Proto 2K 2-8-8-2

[e-paw]

This is the biggest piece of junk that I own. The proto 2000 heritage usra 2-8-8-2 was given to my as a Christmas gift a few years back and I am glad that I didn't spend any of my own money on it. Sure It's a well detailed and accurate model but it has been nothing but trouble right out of the box. Once it was opened I realised that the power reverse was missing, So that needed replacing. While I was breaking it in on the test track the valve gear exploded and replacement parts were needed again. This year I put it under the Christmas tree to run in circles. At this point I'd say it has about 2 hours of run time on it total, when it slowed to a crawl and stopped. The only thing that worked was the directional lighting. :? Over to the work bench It went for disassembly and I found this. The brush assembly or commutator had shredded itself and jammed the motor. You can see the lose parts that fell out of the motor when I removed it from the frame. If you shake the motor you can hear that there are more of them in there. Has anyone else had similar problems with P2k units or did I just get a lemon.
I own 30+ year old Bowser and Mantua steamers That have never had Issues like this before. At this point I am thinking of fixing it one last time and putting on a table at a show. It can be someone else's problem.

[P5se Camelback]

I think this may very well be an example of ...

"It's getting difficult to find good help these days!

"People just want to put their time in and collect a paycheck.

"No one takes pride in a job well done anymore!"

[Russ Bellinis]

This may be one reason that the largest Chinese company that used to build most of the locomotives and rolling stock recently informed a bunch of companies that they would no longer build models for them. A bunch of companies had to find new suppliers because the biggest supplier in China was over extended and could not guarantee quality.

[Fluesheet]

Has anyone else had similar problems with P2k units or did I just get a lemon.
I own 30+ year old Bowser and Mantua steamers That have never had Issues like this before. At this point I am thinking of fixing it one last time and putting on a table at a show. It can be someone else's problem.

Hey e-paw. I bought one of these for my father probably 7 years ago and he has never had a problem with it. I've always considered it one of the better plastic (steam) models - very smooth and quiet.

[Schraddel]

e-paw you are not alone:




The motor you pictured ist an Roco motor. And this series has too soft carbon brushes. They tend to fill the spaces between the collector segments. Than it can happen what you described, the loco begins to crawl and at least it stops.
There will be a certain "electric smell" too...

The upper photo shows the type of Roco motor also mounted in your 2-8-8-2. The carbon brushes were worn to tiny pieces only. The collector has heavy burning marks. Sometimes when the burning marks are not too bad, it is possible to clean up the collector and soften its surface by grinding with fine sandpaper. Then fit out with new carbon brushes and new springs for the brushes.

The lower photo shows another type of Roco motor. Here the collector ist completely burnt out and partly desintegrated. Scrap.

E-paw you can try to clip off the brush holders, the red and on the other side the black part, by poking with an small screwdriver. Then you can take a look to the collector.
Otherwise remove the flywheels and the driving shaft receptables. Replace this defective motor with an suitable Mashima with 2.0mm shaft.

Later series of Roco motors have got hardened carbon brushes. Now the durability is no problem anymore. But they are chirping when running.
That is also the explanation why some Athearn Genesis locos chirp, they have Roco motors mounted too.

Greetings Lutz

[Sumpter250]

The pyramids were not built by "Ancient Aliens", they were built by "Man"...............before he learned about profit.

[Selector]

I hope my message isn't taken the wrong way, or as a lecture of sorts; I would consider myself lucky to have found this sole cause, and so easily, and so easily rectified. I am a real klutz with scale locomotives, but I recently got brave enough to remove the boiler shell, light board, and top tower retainer clip on a BLI Paragon slightly used ATSF 4-8-4 I had just been sent. I was able to fix a split shell with CA, but I couldn't cure the hesitancy in low speed operation. I had to send the locomotive back to the seller. I wouldn't know a bad motor if it was smoking.

I think you got a lemon, but only the motor. I would guess is was thrown together, probably knowingly with parts that looked odd. But it counted at the end of the shift. If you can replace it, and it looks to me as if you can, you can look forward, at long last, to enjoying what otherwise is a fine locomotive. Would love to have one meself.

Crandell

[jim currie]

EP your not alone I at one time had over 20 P2k units (steam and diesel) i now have three left the rest hit the wall(over my trash can).so to me there now P2J and you know what the J means.
jim

[rrinker]

Odd, every single one of my P2K diesels is an excellent runner. The little Alco switchers in particular. All of my Geeps are of the vintage that eventually get cracked gears but it's a 2 minute fix and I spent a couple of bucks on gears at Athearn so I have plenty on hand. The one I fixed is back to running great. All of them I've actually owned twice (long story) and other than the cracked gear (the first time, Life Like was still independent and not owned by Walther$ so I was able to get repalcements for free. Other models I had around that were P2K, like an SD-7 and SW9, also were among the most trouble-free locos that hit the rails on my layout. I have no P2K steam since they make nothing of interest to me, so I have no idea there.

--Randy

[Charlie B]

It's not only the P2K gears. I have found the gears cracked on many of my 4 axle Athearn locomotives too. The same gear repairs them all. I bought a couple hundred gears a couple of years ago and It looks like I will have to reorder them.
As you say, it is a quick fix and I have made shims so they go together in gauge.
Charlie

[e-paw]

Thanks for the replies. Now I know it's not just me.

[nkp_174]

Very informative thread.

I have one of their 0-8-0s and she's an absolute gem. My only complaint is that she slips a little more than I care for (when compared to the similarly sized Spectrum 2-8-0). Otherwise, excellent low speed performance.

I've previously never really heard any criticism of their product line (other than the first release berks having too thin of driver tires), so I'm surprised by the number of problems. I think that will factor into my decision as to whether to go with a P2K or Bachmann berk when I get to that point. (MTH will never be in the equation for me...smoke and proprietary DCC should justify reducing the price of a loco, not tripling it)

Michael

[Schraddel]

For not to misunderstanding me.
My critics point to this motor made by Roco and not to P2K locos in general. Back to my german roots i still own several dozens of Roco locos of european prototype equipped with this type of motor. This motors are still running quiet, smooth and powerful in my rolling stock.

There is only one batch manufactured in the 2nd half of the 1990's which was equipped with carbon brushes too soft. This kind of too soft brushes wear extremely fast annd can cause the problems described above.
Roco recognized this problem and fits out all next batches with hardened brushes. No problems of extreme wear anymore.

I own this 2-8-8-2 too. There was an agreement with P2K and Roco to develop and construct this model loco by Roco. The agreement contains that the first batch was made by Roco in Austria and sold in Europe under Roco's own marque. Later the moulds were transferred according the agreement to P2K, manufactured in China and marketed in the US by P2K under their own marque.

I hope i could clear some misunderstanding.

Greetings Lutz

[e-paw]

Well after many, many years I have revived this thread...Work is well under way to get the drivers turning.
But first I have no idea what happened to my pics in this thread. Where the first one came from is a mystery to me. So here are the original pics missing from it. They show the work that was done up until today. They were all failed attempts to get her running, either the motor or flywheels were too large, or some other problem that kept her from going together.
   

   

   

But now..... I have located the a motor the right size to fit inside the boiler weight. I did have to drill out the P2K fly wheels to fit the new motor shafts and solder on new leads to get power from the PC board to the motor.
   

I was unable to use the same attachment point for the top half of the boiler. The section of the weight where it normally attached was removed to fit a new motor. A new hole was drilled and taped for a 2-56 screw inside the smokestack to do the same job. I can lift it from the boiler with out any worry of it coming apart.
   

[e-paw]

I do now have one more problem to take care of with this steamer before I can call the repair finished.
It now has a broken eccentric crank that will need to be replaced.
   

After some searching I found out that Walthers no longer offers any parts for this loco. My next move is to try to repair the one I have. I glued some thin styrene to the back of the crank and a filler piece to where the crank is broken. I will give it at least a day to dry before I drill it out and start to shape it into the missing section. I have found in the past that this brand of CA works nicely on this slippery plastic that they used on this part. I think that it's Delran.