Hornby Eurostar overheating

That's why you got the job, mate! I find clicking the 'send' button on the E-mail to our MIS department produces similar results. Brian

It's to do with that dirty great aerial at Membury. Amplifies his fixit waves. ;o)

That's funny, for my previous employer the IT section they also claimed something was fixed, whereas in fact the only sign that they had touched the thing was that something else had stopped working too. In the end you gave up reporting anything wrong, unless it was fatal.

Mind you I felt sorry for the Tech because the laptops there were expected to fix were around 6 yaers old.

I feel sorry for RBO135 --- he has an obviously defective motor ( probably a dry jointed winding tail) and is getting the retail run-around. It is remarkable that most of the correspondents have such faith in the motor quality that they dismiss the chance of a fault! Intermittant faults are a real bastard but usually led to wildly incorrect diagnosis and very expensive unnecessary repair action ( people like myself who were trained in such skills ), are dinasaurs in the "change it for a new one " approach to repair. My advice would be to do exactly as you postulated and buy a new motor from Hornby - their reliability is really very good - a utter curses quietly, on the subject of pommy/chino crap. I find that this works for Renault and Opel (note that the sources cursed are changed) and a gentle waving of a purple or green wand ( purple = mechanical , green = electrical) will help enourmously. If all else fails then ram an aspirin or paracetomol into the offending object.

Peter A Montarlot

"Peter Abraham" wrote

such faith in the motor quality that they dismiss the chance of a fault!

In my case Peter the initial diagnosis of 'probably a faulty thermal cut-out' was reached after twenty years of dealing with problems with the cheap & nasty controllers which Hornby provide with their trainsets.

You will also note that I suggested that the Eurostar motor is 'not fit for purpose', and even if it should prove to be a faulty motor (as seems to be likely) it doesn't negate the fact that there has been an on-going problem with these controllers throughout their existence.

I've often suggested on here (and elsewhere) that the quality of the equipment provided in trainsets by Hornby over the years has done the hobby more harm than good.

If their products over the last twenty years had been anywhere near as good as their marketing, then this hobby could have been many times the size it is today, burt poor performance and quality has driven numerous 'newbies' (including many youngsters) away from model trains before they really got started.

John.

John, I recognise that you are practically unique in being a retailer AND involved in the hobby and the wider world of railways! I wrote my rather facetious suggestions with the benifit of hindsight - hence my use of majority! Your arms may not be getting shorter (I am sure that mine are) but you manage to stay awake allday! Peter A

"Sailor" wrote

Not always Peter - I've had to resort to a couple of hours kip on a Sunday afternoon on more than one occasion in the run up to and since Christmas, and I thought that one needed less sleep the older one got!!!! Doesn't work with me, although I do tend to burn the candle at both ends on occasions.

John.

For goodness sake Peter, when are you going to say something i can agree with ? Its cos of the reliability of these motors that some of us just dont have any experience of dodgy ones, hence didnt recognise the symptoms.

But thank you, cos have learned something.

Cheers, Simon

I am a firm believer in : If it ain't broke - fix it! Peter

Or in computing "if it aint broke - upgrade it"

Simon

Well.. a follow up on the issue:

Southern Models (authorised repairer for Hornby in Australia) decided to look at the loco. They replaced the motor free of charge..

However, after a few hours running the train, it developed the same problem....(at one stage it was a joyous occasion when the loco returned and it worked)..

I couldn't be bothered returning the Loco again to get fixed, so I tried a third controller.. Well, the train ran without issues....

So, about 3 days after this, rather than buying a brand new "more powerful" controller, I decided to switch to DCC. I wired up the Eurostar (and my other loco's) and surfice to say, I have not had an issue since...

To sum up: Southern Models did encounter the same issue as I reported and repaired the Loco (I checked the motor and it was new). However, soon after the fault developed again. Tested with a third controller (and now DCC) and NO problems...

Just maybe, the first motor developed a fault which eventually had an inpact on the orginal Hornby controller (an R965)... because Hornby wouldnt sell an underpowered controller with their train set... right??? ;-)

Thanks to all that entered into this post.

Robert

Well done! Nice to see a success story.