Pulmor Motors ok....But

I think that can motors came along in the late 70's, but were only used in the smaller scales. I want to say it was the early 80's when they were first used in 3 rail O. The James Gang set had the first can motor I remember Lionel using. It may have more to do with the fact that they need DC to run. Electronic reverse units came along a little later.

The Pullmor motor has been in Lionel's line for decades, especially in it's premium line. It wasn't until the early 90's a replacement began entering the product line, in the form of the Pittman can motor, first used in the 18018 Southern Mikado and 18107 Denver & Rio Grande ALCO PA's.

And it was earlier (by the late 80's) that the tiny can motors in lower end engines came along, and would be used in all of them since.

 

In other words, Lionel never really got rid of the classic AC motor even until then, and still use it today occasionally.

 

And no, can motors weren't available for Lionel in the postwar era.

The DC motors in the early HO equipment were open frame 3 pole. They were not very efficient or powerful. The later 5 and 7 pole motors were lots better due to the advancements in magnet technology, along with the skew wound armatures.

The Pittman motors(and their chinese cousins) are pretty much the pinnacle of small motor design.

Elliot.....I remember in your Entertrainment TM video how you preferred the new can motor stuff to run.....it ran longer without problems.....that was my 1st inkling of the change.

 

A while ago to be sure!  

Peter

I am thinking can motors were around in the 50s. My first HO engine, an Athearn F unit with rubber band drive had a can motor with double ended shafts and that was ~1958.

 

Pete

Lionel Industrial Switcher set from 1973 had a can motor, but was DC only.

Same with the later Chessie System switcher set, around 1976.

Then in 1979 more starter sets were moving towards can motors.

Yeah Peter, the year was 1992 - 93. Williams was using the large cans in most of their engines. K-line and Lionel were using small, truck mounted, cans in their low end stuff. Lionel was still using Pulmores in their "collector" stuff.

Athean motors in the 50's weren't can motors, they were still essentially open frame, just a variation on the design.

 

Rusty

Can motors were around in the early 60's mostly in use in slot cars and low end train locos....

I can still remember re-winding those tiny little armatures.. balancing them on razor blades and sliding shims between the magnet and the can for a better field.. gotta go faster!!

If you were rewinding armatures, they weren't CAN motors. Can motors are sealed in their housing, and when they fail you usually throw them away. Cans are considered to be maintenance free. I believe what you are thinking of is a pancake motor. Those were considered open frame.

Cheaper can motors of the day were sealed use and toss.   But the can motors used in top end slot cars and other high end uses did indeed have removable endbells with replaceable brushes, springs and armatures. You could even get replacement stronger magnets along with oil-lite (bronze) bushings or even ball bearings.

The Lionel Pullmor's were high quality motors of a great long lasting design. If you periodically lube and clean them, I'll venture to say that you can put 100,000 of hours on them and they will last for 100 years. The only downside is the three pole AC armature design and the gearing doesn't allow for the range of speed that can motors do.

A very accurate assessment.

I concur, It's just great that we can tear apart a fifty year old train and clean the 

whole motor out put it back together and it works, try that with a can motor, ah

just throw it away and buy a new one.

 

Tin  

Lionel used a can motor in the 375 in 1962-1964.

I beg to differ with your assessment. I was running them 80 hours a week, and within four months most were burned up. They were a maintenance nightmare. Brushes were easy enough to replace, but when armatures got fried, that was it. In the end, I couldn't keep them running, and was forced to switch to an all can fleet.

Hi Elliot,  found your reply on the Pulmore motors interesting.  I do not know if you were referring to postwar motors, or some of the more recent production.  When I hear of an armature burned up, I usually think of an armature which was overheated by overloading, causing the insulation to break down, resulting I shorts and ground. The other cause of armature failures can be vibration causing the armature coil wire insulation to wear thin, again leading to shorts and grounds.  Do you know if your motors had either of these problems?  On the postwar motors, there are lots of spare armatures floating around and failed armatures are usually quickly replaced.  There are people who rewind toy train armatures and in my younger days I rewound a few myself.

 

On this type of motor, the fatal flaw is usually a failure of the insulation between the iron laminations. On larger motors, with CNC and some of the modern metal cutting methods, armature laminations are reasonable to come up with in small quantities, so the armatures can be salvaged.  I do not know of anybody replacing stator laminations.

 

The problem with the older permanent magnet motors is, in time, the magnet will loose its magnetism.  In the older open frame motors, the magnets a could be replaced.  On the can motors used in toy trains I would guess that they will suffer the same problem and replacing the field magnets is probably not really practical.

David
Can motors can be re-magnetized also.
I remember a device which held the can between two electro magnets and with a large iron slug in the middle the button was pressed for 10-20 seconds and presto new magnets!
The way it was explained was the device re- aligned the ions or molecules or some such thing thus making the magnet good as new again.

David, that all happened over 20 years ago, and my memory might be a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, I experienced just about every kind of motor failure you can think of and on every era of train. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the trouble was heat related.

 

At that time the layout was being powered with DC, which may have contributed to the troubles. The Pulmores were not the only motors that failed, postwar steamers also dropped like flies. I still have all the trashed engines. Some were modified to use trucks with can motors.

 

After enterTRAINment closed, it was a good 12 years, 2 houses and 2 kids before before I was able to run trains again. By that time I had decided to go 100% TMCC. I did end up with a handful of early TMCC engines with Pulmores, before I realized what was inside. After that I got pretty good at spotting what I didn't want and avoiding it.

 

In my mind, Pulmores have 3 undesirable characteristics:

1. As mentioned earlier, they are not very smooth at low speeds.
2. They draw more current.
3. They are noisy.

I do have an early dash 8 with a custom paint job, which I picked up on ebay many years ago. I'm still rather fond of that engine, so I'm willing to overlook what's inside, as long as it runs. My guess is that its previous owner unloaded it in favor of all cans for his layout. A move which I now fully understand.

quote:

Can motors can be re-magnetized also.
I remember a device which held the can between two electro magnets and with a large iron slug in the middle the button was pressed for 10-20 seconds and presto new magnets!
The way it was explained was the device re- aligned the ions or molecules or some such thing thus making the magnet good as new again.

 

Lionel made one for service stations to use when working on their HO trains It was the ST-393 HO magnetizer. Lionel stated it would not restore magnetraction.

I understand that there are (or were) similar devices used elsewhere.

Heat is the major sign of impending problems and a surprisingly useful indicator of developing problems: I have never had a motor-related problem where heat was not a major sympton.  I bought a small IR heat measuring gun from Amazon (laser pointer shows you the spot its measuring temp at, then just pull the trigger) and have learned to check locos while running.  On can motor locos, more than 8 degrees rise in the body, near the motor, means trouble . . . on Pullmor it can be more, but still I check any loco I am suspicious off -

 

I agree completely with you three points.  Pullmor motors are actually a pain all around, and I only keep them out of respect for tradition.  I addition, I will add a fourth point: you can take them apart easily and that makes people think they are easy to repair, when I fact its rather subtle to fine tune they so they really do well.

 

 

I used to sell motors many years ago and even represented can motor manufacturer Mabuchi for a while.

An A/C motors efficiency and longevity is determined by the quality of both the copper wire used for the armature winding and the limited carbon content of the steel used for the stator laminations. If say the carbon content of the steel laminations is too high that motor will run hot. If both are high quality (and the motor is periodically cleaned and lubed) the Pullmor should last nearly forever. Any Pullmor made until the late sixties should be of a high quality design. Afterwards who knows.

As for can motors, by their cost and design they are mostly disposable. When they first became popular in appliances like hairdryers, they were designed for 200 hours of use. After many years of refinements high quality can motors now last 500-1000 hours.

IMO, a high quality Pullmor motor is better than a can motor but a high quality can motor is better than a lower quality Pullmor motor. Unless you run your trains regularly for hours, you should not have a problem with either.

I have never had a can motor in a well-cared for loco burn out and have several that have logged over 1,000 hours of running.  I think the secret is to make sure to service and clean the mechanisms so they do not put a burden on the motor with binding, excess friction due to dirt or lack of lubrication.  If that is done and the locos run like I do, the motors are not operating anywhere near their maximum loading and so they will tend to run cool - and last a long time.  

 

but just to be safe, I remove and keep the motors from all locos, etc., I scrap or get rid of, just in case, but I've had to replace only one in the last five years or so 

I really don't think anyone can dispute the fact the the modern Can motor runs much better at very slow speeds and is a much smoother and quieter motor as compared to the old Pull-more motors used in post-war and early modern production.  That being said, I still like working on and maintaining the open framed motors.  For me, it became an integral part of this hobby a long time ago and I just don't want to give it up.  As for the noise, I love the deep humm and growl of the Pull-mores and the sweet smell of ozone that they produce.  I will admit that I do not run my post-war engines 80 hours a week but I do run them regularly.  I have over a hundred of them and have yet to suffer a burned out armature. 

Open frame motors are OK within their limitations. Witness the #41 Lionel 2-4-2 switcher and her sisters. These guys are noisy, but can be quieted down to an extent with proper lubrication.  Of course these use a single threaded worm in conjunction with the tender mounted whistle motor.  And yet it works quite well at low speed. Lionel figured if their trains didn't do a hundred twenty plus with a 40 watt transformer, that the customer base would flee and run over to Gilbert or Louie Marx !

Such was not the case, but marketing is everything, and fastest has to be the best! So the universal AC/DC motor takes it on the chin, with that awful triple threaded worm...but even so, now and then you get a chooch that will, for whatever reason, hold it's own with the newer stuff. Case in point: in 1992, I purchased a 2338 in Wash. DC. at a local shop, which when cleaned up and lubed, will count ties right along with my best Proto 2 MTH pieces.  A bit noisier yes, but performance wise...awesome.  Too bad they don't all run that way.  Today, we don't need to worry, as the can motors, wired in series, and/or especially with speed control, have all the low end you could want !

It has been awhile since I have been able to be on the forum. I always find these discussions interesting.

 

I rebuild the motors to bring them a tad closer to modern specifications. I replace the the oilite bushings and thrust washers with ball bearings in my motors.

 

 

 

 

These are pictures of a 2321 motor with ball bearings being installed. I have put ball bearings into my 2343, 2028, 622, 8255, and 681 motors. Ball bearings greatly reduce internal friction of the motor and makes them much more quiet in operation and smoother. At least to me, that Pullmor "growl" is gone. Ball bearings also greatly reduces the need for the oil can, so I do not bother with lubrication as much anymore. The bearings do need to be centered correctly.

 

Also, keep in mind that some can motors are in fact open frame motors.

 

 

This is a picture of the inside of a RS385 motor. The arrangement of the field magnets can be clearly seen.  There are large gaps between the two magnets that constitute the field. Essentially, this is an open frame design contained within a metal housing, "the can".

 

Higher quality can motors use a continuous ceramic ring magnet, but the motor shown above is not one of them. 

I contend that those are two mutually exclusive terms.

 

There is nothing unique about that can motor, it is representative of any can motor.

 

 

 

 

Really?

 

Here is a DC motor with continuous ring magnet as the stator.

 

So no, not all can motors are the same. The one shown above is a lesser expensive one. Some have large gaps in the stator which makes for a self contained open frame motor (perhaps the self containment is why you say "mutually exclusive") while others use a ring magnet without gaps in the stator, which is not an open frame design.

ADCX Rob,

There are those who as you are opinionated. These individuals do not seek to impress those who enjoy this hobby as much as you.

Actually, I believe I posted pictures of the open frame motor that I put ball bearings into. Clearly shows gaps in the stator just like the picture of the can motor with gaps in its stator.

 

BTW, you have posted nothing.

 

Anyways, you can have the last word.

Thank you.

 

The bearing job on the open frame motor is very impressive and I am now looking into doing this with some of my oft used diesels. Thanks for the good pictures and the heads up. Your knowledge and experience on this conversion would make excellent material for an article in the magazine.

 

Pappy, there is no opinion, just fact. Those two can motors are just that, permanent motor DC can motors. There is nothing open frame about either one. One does appear to have stacked magnets(like in a stepper motor), I can't tell from the angle.

 

The can motor used in the 375 turntable would make for a better argument, though still a can motor, its magnets extend beyond the confines of the can cylinder.

 

The pancake motors found in Aurora slot cars, including AFX, are not can motors. The longitudinal G-Plus motors and the Life-Like M chassis and T chassis motors as well are all permanent magnet open frame motors.