Remember to support your axles from both ends

[legoman666]

The powder is plastic dust from the gears because I didn't support the axles from both ends. They had enough wiggle room to make this mess.

[marook]

Holly.... that is a serious statement right there! :-)

[M_slug357]

Didn't you just build this model a couple months ago !?!

Well, everything breaks down eventually.....

[dr_spock]

Wow, looks like one of my Great Ball Contraption modules after a day of running at an event.

Think of it as "diesel soot".

[Phoxtane]

A floating studless beam may be enough to keep things from wiggling apart to cause this.

[legoman666]

Wow, looks like one of my Great Ball Contraption modules after a day of running at an event.

Think of it as "diesel soot".

This particular locomotive had run somewhere between 30 and 40 hours. I'm dismantling it to rebuild it a little bigger. My more recent builds don't have this issue, their transmissions are different.

[talos]

Turned into the plastic flour mill...ouch!

[zephyr1934]

Hey, you invented lego spray paint! (youch!)

[Heppeng]

Just curious, would it not have been possible to run an axle from one end to the other with a bevel gear on each end?

[cgarison]

I have done my fair share of ABS dust making in my trains, but this is fascinating. Would the addition of some lubricant have prevented this?

[Phoxtane]

On second thought, my guess is that the L motors weren't all running at the exact same speed and over time the gears would begin to bind up from not moving the exact same speed and then suddenly slip (or break gear teeth if they couldn't push past each other). The dust would come from the gears rubbing on each other by running with the slight speed differences, which explains the weird profiles these gear teeth have developed.