A while ago I received a mixed lot including three very old engines that appeared to be brand new, but none of them were running. I stripped one down intending to replace the motor, but before I removed it, I applied power direct to the two contacts on the case of the motor to make sure it was really dead. 1.5V had no effect, but I sort-of-accidentally discovered that about 5V jerked it into life, and that it subsequently ran fine on 1.5V.
I tried 5V through the battery contacts of the other two, with the same success.
It seemed to me that if these engines had ever been run, it was very little, and they could have been sitting idle for up to 15 years. Something about the conditions in which they'd been kept had made the internal mechanism of the motor stick to itself, maybe too much humidity? I don't know.
Yesterday I got another small lot of non-runners, Murdoch, Rosie, Proteus and Billy. Same story - nothing happening with one 1.5V cell, but all four were quickly shocked into life again with about 5V applied to their battery terminals, and were then 'run in' for about an hour each. (I also got a R/C Victor with no controller - I haven't tried to test him yet).
I have a variable power supply unit which is handy for this sort of thing, but a 0 - 12V model railway controller can be used in the same way, or a holder for multiple AA or AAA batteries with wire tails on it.
The moral of the story is that you should run your motors from time to time, rather than leaving them just sitting on the shelf. I don't want to think about the implications for things being kept BNIB for many years outside of a controlled atmosphere.
So next time you get a seemingly dead engine - give it a good jolt before you try anything else.
Get Your Motor Runnin'
I tried 5V through the battery contacts of the other two, with the same success.
It seemed to me that if these engines had ever been run, it was very little, and they could have been sitting idle for up to 15 years. Something about the conditions in which they'd been kept had made the internal mechanism of the motor stick to itself, maybe too much humidity? I don't know.
Yesterday I got another small lot of non-runners, Murdoch, Rosie, Proteus and Billy. Same story - nothing happening with one 1.5V cell, but all four were quickly shocked into life again with about 5V applied to their battery terminals, and were then 'run in' for about an hour each. (I also got a R/C Victor with no controller - I haven't tried to test him yet).
I have a variable power supply unit which is handy for this sort of thing, but a 0 - 12V model railway controller can be used in the same way, or a holder for multiple AA or AAA batteries with wire tails on it.
The moral of the story is that you should run your motors from time to time, rather than leaving them just sitting on the shelf. I don't want to think about the implications for things being kept BNIB for many years outside of a controlled atmosphere.
So next time you get a seemingly dead engine - give it a good jolt before you try anything else.
Get Your Motor Runnin'
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