whats a pancake moter

[Cjcrescent]

That is true! You can find diamonds in a pile of dirt you know. I do have a couple of friends that run these and they are still running after many years of service. But when doing repair work for the hobby shop, I know that about 75% of the repairs I do are on locos with this motor. Of those I can only get maybe 5% to function at all. I generally end up recommending the customer get a new piece of motive power, with a better motor, and just use these locos for display.

As I said, when these motors first came out, they were better built. I don't know in what way the manufacturing of these changed, but they have, and starting about 1987 is when the motors started getting a reputation of being junk. Example, the old Bachmann Reading consol, 2-8-0, had these as their motors. Most of these locos failed not because of the motor, but because the plastic axle inserts between the drivers split and would not keep the drivers in quarter, and being made of a "slippery" plastic, were impossible to repair. This was one reason you saw companies, like Bowser, bring out mechanism kits for these locos.

There has been many threads about these on several other forums, and how bad these motors have become. If you're interested, just do a search on the forums. The MR forums is a good place to start.

 

[oldtank]

I cant speak for the American Pancake Motors but the Brits have been using this type of motor for over 30 years, it is only the last 2 or 3 years that Hornby stopped using pancake motors which they call "Ringfield Motors", while not the ultimate in motors they last for years with many of the first ones still running and pulling trains.

 

[Richard V]

Don't know for sure but I'm guessing the reason mine worked better than most is that when I saw the controller that came with the layout I wired in my Railpower 1370 which is a whole lot better quality.