Decibels of the Thomas Type Motors

[Super]

Here we see a video of someone trying to quiet down the Thomas type motors which have, for some reason, always had a tendency to be noisy.

His results although favorable, were only 2 decibels lower. I am not sure what type grease he is using there. I have done a similar procedure with mixed results but I always use white Lithium grease. My results have always been positive some have had minimal results like his where others have been much better. Its hard to figure out why these and the flat drives make more noise but my theory is because the gears don't have minimal tolerances.

At any rate, his video is a good one for those who have never taken a Thomas completely apart.

So long as he shows you how to put it back together again lol!

Why are the motors so loud, its not likely to be the motor itself as they are naturally almost silent, it has to be the gearing/axles that cause the problems or is it maybe the gears are in an open area that amplifies the sound due to echoes?

Could you quieten it by maybe lining the loco with some foam or polystyrene to deaden any noise waves?

[Super]

You are right, its not the motor themselves. As far as lining the shell, I don't think there would be enough room to make a difference. This reminds me that I had planned to do a process of elimination test to see which gear was creating the most noise. I just never got around to doing it.

That’s an interesting video with a pretty good view of how to disassemble and reassemble that style of drive mechanism. I’m not entirely sure it’s worth the effort for the 2 db noise reduction but the engine did seem to run a bit more smoothly.

One of the small number of complements I will pay to the current Mattel Trackmaster 2 engines is that the very simple engineering does make them run quieter. They’re also considerably easier to take apart and put back together. Yes, it also confers and number of disadvantages but that’s for another discussion.

This does make me ponder what an ideal drivetrain would be like and how to approach repairing a couple of my old “rattle trap” locomotives.

The solution often employed on HO/OO gauge locomotives is to have a toothed cog attached to the driving axle(s) and then a 'worm' gear attached to the motor shaft, imagine a screw arrangement. This effectively pulls the gear round rotating the axles. The advantage to this is that it is very quiet and allows very smooth running at low speeds as well as flat out, doubly so if the motor employs a flywheel assembly to smooth out the motor operation.

The downsides are that its obviously more expensive, often the cogs/gears are made of metal and to finer tolerances than you get in Tomy trains and of course the motors are more powerful running off 12 or 16 volts depending on whether they are analog or DCC controlled.

Oddly enough, that’s very similar to the system used by Mattel in the TM2 engines! While simple and pretty quiet, the motor doesn’t disengage from gear train when the switch is set to off.

Again, I don’t want to veer into a comparative analysis of the different lines. It’s simply interesting to note the different approach each company takes.

Spot on OTR, the gears are always engaged, so you don't get the free-wheeling you do with Tomy trains, so I can see why they set them up the way they do as Tomy's are aimed at kiddies after all. But there again with HO/OO models you don't generally get free-wheeling loco's unless its a tender drive model in which case the main loco is just a dummy wheel set effectively.

Makes you wonder if Mattel went for the same arrangement knowing that kids will try to freewheel them if the batteries are flat or whatever and that this will potentially break the mechanism thus requiring a re-purchase