Tom,

this how I and I assume a lot of other Märklin fans associated the 5 star with a 5 pole motor, although I've never looked close enough to realize it was 5 stars.
the 3700-37000 series with the symbol always indicated to me I'm buying a loco with a 5 pole motor, except as you've mentioned, the 3722.

regards.,

John

Tom,
In (the German spoken) Marklin TV 64 Wolfrad Bachle tells us: "Especially in the steam loco's it is very difficult to use the 5-pole motor due to the lack of space, especially through the thick walls of the die-cast metal housing of these loco's".

So I 'lack of Space', not 'lack of torque'.

Marco

I don't understand this space aspect. Almost every model having an old 3 pole DCM motor can be converted to 5 pole using the 60901 kit. No difference in physical space. Or is the new 3 pole truly smaller than the old 3 pole ?

Best regards,
Gregor

The message between the lines is: a standard five-pole motor that fits does not have enough torque, a standard five-pole motor with enough torque does not fit - a motor with bell-shaped armature does not fit budget-wise.


For decades the motor was in the engineer's cab. Yes, it's better to have it in the boiler.
All Z scale locos have five-pole motors. Many N scale locos have five-pole motors. Some slow H0 locos even come with N scale motors.

Different compromises are possible: cheap three-pole motor in the boiler, cheap five-pole motor in the cab, expensive five-pole motor in the boiler, motor in the tender, and many other options.
2011 it was possible to put an excellent motor into the boiler - an excellent motor that performs well even with Märklin mfx decoders.
I don't believe that in 2014 it is impossible to put an excellent motor into the boiler. Only economic reasons prevent that, not technical reasons.

The new 37923 with three-pole motor has the same RRP as the older 37925 which had a motor with bell-shaped armature. Same downgrade with BR 45.
No reports about the 37923 yet, but users report that the new BR 45 performs worse than the older models (and as usual, some are still satisfied with the new loco and some are not).

Herr Bächle also tells us they take customer satisfaction very serious.
Poor Märklin: not even for the Big Boy (RRP € 800 or € 850) they can still afford motors with bell-shaped armatures.



I got the Märklin blues. I still want Java, not coffee-flavoured sugar or hickory.

See my reply to Marco.

This thread is not meant to repeat the complete discussion about three-pole motors.

Thanks Tom.
So the five stars means several things, I had forgotten that, but one of the five stars represented a five pole motor. The $64,000 question: When did Marklin change the published meaning for this icon? Is it a recent development when they decided to start sneaking three pole motors into their loks? Yes, I will stand behind that word "sneaking". They have told us every motor development over the past several decades. All with great fan fair as each new motor is explained in detail in the catalog. But not a word officially about the three pole motor. Or did the meaning change some time before we started seeing three pole motors?

I'm with you Tom. I will continue to work my want list of pre 2011 Marklin items and wait for future developments. I can't really support this company at this time. Are the same dummkopfs that broke the company twice before making these decisions?

http://idioms.thefreedic...thousand-dollar+question

I was going to wade through my catalogs to try and determine when the meaning of this icon changed, but does it really matter? Tom has demonstrated my recollection was correct, thanks Tom. What does matter is the here and now. Marklin have deceived us. We used to get great loads of data telling us of motor developments. Now we get silently changed icon descriptions (cue that "fine print" joke now) and motors substandard to what they themselves have told us we should want. Instead of catalog pages telling us of a three pole motor, we get replies to individual emails, excuses really, telling us why they can no longer put good motors in their lokos. I earn my customer's loyalty every day. Marklin needs to do the same.

I apologize if my rant is off topic. I do not apologize for it's content.

In the new catalogues there is actually a new symbol for locomotives with 5 pole motor (looks like a winding with 5 poles – not star).

However I don’t see it being used much as most loco will be described with the symbol with the 5 stars next to the cylinders shape. The problem with the description for this symbols is the existing of “or” in the text. Could be this or could be that...

Brgds - Lasse

Thanks Tom,
for informing us the meaning of the 5-star symbol in its original state......



Well, it's actually made good economic reasons for us too.
El-cheapo motor equals not a dime spend on Marklin loco.
If it's good for their wallet, it's good for ours too...

Normally I would just "like" a quote such as this and save bandwidth, but it was just too funny not to directly comment.

Stephen, thanks for bringing this topic back to it's original intention.

Guys, notice there is no picture of 5 stars in a circle here, just 5 stars!

Just pointing out that this is yet another representation!

Okay, I've just checked the boxes of my locos..

It doesn't seem that Marklin had a habit of putting the motor symbols on the box.

Pre-2006, the Sinus Re460s doesn't even have a Sinus wave symbol on the outside.

My 37321 - which is the newest DCM model I have, also had no 5-star HEP symbol on the outside.

The only models that have motor symbols written on the box are the ones from SDS era.

"Sinus wave" symbol, with 'Soft Drive' written in it.

3 poles were AC
Five pôles were DC with permanent magnet...
Means two different technologies. Not necessarly a matter of number of pôles....
However, are you sure that 5 pôles were more power consuming ?....also due to electronics ...

Juhan,

Thank you very much for writing such a long and well described text about motors. Well done!

Cheers,
Janne

If I may go a little of topic here:

My understanding is that the "new / current" three pole Marklin motor is made in China. My assumption is that, true to the Chinese manufacturing culture, the current Marklin three pole motor is very likely a copy of an existing motor from another manufacturer. Do you have any information of the "source motor" being copied?

Where do Faulhaber and Maxxon manufacture their 5 pole motors?

Regards

Janne yes there was a 5 pole motor in it and again one can assume the 3500 series may have highlighted the fact with the number 5

Thanks Gordon for showing the 7180 conversion kit, the analog predecessor to the digital 6090-kits that came a couple of years later.

However, I would never had bought these since my experiences with the 5-pole analog motor was not the best, and I discovered Digital...
I did however buy some of the rotors themselves to put into Delta locos for smoother running, but the standard DCM motor became too powerless with them...

I liked the analog five stars but never really ran them enough to experience their limitations. Shortly after acquiring my 5* locos and kits I had to dismantle my layout to make room for our children and by the time we started running trains again the 60901 era was upon us and we never looked back...

Really Herr Mayer! If i choose to believe that I am one of two things, stupid or naïve. I am neither, so Marklin can continue down the track they chose!

Regards

I have received an email from Märklin and if you think they are going to change anything think again or forget about it, they are overwhelmingly happy with the new type motor and this is pretty much in a nutshell. any rumors going around has no foundations,

here is the German answer:

bitte beachten Sie:
please take note:

1. Die Anzahl der 5 Sterne hatte noch nie etwas mit der Anzahl an Polen der Anker zu tun.
the number of stars had never anything to do with the number of poles on the armature

2. Wir haben nie behauptet, dass der heutige Motor 5 Pole besitzt.
We never stated that the current motor is 5 pole

3. Wir lassen uns nicht von überholten Vorurteilen leiten. Wichtig für uns ist, dass ein Motor unsere umfangreichen Tests besteht und in allen Kriterien dabei brilliert. Der neue Motor hat all diese Anforderungen mit Bravour bestanden.
We will not change our minds because of repeated unfounded rumours, for us, one thing is important that the motor has proved all its tests and the outcome was brilliant and the new motor showed all characteristics of an outstanding performance.

4. Unsere Kundenbefragung hat ergeben, dass aktuell nur eine sehr kleine Gruppe an Kunden hier sehr lautstark gegen den neuen Motor auftritt. Leider müssen wir auch feststellen, dass wir hier mit Fakten nicht weiterkommen. Die absolute Mehrheit unserer Kunden lässt sich aber lieber von dem eigenen Empfinden leiten und ist mit dme Ergebnis nach unserer Erfahrung sehr zufrieden.
Our customer service survey showed its only a small group of people who have expressed their disapproval of this motor and we have established, unfortunately regardless about the facts we don't seem to get anywhere to convince their imbedded opinions und we have been very satisfied by our experiences.

Der bisherige 5-polige Motor bedarf eines mehrstufigen Getriebes, was jedoch prinzipbedingt zu einem höheren Geräuschpegel führt. Dieses Manko stellt bei der Mehrheit unserer Kunden heute das größere Problem dar. Daher haben wir mit mehr Kritik an dem früheren Antriebskonzept (z.B. in 37078) zu kämpfen als mit kritischen Äußerungen in der überwiegenden Anzahl unserer Kunden über den neuen Antrieb.
The current 5 pole motor had a multi gear arrangement which in turn created a higher noise level and this noise level many modelers complained about it and our task was to comply and respond to these complaints rather than the current criticism from customers about the new motor

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Ihr Märklin Kundenberater
Frank Mayer

Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH
Kundenservice
Postfach 960
D-73009 Göppingen
Telefon Inland 09001 608222
Ausland +49 7161 608222
Telefax +49 7161 608225
E-Mail: Service@maerklin.de
Internet: www.maerklin.de

so in a nut shell, its not the motor, one thing they haven't answered have they got problem with the decoder(s) compatibility.

plus he hasn't replied why the secrecy where as before any new motor was highlighted as an innovation.

looks like they must have had some complaints, which they regard purely as rumors and on the other hand I've never heard Märklin or any other manufacturer admitting there is something wrong (specially in the car industry unless someone dies).

I've had my 2 cents and I personally will most probably not be buying any new locos anyhow, not because of the motor but in general, I've got enough what I've got and I'm not changing the motor again to gain a quieter running characteristic.

In the long run it is definitely a better way to go to get away from gear ratio to a cardan shaft and have all axles powered, Roco has this done this for years. I would also assume making up the whole chassis or motor block would be less complicated and they may use motors directly connected to the bogy(ies) and I've already seen one prototype of such an arrangement.


regards.,

John

Thanks Markus for that reminder. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with their new motors, but their Mfx decoders don't work well together in all their models with them. Some are better than other ones.

It must be necessary for the manufacturer to get rid of the gears as locomotives with sounds have many times too noisy transmission.

But as there is also noise from the wheels and track in my opinion gear noise is not a problem. I will buy now older models for a while and they have not as great sounds + have gears. This is not a problem for me. I like C-Sinus, SDS and 5-pole DCM motors. I want to try that ball bearing modification to some of my DCM motors and if I am happy I will later do it for all of my DCM motor equipped locomotives.

New Märklin model prices are not always in line what you will actually get. And yes I know about Mfx+ and other new features, but all too pricey models don't have Mfx+.

Regards,
Janne

It is hard to believe that this is an answer to the customer. But it is. To cut a long story short. I am convinced that most of the Märklin users would love to have smooth driving locos. This motor with only 3 poles, no efficient flywheel has none of the characteristics that makes a Märklin loco. I don't mind the number of poles, the name or whatsoever, what I want is that the locos in 2014 have the same performance as the old 3021. Take away power at full speed and it will stop after 50cm. Even a 3029 which I have just repaired stops after >30cm when taking away power at full speed. And I also like to have a motor that can easily be maintained if necessary or replaced for a few € or $.

You are right. 5* always used to be a 5 pole or Sinus. Just imagine you order a new car with a navigation system and what you get when you take over the car is a classic road map.

Hi Moritz,

You are surely free to be surprised and disappointed, that is your right.

However, we do not use the English word "disgraceful" in such circumstances. It is too strong.
I know Mr Frank Mayer, and I find him most helpful and honest in his dealings with me.
His answer to John is not disgraceful, just factual in regards to the questions that John put to him.

regards
Kimball