ERR upgrade to Weaver E8s

I don’t believe its a flywheel issue. Do your motors look like these? This is also a Weaver E8 now powered with a Cruise Commander. Runs as expected with ERR Cruise.

Pete

Check with Pat @harmonyards for worm replacements.  The older Williams and Weaver engines sometimes had substandard motors, so that's where I'd start.

Pete, yes, I have the same type of motor.  Thanks for the photo.

I did miss the section on selecting a motor type.  But it made no difference when I double checked that I had the large motor selected.  Sitting upside down on the bench, the motors do not turn until several steps in.  I will try to set the nudge and see if that helps.

Gunrunner, I will check with Pat about replacements.  Thanks.

Bob, I would first make sure the traction tires are not rubbing on the brake shoes. Also pull the motors out and make sure they spin freely and the grease hasn’t hardened.

To be honest I thought the motors might be similar to Mabuchi 550s and would be current hogs but found they run as smoothly with low current draw as any pair of Mabuchi 385s that are commonly used here.

Pete

How did run before the conversion? If it ran fine check your wiring.

Either the motors aren't turning freely due to some friction in the drivetrain, or they're really crappy motors.  Pete has the logical steps, make sure the motors spin freely.

A drive motor on the bench with no load shouldn't pull more than 200-300 milliamps with 6-8 volts on it, but I've seen some of the old motors in Weaver and Williams pull over an amp!  Those are toast IMO.

Here's a Mabuchi RS-545SH motor on the bench.

It's drawing less than 300ma at 12V.

Let's try a big 'ol Pittman

Same story there, even lower.  This one draws less than 200ma.

Judd,

I just got them, but did test run them.  They seemed to run fine, though startup speed was kind of fast.  To be expected for that type of motor.

They even run somewhat choppy at the initial speed steps when the motors are removed from the trucks.  Maybe the ERR board has a problem.  I can try it with another engine later, I have to move on to other things, like taxes.

A quick test shows the (pair of) motors draw .67 amps at 8 volts.  Even down at 3v they draw around .4 amps.  A pair of similar motors pulled out of an old Williams trainmaster draw about .1amps at 10 volts.

I have not run them for some time, and have never converted them, but my Weaver E8's did not have a particularly "fast startup speed".

Pete's mention of brake shoes and traction tires rang a bell - I converted a Williams NW2 to ERR cruise and it ran poorly (in one direction). Had to "goose it" with the throttle to get it going; ran erratically when it did.

One of the truck side frames mounting holes had been drilled a bit off, and the side frame was a skosh off-center, but hard to see. The brake shoe and the traction tire literally had the brakes on. Prototypical; not in a good way. I slightly Dremel'd the shoe surface, and problem gone.

Bob, I did the same conversion some years ago. My AA E8s have both units powered, 4  545motors, and I hooked them in a series within each unit and the 2 pairs of motors parallel and they run fine. Before converting I did remove the motors and cleaned out the gearboxes and installed new grease. When finished the individual trucks all began to run at around 3v on my DC supply. Once back together with the pairs of motors in series they ran at 5v. I don't remember the current draw from back then but now after several years they still turn very freely and the AA set pull about .75A when running conventional without a load at 6v.    However the cruise control is not as good as some of my locos with 2/ 385motors wired parallel.           j

@bkbob posted:

Judd,

I just got them, but did test run them.  They seemed to run fine, though startup speed was kind of fast.  To be expected for that type of motor.

They even run somewhat choppy at the initial speed steps when the motors are removed from the trucks.  Maybe the ERR board has a problem.  I can try it with another engine later, I have to move on to other things, like taxes.

I'd try connecting the Cruise Commander to a different motor.  It's obviously possible to have a problem with the board, but it's pretty uncommon for them to do something like you are seeing.  Based on my long term experience with the older motors from these brands, I'd suspect the motors before the Cruise Commander.

Bob,  I think Samhongsa made these E8s though I am not sure. But I also think whoever did was buying factory over-runs for motors and sometimes they had 5 pole motors and sometime 3 pole motors. And, sometime the static resistance of the motors varied as well. Meaning, sometimes you got 9v motors and sometime you got 12, or 16v motors.  Just the luck of the draw what you get. I do note that without a flywheel they are all slightly jerky right at start-up. I have three AA sets of these and they pull like crazy with 4  545 motors. Don't think you can load them down with too long a train. Two of my three AA sets have been converted to TMCC one with a Lionel DCDR motor driver (no cruise) and one set with ERR cruise commander. After the conversions I think the DCDR is good enough for the 4 545 motors and the ERR is not preforming up to parr driving 4 motors.          j

John, thanks for sharing your results.  It sounds like you are getting similar results, with jerky start-ups without flywheels.  It does not seem worth it to put in cruise without flywheels or new motors.

I think four of these motors might hold speed pretty good on grade, but I really like the slow startups with cruise so I will probably try to get the motors replaced at some point in the future.

Here is my Weaver E8. One Cruise Commander driving 4 motors. Speed step 1.

Pete

Pete,

That is way smoother than mine.  I will try to put the motors in series and see if that helps.

@bkbob posted:

Pete,

That is way smoother than mine.  I will try to put the motors in series and see if that helps.

Mine are in parallel. You can try series but I don’t believe Jon Z recommends that.

Pete

Well, series didn't help out.  I think I need new motors.

I'm contemplating acquiring Lionel E8 Legacy boards during the annual parts sale and installing them in my Weaver E8s.  Am I crazy?  Before I order, I would check motor functionality and grease hardening, for sure.

Bob, try unhooking everything and start all over.

Series for the Cruise Commander is a bad idea, it screws up the back-EMF sensing as I recall.  What Pete illustrates is how a Cruise Commander should react at speed step one, and that's pretty independent of exact motor specifications as with speed control, the board should keep pouring on the power until the engine moves.  If it doesn't move when you actually crack the throttle to the first or second speed step, something is broken.

@KarlDL posted:

I'm contemplating acquiring Lionel E8 Legacy boards during the annual parts sale and installing them in my Weaver E8s.  Am I crazy?  Before I order, I would check motor functionality and grease hardening, for sure.

Unless your Weaver E8s have motors with flywheels, you are crazy (your words).  Legacy speed control requires a sensor on the flywheel.

@Bob posted:

Legacy speed control requires a sensor on the flywheel.

Further complicated by the flywheel diameter and number of pulses per revolution ... and, yeah, the motors have no flywheels.  Absent motor replacement and pulse-counting optimization, it seems like this idea needs to meet an early death.  Fortunately, I also have Sunset E8s.

@KarlDL posted:

Further complicated by the flywheel diameter and number of pulses per revolution ... and, yeah, the motors have no flywheels.  Absent motor replacement and pulse-counting optimization, it seems like this idea needs to meet an early death.  Fortunately, I also have Sunset E8s.

Stick with Blunami Karl. Few if any drawbacks for diesels, less expensive and capable driving all the features of any Legacy diesel.

Pete

I have solved the E8 conversion issues, so if you are  interested, read on.

I struck out in finding motor replacements, so I began to think maybe I would luck out and find a set of MTH E8s that either had body damage or electronics damage that I could pick up on the cheap. (MTH bought the Weaver E8 tooling, so you can get a Weaver E8 shell on a MTH frame).  Amazingly, the next day there was a set of PS2 E8s that had the PS2 electronics fried for a cheap enough price that I thought why not.

So I did an EOB upgrade and they are working perfectly with all 4 motors running off the same board.  When I get more adventurous, I will put back the smoke units, drill the appropriate hole in the shell, and add the smoke stack (which is missing from the Weaver model).  But for now, they will remain smokeless.

So back to the Weaver frames.  I put the MTH shells on, but there are some issues.  The front mounts for the screws are shorter, so I had to add some washers, and got them together.  But they ran really bad, and made grumbling noises.  I figured out that the huge motors were hitting the top of the shells and making all the racket, so more washers were needed to fixed it.

Looking over the frames, they were somewhat bent up in the middle so that also contributed to the motors hitting the shells.  Now thinking back, I wonder if the bent frames was what sent me on this journey, and the reason that the cruise commander did not work very will in the 1st place.