why do I have a 20 pin connector now

Probably because you have the Russian Decapod, not the Strasburg Decapod. They are completely different models.

Hey all,

Sorry to piggyback off Alex’s thread, but I decided to get brave and check out the gearbox innards on the 90.

While it seems to have a little play in the gears like the other Mabuchi 385 motored steamers, it doesn’t seem as drastic, and it looks like Lionel made the gears seemingly  wider to help prevent gear grinding if they do shift.

Of course this is just my take, but I would like to hear from the more thorough gear experts. I should note the 90 gears seem to run much quieter than the ones in my Light Mikados. I also thoroughly greased these innards, regardless.

Interesting!  While you had the shell off, did you happen to count the flywheel revolutions required for one complete rotation of the driving wheels?  I'm guessing that most of these compound gearboxes are the same, and in the ballpark of 22:1.  But it would be nice to know for sure.

I'll have to check later this week to see, Ted, but it would be something worth looking at.

I will say this thing can creep pretty well with its small diameter drive wheels.

So hopefully this’ll be the last time I have to open 90 for awhile, but in operation there’s approximately 18 flywheel rotations per each full drive wheel revolution. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a small locomotive with significantly smaller wheels than most.

I forgot to check mine and boxed it up...did Lionel provide plugs for the mounting screw holes.  Normally black plugs to cover the hole.

They didn't, but considering I'm never going to be running it upside down, no one should really notice them.

@Alex M posted:

This is a real beauty, Luckily mine is running well, Although i didn't try the smoke units yet. Only issue i had was one cab window popped out (easy fix) . It really is a beautiful model. Pictures and video to follow

Thanks for looking, Alex

Thank you again for helping me replace all the smoke units on my Vision Big Boy a few years ago!

Does anyone know why the gears are allowed to slide from side to side. One would think they would be press fit over the knurled shaft. If this was designed as a feature of the gearbox I’d sure like to know what purpose it serves.

The gears are firmly affixed to the shaft.  It's the whole shaft that's sliding.

Depending on how "bad" the problem is, you can sometimes see this movement from the outside when the loco changes direction.  The brass(?) bearings for that intermediate shaft are visible through the spokes in a driving wheel, or just above the loco frame.  There have been reports on the Forum of those bearings wearing out prematurely, as either a cause or effect of the failure.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a compound gearbox that uses idler gears.  The much-discussed problems are due to a combination of the tolerances, and materials used in some examples.  But it would be nice if they could figure out a way to make the intermediate shaft replaceable, without having to buy a whole new chassis!

The worm gear grinding issue feels like less of a problem here on the 90's compared to the K4's, Mikes, H10's, etc., but the bushing issue probably wouldn't hurt to keep in the back of the mind. I haven't seen nearly as many issues with that as the gear grinds (the only ones I've seen reported are again in the first run K4's), but we'll see how these hold up in the next 10 years.

@Mikado 4501 posted:

The worm gear grinding issue feels like less of a problem here on the 90's compared to the K4's, Mikes, H10's, etc., but the bushing issue probably wouldn't hurt to keep in the back of the mind. I haven't seen nearly as many issues with that as the gear grinds (the only ones I've seen reported are again in the first run K4's), but we'll see how these hold up in the next 10 years.

Rick O’s H10 was hit by that bug, and the last K4 run had no changes made to the gearbox. I suppose they could have changed the metallurgy by that time.

Either way the problem (actual premature gear wear) is not limited to just the first run of K4s.

@Ted S posted:

The gears are firmly affixed to the shaft.  It's the whole shaft that's sliding.

Thanks Ted. I didn’t realize that. I thought the gear was sliding along the knurled part of the shaft. Pat will be fixing my two problematic engines so I’ll be fine.