Bad Kato Motor??

[nebrzephyr]

Ok, was upgrading an Athearn RTR engine for DCC. Attached wires to the brush tabs, and the bare motor ran fine when I applied some voltage to the leads. Mounted in the engine, added a decoder. Put in on the programming track and Decoder Pro said "no response from decoder". Thinking maybe the decoder was bad, took it out of the engine and put it on the tester, read and write perfecting.

So now I'm confused. So I start checking all the connection on the light board. What the heck is going on! Finally, I discovered there was continuity between the motor brush tabs and the motor housing itself. Not suppose to be that way. Put in a second KATO motor and everything works as expected.

So my question - a bare motor that runs fine on the bench, what causes the continuity issue? And is that something that is fixable?

Bob

[nsc39d8]

Bob,

Before I discarded the motor I would purchase this part from Kato:
This is the motor brush set

www.katousa.com/images/957010.jpg

From the GP35 parts list here:
search.cartserver.com/search/search.cgi?cartid=s-1078&keywords=HOGP35REV&maxhits=100&go=List+Parts&bool=AND&bool=AND

While I new motor should not behave like that, even new motors can have a bad brush in them. Hop this helps.

[nebrzephyr]

Thanks. I have some on hand so I'll see what happens. Bob

[nebrzephyr]

Well, weird. No brush in either connector, only a spring. Found out can't insert a brush into the housing as the housing is not open to the armature. Figure that out.

Bob