Has anyone had any experience with re-powering a Rich Yoder 44 tonner with Stanton drives? A quick search does show some mentions in the past hoping. Looking for insight & guidance.
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Hopefully someone else can come in with experience with them. I was going to power an F3 with them, but was advised not too, but was never told a good reason why. I ended up selling the F3, so I never did it. I think with a 44 tonner, the stanton may be a good option...you aren't looking for top end speed or pulling 25+ cars I would imagine...just as a switcher in a yard?
I forgot...I am repowering a Rich yoder S-12. I have a Pittman 8424 but may try a small coreless motor. I bought a small coreless motor recently...I like the idea of the smaller stall current and being able to use HO DCC decoders with them.
I recently contacted Stanton about one of their drives for the MTH 44 tonner. They told me the wheelbase was too large for that model. Not sure how if it that translates to the Rich Yoder model. But just providing for perspective.
Here is what they said specifically.
Unfortunately we're not going to have a unit that works with your 44 tonner in that the loco has a 6'10" (basically 7'0") wheelbase and the shortest we go on a O Stanton drive is 8'0". Perhaps someday we'll develop one but it won't be anytime soon.
A friend just told me his O Scale club repowered an A-B-A set of All Nation F3s with Stanton Drives and are very pleased with the results. The club owns a few of the All Naiton units and has worn them out and rebuilt them a few times.
@prrjim posted:A friend just told me his O Scale club repowered an A-B-A set of All Nation F3s with Stanton Drives and are very pleased with the results. The club owns a few of the All Naiton units and has worn them out and rebuilt them a few times.
That's good to hear. I may try them on a future project.
I did reach out to NWSL and it was suggested that I could try to use the HO scale drive with the 9' 6" wheel base using O-scale axles and wheels.
My main goal is to open up the interior space as much as possible for not only a decoder/speaker/weights but also a small servo and Arduino ESP32 wifi camera module. I want to try and make/install my own Choo Choo Vision camera to fit in the cab. A wide angle lens and the ability to turn the camera 180 degrees to view front/back.
Please continue to document your progress. I'll be on your heals with the Stanton drives if this works.
Ron
Have spent some time doing the math. If my calculations are correct, the S scale Stanton drive with the 9' (108") wheelbase converts to 42.8mm real world. My Yoder model trucks, measured from the center of each journal box hole is 43.4 mm. It's the closest I can get and I'm willing to do a little grinding to the journal boxes to accommodate.
