Don't know may-be this should be in the "Angry Thread"
Well I purchased two class 66 off E-bay both DCC and they duly arrived yesterday, had to wait to pick them up today as I missed the post yesterday.
so the first thing I do is a good look over them to see if there is anything obviously wrong with them. Nope only one small Buffer but it was in the description so not to bothered
next a quick check on the track to see if they work ok then i notice no DCC address in the box never mind it is bound to be reset to 3.
WRONG but luckily a quick try of loco 1 then loco 2 reveled the addresses so lets have a small play mmmmmm loco 1 was ok but a little bit Stuttering and loco 2 was big time Stuttering quick look at the wheels nothing to obvious so off with the bodies and there it was, probably more oil on the sides of the chassis than is in my frying pan,
I now know where most of the Gulf of Mexico's oil spill went !!! :'(
so now spent the last hour and a half with a scalpel blade and some tissues getting rid of the oil a quick blow through to make sure there no more ( there was) and finally onto the programming track to do a reset and the new addresses Finally!
So a quick note to any E-bay sellers if you say that you tested the loco and it runs in both directions fine PLEASE ensure that it does and don't then go and pour a load of oil on the gears thinking that it will run smoother it wont!!!
Rant over
Dave (crawler)
I've also had the same problem with some second hand purchases. One loco was swimming in oil. I had to dismantle the loco and it took me ages to soak it all up.
I happened to look at the guarantee card, the previous owner had made notes stating when it had been oiled. He had oiled the loco copiously every year whether it needed it or not.
I feel your frustration crawler. Mine's not specifically with oil (in a twisted kind of way I relish a gunked up loco, since it gives me the excuse to strip it down and clean it, bringing it back to a far superior running level) but I know what you mean and most of us on here have had our gripes I think.
Good that you got it working again.
It's amazing how much oil some people out on their locus isn't it? They must think that the loco drinks the stuff and it just disappears. Or that more oil = better runnng (not). This chap seems to have stuck to some kind of logic so fair play to him, just like you said though, it wasn't needed.
I've just bought a loco on ebay and the seller has actually indicated that it's been over oiled so thumbs up to that guy for his honesty.
Dan
Being kind of new to this whole N-gauge thing, though I'm naturally cautious when it comes to doing things like oiling, reading this forum has been very useful for affirming what to do / not to do.
:thankyousign: :NGaugersRule:
This is happening because the instructions from grafar and dapol are really poor...in fact if you read dapol instructions it states the warranty will be broken if the loco is not kept oiled..so what do they expect newcomers to do..why not throw in a tiny vial of recommended oil with each new loco with instructions to apply single drops etc...??
Quote from: sparky on November 06, 2014, 12:49:08 PM
This is happening because the instructions from grafar and dapol are really poor...in fact if you read dapol instructions it states the warranty will be broken if the loco is not kept oiled..so what do they expect newcomers to do..why not throw in a tiny vial of recommended oil with each new loco with instructions to apply single drops etc...??
I'm not sure that Farish state that their models have to be oiled prior to running, but like you say, Dapol certainly do.
The real world problem with this is that:
- some folk won't read this and run with no oil
- some folk will read it and in good faith try to oil with something unsuitable
- some folk will read it and in good faith try to oil, but too much, with something unsuitable
- some folk will read it and in good faith try to oil, but too much, albeit, with something suitable
The above will happen I would suspect even if you include the lubricant with the model.
In all honesty, the details of where it's important to oil on the instruction leaflets are also dubious - the valve gear on Dapol steam locos needs vitually nothing, as the load is driven through the geartrain rather than the valve gear (which is essentially non-load bearing and loose), unlike Farish locos, which actually use the coupling rods to turn the adjacent wheels.
The gears themselves have grease already on them. This is comparable to what Farish use, and seems to do a reasonable job of lubricating the gears without any additional. Cleaning it all out and relubricating is the ideal, but as they stand straight from the box they are ok. Where Dapol steam (and some diesel) *does* need lubricated is on the worm gear bearings - these are generally dry, and benefit from careful lubrication - often noisy Dapol runners become almost silent in my experience when doing this (particularly A3s and A4s). This presumably also lengthens the bearing lifetime.
Even factory lubrication isn't perfect as some Farish models have come dripping with oil, or with oil that's on the pickups, and many of the problems of the Dapol 57xx poor pickup can be attibuted to wayward factory lubricant that's made its way into the pickup bearings. 2 of my 3 had this issue.
We will always need to lubricate mechanisms in time and usage, but to avoid these kind of problems that folk face with new models, I think it would be preferable that models are factory lubricated (carefully) so that folks aren't hit with losing their warranty if they try to lubricate it but achieve a standard that doesn't match Dapol's (a standard that doesn't seem to be known either) or use an unsuitable lubricant.
Cheers,
Alan
Having worked in an industry that used DC motors/ Generators quite a bit (doing DC motor cleans at least once a week) I have come to know what happens when oil and carbon dust meet it ends up like carbon grease which spell disaster it not cleaned regularly or if it is allowed to get on to the pickups or even on the gears it could end up damaging them completely.
Maybe I should have posted a picture of the locos before and after along with the tissue just to show how much oil I managed to clean off.
I am sure that I will probably have to clean them again once the oil starts to seep its way out of all the nooks and crannies but I am also sure that I don't think they will need to be lubricated for a while :goggleeyes:
Dave (crawler)