88002 & Steam Wheels?

[Hrw-Amen]

OK, it has probably bean mentioned before and talked about but I cannot find the thread and my eyes are tired of searching lines of entries.

Simple question, anyone know if motor 88002 (The normal train PF motor.) has any issues using the large train wheels of the type that come with the EN or Toy Story train. I mean obviously you can fit them to it with a technic axle, but does using these bigger wheels place any undue stress or anything unhealthy on the motor? Or does it just not look good, or has no-one really ever done it, or do we just not know?

I am just thinking through some simple ideas for shunters and wanted a fairly easy way of powering it. Also thinking about a really old style engine of the type with two really big wheels and some little ones. I may go for diesel yet, I am undecided but thought I'd seek advice first as it may give me some direction.

Thanks for any advice.

[Cwetqo]

It works, but the train is a lot faster. I have it on Toy Story Train in it works ok if there is enough load to slow down train.

[Daedalus304]

I actually used this method to power my 5700 MOC for quite a while.

It does work and depending on the engine it's really not too hard to disguise it, your biggest problem would be that the axles are a fixed distance apart and that you have that bogie pin on top.

The only problem I ran into was that eventually my motor started acting funny after a while and would slow down until it just stopped as if it was overheating, when it wasn't close. I haven't gotten more motors to do any testing on it so it could have just been a faulty motor or a casualty of me being very much in a learning stage of train design at the time; or it really could have just been that the larger wheels made it a bit too much work and burnt my motor out.

Up until then though it worked quite well, and it is something that I'm going to try to revisit someday concept wise.

Edited with new info!

Ok, I did a slight re-build of my 4-4-0 American engine to run off the 88002 so I could play around with this a bit more, and I've got some much better information now.

Basically what you run into is a torque problem. The 88002 with Steam Drivers runs pretty dang fast, enough (as alluded to by Cwetqo) to run it right off the rails. Running just my 4-4-0, a empty maersk flatbed with the IR receiver and battery box, and a simple caboose has the engine run well enough. It doesn't really make it through corners until about setting 3, and hits a great stride around 4-5, 6 is really fast and 7 faster (Though it seemed to make it through corners fine).

So just a quick tally for the load:

Engine+Tender (Both very light as far as steamers go, less than 300 parts overall)

1 "PF Necessity car" (Simple flatbed with nothing more than what was needed)

1 Caboose

However, I tried then adding one single Emerald Night coach to the mix and got a much different result. The engine flat out wouldn't want to make it through a full U-turn until around power level 5-7. Power level 7 with the added car gave me the same speed as Level 4 had without it. It was a strong and flat-as-day difference, and I'm truly not sure if it would have gone well at all if I had added just a single more car to the mix.

After this, I'm probably not actually going to keep my engine powered in this fashion as I want my 4-4-0 to pull longer trains. Short line engines or anything else you'd want to run fast but with a low load, I'd say definitely go for the 88002 motor since it's relatively easy and nice and fast. I think my last motor's damage was most likely a result of trying to run the steam driver/88002 combination with too many cars; which definitely says that you'd need to be careful to avoid overtaxing the motor.

I hope this was helpful!

Edited June 7, 2012 by Daedalus304