If I understand the all process, I think for the service to be complete you could also apply the glue to the brush holders and make them fixed in place :)

It is an interesting proposal for those that don't want or can't do the job for themselves.

Janne,

I haven't explored going down the path with ceramic ball bearings and the expense I wonder whether its worth it., the motor construction itself isn't the latest technology and heaving gears made by a stamping machine isn't very accurate, so a lot of friction is within the gears. the rotor, mainly on the motor shield side going from metal to plastic isn't the best option and on the other end not using the right oil or leaving the loco for long period idle there is the possibility of ceasing up.

I've tried a couple locos e.g. BR 103 and I was lucky I didn't ruin the whole motor block and I've used 6mm bearings. so I quickly stopped continuing with this idea.

John

Don't overthink it boys. A 40 cent Chinese bearing is way better than Marklin's original. If a bearing fails, well it's only 40 cents to replace it.

Looking forward to seeing Jacques' fixtures for the flat comms.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290822430399

The presentation of cost and quantity is a bit peculiar, but if you click "buy it now", it gives the option of quantity desired and the quantity discount price. I bought 50 for 54 cents each (faulty memory). The shipping is free. I also bought twenty 2 x 5 x 2.5mm bearings from the same seller. I think they also offer flanged bearings.

Edit: Shielded bearings, I felt it a necessity to keep the brush dirt out.

here it is..

Thanks a million.
That's the way.
Luckily, I only ordered 5 pieces from the other place.

Cheers

Barbaro!! Como que vale la pena el upgrade antes que las máquinas empiecen a fallar :-)

Hi all,

I just planned how many ball bearings I really need and below is a list of my locomotives which I know or believe have DCM 3-pole or 5-pole motors. Please correct me if you know for sure that some of them are SFCM or LFCM motored. It seems like I need more bearings than 100 if i want to do this good modification for all of these. If all are DCM motors, then I need around 120 ball bearings!!

Steam locomotives

• 37961, 37963 and 37967 BR 96 / Gt 2 x 4/4 (3 locos, 6 ball bearings)

• 3309/3709 and 33081 BR 85 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 2953x Digital and 37862-01 BR 86 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 29820 and 37953 BR 03 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 3084 DB, 3414 SNCF, 3416 ÖBB, 3417 NSB, 34157 SNCF, 34158 CFL, 37560 CFL BR 50 or BR 52 based locos (7 locos, 14 ball bearings)

• 3702 BR 53 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

• 3317, 3318/3618?, 29855, 29855, 29855, 29855, 33181, 33183, 37182, 37184, 37185 and 37186 S 3/6 or BR 18.4 type locos (12 locos, 24 ball bearings)

• 3313 DB, 3412 K.Wurt.St.E. and 3413 SNCF, 37131 SBB (4 locos, 8 ball bearings)

• 37884 BR 44 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

• 3107 SNCF, 3117 SNCF (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)


Electric locomotives:

• 3039/29855 DB BR 110, 29855 DB E40 and 3740 DB BR 110 (3 locos, 6 ball bearings)

• 29151 DB BR 151 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

• 3038 SNCF and 3165 SNCF (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 3166 ÖBB and 29680 SBB Ae 6/6 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 3367/3767 DB BR 118 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

• 3756.1 and 3756.2 SBB green Ce 6/8III Crocodiles (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)

• 4 DRG electric locos 37561 E60, 37661 E52, 37681 E18, 37196 E91.1 (4 locos, 8 ball bearings)

• 3157 DB BR 160 and 37060 K.Bay.Sts.B. EP 3/6 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings)



Diesel locomotives

• 37650 V60 and digitalised 3028 BR 515 (2 locos, 4 ball bearings). Analog 3028 has not DCM motor.

• 2 BR 216 locos (2 locos, 4 ball bearings) 2 newer Digital from starter sets

• 29811 DB BR 221 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

• 3142 FS D236 (1 loco, 2 ball bearings)

Then I need also ball bearings for 3681 DB BR 221 and 37591 SBB Ae 8/14 in the future. I have a 3021 DB V200, 3022 DB E94 and 3134 CFL Nohab all converted to digital with 60904? kit so they need ball bearings too at least on the motor shield side. I just opened my converted 3021 and it has different motor block as the original motor was LFCM. Same in 3022 too, but 3134 has newer "Great Northern" Nohab technic and I think it will need to ball bearings. I will not modify motor blocks at this stage. I will only remove the bushes where there is one and replace them with ball bearings.



Total need of ball bearings = Around 120 !!!!

What I have done so far for this project is I have drilled one motor shield by electric hand drilling machine. It went ok. First I drilled the original 1.5 mm hole to 2.0 mm, but then I just drilled it to 4.0 mm. I tested with that 4.0 mm drill bit other end that it became ok for hole tightness. I managed to drill that hole in the very center without any extra equipments, but it may be only my good luck that time . I will order ball bearings soon. I will also test to some loco(s) ceramic high quality ball bearings to see if there is any difference or not. Maybe I buy 10 of those, so I install them into my Mallet locos 37961, 37963 and 37967 + two Crocodiles 3756.1 and 3756.2.

Cheers,
Janne

Edited by user 12 March 2014 08:19:56(UTC)  | Reason: Edited the loco list to have DCM motored locos only. Ball bearing need 134 => 120

Hi Jacques,

I can have some spare bearings as there will come more DCM motored locos in my collection later. 3681 and 37591 both have DCM motor(s) too so I will probably order 150 Chinese 1.5x4x2 mm ball bearings anyway. There will come soon one that don't need any ball bearing conversions into it's two DCM motors. It have ball bearings factory installed and it is Märklin 37605 VT 11.5.

You are right about 3039 as it can have DCM or SFCM motor. But my 3039 has only body from the original and everything else is from 29855 E40 so it has 5-pole DCM.

It is a good time to clean and service locos when motors are open. Thank you very much in advance for all the help like photos of your drillng jig. I used a very professional quality drilling jig for my test version... I used an empty Coca Cola paper cup (I am not sure about the words?) upside down and drilled the motor shield on it. I just wanted to avoid drilling the floor and it gave me good clearance . I believe your jig is better .

Janne

Hello,
I did this ball bearing modification on several models, too:

My Krokodil 3352








This model is equipped from the former owner with an Esu LokPilot V3.0 M4. After the conversion from 3-pole DCM to 5-pole DCM (with modified permanent magnet, see picture) and the ball bearing conversion, the Krokodil has amazing driving performance! See video:

The next candidate was the Märklin 50-2362 steam engine.
This model is originally equipped with the 5-pole DCM. I only converted the bearing on the gearbox for now. But the driving performance is now really good, too:

Ball bearing for the gear
Here, I had an old BR 141 from Primex. The gears of the gear box were redounded on the shaft. Therefore, I got the idea to add ball bearings to the gears:



Left gear with ball bearing, right without:


Finally I drilled a 4mm hole into the gear box and mounted there a ball bearing for the anker shaft, too. The same for the motor shield. Now, this motor is equipped with 4 ball bearings!

I use on the 141 an old fx-Decoder from the 37652. In the first drive step (FS1) the 141 runs with 1,89mm/s or 0,59km/h! The current is over the full speed range below 100mA (maesured with MS2).

Video:

Sure, it is still a bit noisy, but the driving performance and slow drive performance is now very good.

3-pole SCM motor shield
What I didn't tried yet is the conversion of the SCM motor shield, because of the 2mm shaft. There You need a 5mm ball bearing. And this may be a little bit too much for the drilling hole.

Drilling
For the drilling of the 4mm drilling hole, I use a center drill. It starts at 2mm and goes up to 4mm. It is a bit easier then drilling step by step, the drilling hole is more accurate and the edges very sharp.

Kind regards,
Moritz

Great work Moritz!

I am still waiting for my ball bearings. I ordered only 100 pcs. first to see how it goes. Maybe they are in Finnish customs now and they wonder what they are? There is much work to convert 50 locos, so I will do them first and then buy more.

Your idea to install ball bearing to transmission is good, but I will not go into that. I just want to have less friction in the motors anchor. I just started to wonder how well could a locomotive run if all gears would be with ball bearings? New type motors don´t have many gears anymore and they run very quiet. Wheels and current pick-up shoes have more noise than motor/gears in those.

I have many noisy locos with DCM that will benefit from ball bearing conversion for sure. It is the slow speed running and starting from stop that will show the best results vs. original DCM motors. There is so much friction between original plastic motor shield and metal axle when it starts moving.

Janne

Moritz, as mentioned before, always look out for your brush shafts as I can see the one you've shown in the picture, the right hand side is lifted up and this reduces the smoothness as well.

John

Yesterday I got my ball bearings. I decided to use my previously already drilled motor shield and install the ball bearings into one cheaper delta digital DB BR 89 006 small steam locomotive. Everything else was easy, except it was VERY difficult to get the other ball bearing installed in the loco frame. Plastic insert was easily removed though. Next time if the bearing fitting is so tight I will just take a 4 mm drill and lightly rotate it by hand (hone) to get it a bit easier installed. I know it has to be tight fit, but definitely no need to be that tight fit.

Results are as good as is possible with delta decoder equipped loco. It runs better and more quietly, but as decoder has so few speed steps it does not give full benefits from the ball bearings. It can be run at quite low speed and no maintenance (lubricating) needed to motor axles anymore . I will do more conversions this weekend.

Regards,
Janne

Hi to everyone who has taken part in this topic and I hope they way things are going there will be more joining the team of explorers, risk takers and converters.

a personal touch to improve the motor will give you hours of enjoyment and peace of mind and I don't think our manufacturers will in the near future follow our trend.
So I'm very pleased with all the effort you have put into this and thank you to Moritz to go one step further and also add ball bearings to the cogwheels, another step closer to an even better and hopefully quieter ride.

thank you for your participation

regards.,

John

Hi all,

I have today installed ball bearings into four locos. Digital (6090) 3702 DRG BR 53, Delta Digital 3416 ÖBB BR 52, Digitalised (6080) 3414 SNCF BR 150 Z and Delta Digital 34157 SNCF BR 150 Y. All locos became less noisy and they start to move with less current. I can see this improvement when I can turn less speed knob from my test unit Märklin 6021 Control Unit before and after this update. Locos also kind of roll longer when running them with high speed and setting speed knob very fast to zero. When I lift up locos driving wheels and turn speed knob to maximum speed setting locos motors also take more revs (or I think so by only listening for the high speed whining sound ).

More ball bearing conversions tomorrow, but I have to find a better solution to drill motor covers to be 100% sure the hole will stay in the middle before moving to more expensive locos. Very small hole alignment errors does not matter, but it is good practice to stay in the center of the original hole.

Maybe I will screw the motor covers to a wood plate to be able to fasten them better to my drilling machine. Digital DCM motor shields are very thin plastic and hard to fasten without any further support. Delta DCM motor shields are thicker and they are easier to drill.

Moritz, it was a good advice to install the tighter fitment frame side ball bearings from inside. I had to do this with 3416 ÖBB. 3414, 3702 and 34157 all were easier and I installed ball bearings from outside.

John, you are right. The bearings have to be installed in level and not in slight angle. I had this problem with the first one (3000 DB BR 89 006 Delta), as I didn't know at that time it could have been installed from inside easier.

When my skills will improve I will install ball bearings to my three Mallet locos Gt 2 x 4/4 and to two of my DCM motor equipped Crocodiles 3756.1 and 3756.2 .

I'm so happy that John started this great DCM motor improvement topic and we have now many users on this forum doing these installations. DCM motor is a very strong one and this way it does not have so much friction and noise anymore.

Regards,
Janne

List continues with these seven, so total number of ball bearing motored locos is now 17:

3756.1 Digital SBB Ce 6/8 III 14305

3756.2 Digital SBB Be 6/8 III 13305

37560 Digital CFL factory weathered Serie 56 (ex BR 52) 5603

37953 Digital DB BR 03 140

33081 Delta DRG BR 85 001

33961 Digital starter set (29530) DB BR 86 132 only motor shield bearing

37862-1 Digital DB BR 86 234 only motor shield bearing

BR 86 locos don't have a 4 mm outer diameter plastic insert (bush) on their frame so I did not drill the original 1.5 mm hole to 4.0 mm to fit a ball bearing. I just installed one ball bearing in these two on the motor shield side.

All seventeen modified ones are much better now. One of my 3756 Croodiles did not move before modification until CS2 speed setting was around 8% of 100%. Now it moves very slowly at speed setting 1% of 100% and is much more quiet. Gears have their noise of course, but motor is good now .

Cheers,
Janne

Janne,

I have to apologize starting this topic and now you you have become a full time ball bearing installer, I think you've earned a marklin-user.net certificate, if there is one. for your achievement

John

Hi all,

I got another 100 pcs. ball bearings on Friday. I have installed now again some ball bearings to four locos. 29830 DB BR 03 184 was the last DCM motored steam locomotive that was not modified so I did it first. Then two French electric locomotives 3038 digitalised and 3165 analog. Also ÖBB 3166 analog was modified with ball bearings.

I will install tomorrow ball bearings to eight diesel locomotives: Digitalised 3066 SNCB Nohab, digitalised 3134 CFL Nohab (with 37668 Great Northern technic), digitalised 3021 DB V 200 and digitalised 3028 DB BR 515. Only the 3134 needs two ball bearings as the rest of these have only a 2.0 mm hole drilled in their metal motor block, so no ball bearings there...

Then also tomorrow 29820 V 160, 29710 BR 216, 3681 BR 221 and 29811 BR 221. Two ball bearings to each one of them like normal. I have already dismantled all eight locos motors and next I will take off the motor plates and drill the holes from 1.5 mm to 4.0 mm and solder back the wires tomorrow.

So far I have had problems only with two locos. I could not get the body off from 3142 FS Italian small brown diesel. I have not read the instructions and I think I will leave it as it is. It is totally new analog one. Other one is 37196 DRG E 91.9 where I could not get access to other motor shield screw and decided then to put it back together without ball bearings... It would have been great to have them in this one.

I think I have converted almost all my DCM motored locomotives tomorrow. One digitalised 3022 DB E 94 is still to be done, but then only those two above. I will get more DCM motored locomotives in the future and will then use the left over ball bearings.

Regards,
Janne

Janne wrote: So far I have had problems only with two locos. I could not get the body off from 3142 FS Italian small brown diesel. I have not read the instructions and I think I will leave it as it is. It is totally new analog one. Other one is 37196 DRG E 91.9 where I could not get access to other motor shield screw and decided then to put it back together without ball bearings... It would have been great to have them in this one.

Janne, the FS diesel loco, I bought many years ago and is another version of the V 36 which I never bought. you have to take off a little plate on top of the engine and you will find a screw beneath it. digitizing this one can be a little tricky, the motor fits in fine but the light fitting you may have to alter and there is an after service components for led's to be fitted (circuit board). have to find it and show you some photos.

John

Janne,

you should send some of your locos back to Märklin for repair and they may wake up what a brilliant idea it is but you never know they may make more money out of selling oil than the loco itself, hence no change over all these years

John

you've made a very valid point.

the brush holder one could say is most the time not in the right position by adding a ball bearing to the brush [plate will alleviate some noise level but the brush holder if not in the correct position can also lead to a noisy motor but also slows down the revolutions and it may cause the loco to run uneven at very slow speeds.
In my opinion it should get the same attention as the ball bearing.
At this stage I have not tinkered with the idea of adding ball bearings to the cogwheels, although I had a quick look at them some of them are too tiny to be able to add a ball bearing unless there are ball bearings smaller than 4mm in diameter but still requiring a 1.5mm inner diameter. there are ball bearings available at 1.5 mm thickness instead of 2 mm and these are most probably suitable for the bigger cogwheels.

All in all I don't think it was ever the best way to go about it but at the time it served these locos over time a reliable function with very little or no trouble at all.
Since Märklin has gone away from cog driven locos and applying lesser gears and therefore quieter and smoother motors (not including some of the decoders suitability) I don't think newer locos would need such a treatment as adding ball bearings.

John

Moritz, I think it is worth it but at the moment, time is the factor

John

Looks like you've been working very hard, Janne!

Hello Janne,
I think, in C-Sinus locos, the drilling hole in the loco frame is not used as bearing. At least my E19 doesn't have a bewaring in the frame but only a hole.

Therefore, there is no improvement when mounting a ball bearing.

Regards,
Moritz

Hi Moritz,

Thanks for info. I have not looked at this very closely as I just noticed there was similar looking place in my DB BR 01 39103 when I had it´s body off for different reason. I have to open it again and see to be sure.

Janne