Motor currently used in MTH Premier steam locomotives?

Really? No one has popped the shell off a Premier steam locomotive made in the past couple of years to see what motor is in it? 

Clearly, you don’t know the secret squirrel hand shake buddy!....hopefully keeping the thread popping up, somebody will get tired of seeing it and give an answer.??......maybe???.........Pat

IMO you would be better off posting this in the main 3-rail forum, MTH isn't going to answer here.

Pittman (now owned by Ametek) is one of the few companies that makes a 7-pole motor, so I would guess that's what they're still using in the premium locos large enough to accommodate it.  For sure they are not spending the money on Buehler motors.   I think the label on the motor actually says Ametek, so their lawyers probably advised them to stop printing Pittman on the box. 

To my knowledge, smaller Premier locos like the 0-6-0 and 0-4-0 switchers never used Pittman motors, instead making do with the ubiquitous 5-pole Mabuchi RS-385.

Honestly I'm not sure how relevant it is anymore.  I've done a LOT of first-hand testing.  I've observed that operation is more affected by the gear ratio, whether or not the gears are back-drivable, and the electronic speed control algorithms than it is by the quality of the motor.  The motor and the speed control algorithm have to be well-matched.  My $.02.

I'll try putting it in the 3 rail forum and see. I'm just curious what MTH is using. Lionel used to use Pittmans but switched to Cannon motors. I'm curious what MTH is using now.

It is a knockoff made in Korea or China.  Have you priced pittman motors recently after Amtek took over.  They cost more than an engine, especially for obsolete styles.

Good news is pittman do not fail often, but I have repaired a few, and even rebuilt a few.  G

GGG posted:

It is a knockoff made in Korea or China.  Have you priced pittman motors recently after Amtek took over.  They cost more than an engine, especially for obsolete styles.

Good news is pittman do not fail often, but I have repaired a few, and even rebuilt a few.  G

George, are they using a motor that sorta looks like a Pittman in how it’s constructed? .....Tsiny has a motor that has the same build technique like a Pittman, it looks like you could open it up and service it....unlike the Mubachi or Cannon.....thanks for the info!.....Pat

PS, are you going to the Raleigh show, or the VTC show in January? ....we should grab a sandwich sometime!...

GGG posted:

It is a knockoff made in Korea or China.  Have you priced pittman motors recently after Amtek took over.  They cost more than an engine, especially for obsolete styles.

Good news is pittman do not fail often, but I have repaired a few, and even rebuilt a few.  G

So it's similar in construction to a Pittman. I've noticed the drastic increase in prices for Pittmans since Amtek took over, so I figured MTH went to something else.

I like the Pittmans more than other can motors. I find them smoother at low speeds with much more torque. I've got a buddy with a Legacy GS4 from 2016 with a Cannon motor. We've done a test between his Legacy GS4 under Legacy control and my Premier GS4 (PS1 converted to PS2 3V with a 9434 Pittman) under DCS pulling the same 8 car passenger train. The train is 8 Lionel 18" aluminum passenger cars. My GS4 will start the train at a lower speed with less current draw (starts moving the train at 2 scale mph and can run at that speed without stalling) than his GS4. The Legacy GS4 manages to get down to around 5 scale mph. Mine with the Pittman is noticeably smoother as well.

In any case future purchases of Lionel or MTH large steam will be older Pittman powered models for me. I'll sacrifice some bells and whistles (pun intended 😁) for a smoother motor. This is coming from a guy who still enjoys running Pullmor powered F3s and Geeps (albeit with AC Commanders).

I've had one Pittman fail in all the years I've worked on this stuff, and it appeared that it had a motor stall and just burned the armature up.  This was on a 3rd Rail steamer with a QSI board.  The QSI board was also dead, probably died killing the motor.

I've had three Canon motors croak on Legacy steamers so far, and two of the three destroyed the RCMC for a clean sweep and a big repair bill!  I was able to repair the cooked drivers on the third RCMC and save it.  All three of the motors exhibited a dead short.  I pulled one apart, but I did so much damage getting it apart that I wasn't really able to determine anything about the failure.

If only we knew where all the Pittmans went??.......😉.........Pat

harmonyards posted:

If only we knew where all the Pittmans went??.......😉.........Pat

A bunch of them show up on ebay.  My personal favorites are 9432's.  These are the same diameter but shorter than the 9434's and can fit in more locomotives.  A few months ago I bought a lot of 12 of these motors (seem to be new since there is no evidence of solder on the motor contacts nor marks on the motor shaft) on ebay for $73.  That works out to $6.08 per motor!  Several years ago I was paying around $50 each for these motors direct from Pittman.  Two of my friends and I shared this batch of motors.  By the way, they all run smooth and quiet.

harmonyards posted:

If only we knew where all the Pittmans went??.......😉.........Pat

Don't you have most of them?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

harmonyards posted:

If only we knew where all the Pittmans went??.......😉.........Pat

Don't you have most of them?

What in the world ever gave you that idea? ......Pat

I rest my case!

Ahhhhhh, One of those motors went into my CSS last winter! Thanks again for doing that Pat! It runs Fantastically!

harmonyards posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

harmonyards posted:

If only we knew where all the Pittmans went??.......😉.........Pat

Don't you have most of them?

What in the world ever gave you that idea? ......Pat

Two of those 9434s better have my name on them 😁. 

One on the shelf for your WP Lou, the Santa ........Fe......😌.......already has it in it........😂😂😂😂..........Pat

Jayhawk500 posted:

Ahhhhhh, One of those motors went into my CSS last winter! Thanks again for doing that Pat! It runs Fantastically!

I could not get the videos you loaded on your thread to play Chris....ya mind emailing them to me whenever?.......Pat

Im glad it runs good buddy!...that’s a tough rugged combination....very hard to beat!.......Pat

harmonyards posted:

One on the shelf for your WP Lou, the Santa ........Fe......😌.......already has it in it........😂😂😂😂..........Pat

One down, one to go. Hopefully you don't go through your stash before the WP gets a 9434 😉.

harmonyards posted:

Jayhawk500 posted:

Ahhhhhh, One of those motors went into my CSS last winter! Thanks again for doing that Pat! It runs Fantastically!

I could not get the videos you loaded on your thread to play Chris....ya mind emailing them to me whenever?.......Pat

Im glad it runs good buddy!...that’s a tough rugged combination....very hard to beat!.......Pat

I noticed those 2 videos didn't load correctly for some reason. Once I get my layout completed, I'll make another one and post it up through You Tube. As long as my cat Snow will leave my lanterns on my switches alone, she likes pulling them off.

Lou1985 posted:

I like the Pittmans more than other can motors. I find them smoother at low speeds with much more torque. I've got a buddy with a Legacy GS4 from 2016 with a Cannon motor. We've done a test between his Legacy GS4 under Legacy control and my Premier GS4 (PS1 converted to PS2 3V with a 9434 Pittman) under DCS pulling the same 8 car passenger train. The train is 8 Lionel 18" aluminum passenger cars. My GS4 will start the train at a lower speed with less current draw (starts moving the train at 2 scale mph and can run at that speed without stalling) than his GS4. The Legacy GS4 manages to get down to around 5 scale mph. Mine with the Pittman is noticeably smoother as well.

Not calling B.S., but a video of this comparison test would be instructive.  Norm Charbonneau's video shows the new J3a starting a long passenger train smoothly and without difficulty.  I've done many tests like this over the years.  Electronic speed control covers a multitude of sins: poor motors, poor gear ratio, etc.  A better test of the motor itself  would be to repeat the experiment with speed control turned OFF, or even disconnecting all of the electronics, and running both locos on straight DC.

With a load like that, the mass of the train masks any potentially jerky operation.  Another test of performance is running the loco and tender "light," especially from tangent track into the minimum-rated curve.  Nothing ruins the illusion for me like a dramatic slow-down, or laboring due to the sudden increase in friction when entering a curve.  This is where I've found that the gear ratio becomes important.

When you're talking about starting a train with the slack stretched, the stall torque of the motor is important, but so is the diameter of the worm wheel.  If you think about how the worm and worm wheel interact, the radius of the worm wheel acts like a lever arm; the longer the better!  I know the MTH 20-3047 Niagara had a much larger worm wheel than the 20-3020 Premier Hudson, and exhibited better starting characteristics with an identical motor.  Perhaps your GS4 uses the Niagara setup?

Lionel's venerable 700-series Hudsons also have a very large worm wheel that was often re-used by scale modelers of the 1940s in their scratch-built brass locos.  For this reason, a Lionel 773 refitted with a can motor would probably have better starting characteristics than many other models.  But its 18:1 gear ratio isn't really that low for a scale loco with large drivers.  I've found that even the big Pittman motors aren't happy below 800 RPM.  So the Hudson might struggle to run consistently below 10 mph.  Newer models like the 1990 Williams USRA Pacific (geared at 44:1)!  would be smoother drifting around the engine terminal at walking speeds.  Again all of my observations are WITHOUT speed control.  Good topic!

I would like to add that, for some of the reasons in my post above, my personal favorites are actually the Pittman 8000s.  I've tested 8000s, 9000s, Mabuchi's etc.  I've yet to find a traditional DC brush motor that's really content and consistent below 800 RPM in a model train application.

To get full points in an NMRA contest, a loco has to run at 4 MPH.  (That also happens to be a realistic coupling speed.)  So you want the loco to run consistently, 800 RPM = 4 MPH.

 A Pittman 9000 only revs to about 6400 RPM.  This is 8x the minimum speed, giving a maximum of 8 x 4 = 32 MPH!  The 3rd Rail Decapod (1990 model) used this formula with great success.  It was one of the smoothest runners before the era of speed control.  But most would want their road engines to run faster than that.

So we substitute an 8000-series Pittman with a redline of ~9,600 RPM.  Now the top speed is 12x the minimum speed, or 48 MPH.  If you're willing to leave a little bit of slow-speed performance on the table, you could gear it such that 800 RPM = 5 MPH with a top speed around 60+.  For a steam loco with 68" drivers, the gear ratio would be 32:1.  This is probably the ideal combination for most of us with bedroom-sized layouts.

My hypothesis is that the 9000-series saw more use early in the Scale era because most locos had super-tall "toy train" gear ratios.  If they had been geared like scale models in the first place, a higher-RPM motor would have been specified, and you would have better performance even without speed control.  Of course then the manufacturer would have to incorporate provisions to tame NVH at high RPMs (such as mounting the motor with rubber grommets), and it would have cost a little more.  But it would have been a better product.  The perfect loco hasn't been made yet in O gauge and my wallet is still full, hmm...

Ted S posted:

Lou1985 posted:

I like the Pittmans more than other can motors. I find them smoother at low speeds with much more torque. I've got a buddy with a Legacy GS4 from 2016 with a Cannon motor. We've done a test between his Legacy GS4 under Legacy control and my Premier GS4 (PS1 converted to PS2 3V with a 9434 Pittman) under DCS pulling the same 8 car passenger train. The train is 8 Lionel 18" aluminum passenger cars. My GS4 will start the train at a lower speed with less current draw (starts moving the train at 2 scale mph and can run at that speed without stalling) than his GS4. The Legacy GS4 manages to get down to around 5 scale mph. Mine with the Pittman is noticeably smoother as well.

Not calling B.S., but a video of this comparison test would be instructive.  Norm Charbonneau's video shows the new J3a starting a long passenger train smoothly and without difficulty.  I've done many tests like this over the years.  Electronic speed control covers a multitude of sins: poor motors, poor gear ratio, etc.  A better test of the motor itself  would be to repeat the experiment with speed control turned OFF, or even disconnecting all of the electronics, and running both locos on straight DC.

With a load like that, the mass of the train masks any potentially jerky operation.  Another test of performance is running the loco and tender "light," especially from tangent track into the minimum-rated curve.  Nothing ruins the illusion for me like a dramatic slow-down, or laboring due to the sudden increase in friction when entering a curve.  This is where I've found that the gear ratio becomes important.

When you're talking about starting a train with the slack stretched, the stall torque of the motor is important, but so is the diameter of the worm wheel.  If you think about how the worm and worm wheel interact, the radius of the worm wheel acts like a lever arm; the longer the better!  I know the MTH 20-3047 Niagara had a much larger worm wheel than the 20-3020 Premier Hudson, and exhibited better starting characteristics with an identical motor.  Perhaps your GS4 uses the Niagara setup?

Lionel's venerable 700-series Hudsons also have a very large worm wheel that was often re-used by scale modelers of the 1940s in their scratch-built brass locos.  For this reason, a Lionel 773 refitted with a can motor would probably have better starting characteristics than many other models.  But its 18:1 gear ratio isn't really that low for a scale loco with large drivers.  I've found that even the big Pittman motors aren't happy below 800 RPM.  So the Hudson might struggle to run consistently below 10 mph.  Newer models like the 1990 Williams USRA Pacific (geared at 44:1)!  would be smoother drifting around the engine terminal at walking speeds.  Again all of my observations are WITHOUT speed control.  Good topic!

We were running the test by operating each locomotive with its respective manufacturer's control system. I will agree that running the test in conventional with speed control off would be a better comparison. The Pittman powered GS4 was consistently drawing less amperage, according to a Z4000, but that could be a result of the electronics differences. The only perfectly fair test is to probably run both locomotives with a bridge rectifier. That's a little more in depth than I want to get, but probably the only way to get a perfect result. 

I like low speed performance but I'm not really willing to give up top end for substantially increased performance down low. If I've got a passenger steam locomotive with 80" drivers I'm going to want to run it on the point of a passenger train at 70-80 scale mph. So ideally, for me, topping out at 90 scale mph is more than fine for me, but 60 scale mph won't cut it.

Has anyone measured the starting torque of the 9434 Pittman vs. the Cannon motor? I'm curious how the curves compare, and also amp draw under load.

Ted, when I do the Pittman swaps in the Pulmor scale sized locomotives, I found better low speed control in conventional by simply swapping to the higher voltage 9000 series Pittmans, ( 15.1V & 19.1V VS. 12V) .......obviously the gear set in these engines is designed to work with the low rpm AC motor.....the 12 volt Pittman was just to finite to the touch of the throttle at low voltages. The 15.1 in the Mohawks, and the 19.1 in the Hudsons are proven performers at slow speeds, (lower voltages and really low amp draws) ......when set up with an electronics package, the performance is just unbelievable smooth.....my tests were done with a couple factors in mind.....longevity, and slow, low speed stability. ( a must for a lot of folks these days ) if I draw the least amount of amperage, and still have the ability to maintain slow speeds with out a stall ( 7 to 10 mph) in conventional, I know I’m going to have a winner when it comes to electronics package time. The numbers don’t lie.....Lionel Mohawk 18009, stripped down to just a headlight, 35 car train, 081 curves, 9000 series 19.1V Pittman can do the tug just at .9 amps and maintain the train at 7 SMPH ( paced with with a PS2 on DCS to verify) and hold less than 3/4s of an amp at 7.5 volts.....this equates to longer life of any electronics package I install, and it means the motor ain’t breaking a sweat to do it....the above Mohawk in mention, was one of the first crash test dummies I built, and it remains conventional for testing purposes....all the other Mohawks have been outfitted with packages, but are the exact same build criteria. That Mohawk has several hundred hours under its belt....it’s one of my favorites to let run and run and......you get the picture....run it for a whole day.....nonstop....and the body shell remains at room temperature. That’s as tough as it gets!...I’m not picking apart any of your analysis, please, please, please, don’t think that....I’m just sharing my observations, and real world testing for you to add to your hypothesis.....Pat

and Lou.....Cannon motors are junk!...pure and simple....I own one in a Legacy engine....it’s already noisy at a whopping 9 hours of use....it shall be relieved of its duties this holiday season....any guesses as to a better performer? ......😉......the only real world comparison we need is the motors that are on the shelf, and the ones in the round file.......Pat

Has anyone taken one of the "Pittman knockoff" motors currently used in MTH Premier steam locomotives apart? I'm curious how close it is to an actual Pittman.

As far as Canon vs. Pittman for a fair fight both would have to be mounted in the same locomotive with the same gearing to get an accurate comparison. You know what else would help? An O scale dynamometer 😁. See the torque curve throughout the motor speed range. Now we're getting more scientific than probably necessary...

Who's worried about performance, the Canon motors have been shorting out and killing RCMC boards in Lionel stuff!  I'd be more worried about that little problem!  Both types of motors work fine "when they work" with cruise, and I truthfully don't give a hoot about how they work without cruise.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Who's worried about performance, the Canon motors have been shorting out and killing RCMC boards in Lionel stuff!  I'd be more worried about that little problem!  Both types of motors work fine "when they work" with cruise, and I truthfully don't give a hoot about how they work without cruise.

How rampant is the issue? I know you said that you were unable to get the ones you've seen apart without destroying them to investigate the issue. 

I've probably had 40-50 Legacy steamers through with the Canon motor, and three of them were for shorted motors.  So, I'd say my "sample of one" is running in the 6-7% failure range of repairs coming in.  I've had a ton of upgrades and repairs with Pittman motors, way more than Canon, and I've seen one failure, and that appeared to be that the motor was abused, not that it failed on it's own.  The drivers were cooked, I suspect the motor was stalled and just sat there cooking.  On the good side, a friend of mine screwed up the brushes in a Pittman, and the brush assembly was fine in mine, so I was able to fix his motor.

Pat you do great work, and I agree with your line of thinking.  I know that @Bob (B.) endorses this approach as well, I think he wrote an article about it for OGR.  If you can't change the gear ratio, switch to a higher-voltage winding.  By December of 2000, I had replaced all of the Pittman motors in my MTH PS1s with their 24-volt equivalents.  This was a drop-in replacement not requiring any custom work. 

The 24-volt motors definitely improved the starting characteristics.  Like you, I was seeing minimum speeds in the 7 to 10 scale MPH range.  Medium-drivered locos like the 20-3032 Berkshire ran a little better than the Hudson and Blue Comet.  Ultimately I was disappointed though, because these were supposed to be scale models.  I expected to get into the low single-digits, which had long been enjoyed by serious modelers in other scales.

Instead of changing the gear ratios, circa 2001 both manufacturers adopted electronic speed control.  Yes, it allows the motor to run slower than it otherwise would.  But among other disadvantages, it can sometimes impart a synthetic quality that makes me feel like I'm controlling a robot, instead of the hurtling mass of a heavy train.  I still advocate a lower gear ratio and bigger flywheel(s) as a starting point.  Perhaps then the speed control could be retuned to allow more variation before it intervenes, preserving more of a "train-like feel."  My $.02.

Ted S posted:

it can sometimes impart a synthetic quality that makes me feel like I'm controlling a robot, instead of the hurtling mass of a heavy train. 

But...but... you are controlling a little robot and not a massive train!

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Who's worried about performance, the Canon motors have been shorting out and killing RCMC boards in Lionel stuff!  I'd be more worried about that little problem!  Both types of motors work fine "when they work" with cruise, and I truthfully don't give a hoot about how they work without cruise.

The reasons why I test the ones I build before adding cruise are:

1. I don’t want to burn up an expensive kit

2. I don’t want it to land on your bench with a burned up kit ( or anybody’s for that matter) 

3. the worst: you won’t let it land on your bench ......cause somebody else did it.....( social visits are ok ) ......😁

Pat

I'm going to agree that I like the locomotive's drivetrain to be smooth before speed control is installed. If not it's just masking a problem. I also wish more stuff had backdriveable gears as well. In any case, as far as large, scale, steam locomotives go I prefer the ones powered by Pittman motors. They seem to run the smoothest with low current draw. Would revised gear ratios be nice? Sure. But I doubt MTH or Lionel are going to invest the $$$ necessary to do so, when only a few of us crazies complain. In my opinion I would rather pay for a quality motor in an expensive scale steam locomotive then gimmicky stuff like whistle steam, but it appears the market thinks otherwise.

Back on topic a bit but I'd be interested to see what the "Pittman knockoff" MTH is using currently looks like. Is it able to be taken apart like a Pittman? 

The knockoff are similar not much to the interior of a motor.  Quality parts and construction make the difference.  G

GGG posted:

The knockoff are similar not much to the interior of a motor.  Quality parts and construction make the difference.  G

 

So it can be opened up for brush replacement like a Pittman? 

Where will you get brushes and do you think they will wear in a live time?  G

GGG posted:

Where will you get brushes and do you think they will wear in a live time?  G

I might wear them out, in another 30 years 😉.

I'm curious how good of a copy it is.

Start the clock G

This was an excellent thread. Thanks for all the valuable information.

Forest