Mashima 1224 performance

[Michael Waldron]

In his book on Finescale Chassis building, the late Iain Rice used to advocate the use of “Rice’s choice” motors - two of which were the Mashima 1224 and the DS10. Admittedly this was in the 1980’s, as I recall, and before the 14xx/16xx (depending who sold them to you what they called them) series came on the wider market.

Can anyone advise me - what did you fit it in, and what does it pull?
I recall a comment that they were felt to be under-powered, but I’m sure I saw a LNWR Cauliflower Goods into which one had been fitted - I’ve no idea who the builder was or where I saw it - but given that it was a goods loco it should have been able to pull a reasonable load.

I have a couple and not being one to waste Mashimas, I’d like to hear from anyone as to their experiences of their use.

Mike

[Jol Wilkinson]

Hello Mike,

When Iain Rice wrote the book, the M1224 and DS10 were probably the best two small motors available, the 1224 being the better of the two. Later the 14xx and 10xx series became available they were a further improvement.

I used Mashima 1224s in a number of the smaller LNWR locos such as Cauliflowers, Coal Tanks, etc. When the 14mm wide flat cans became available I used those in the larger models such as the Renown, Precursor and C Class 0-8-0.

They all give good performance but were probably never over taxed on London Road as the length of the traversers limited train length. Having said that some of the carriages, especially those built from Badger/Stevenson Carriages kits are heavy and quite a few of the wagons are white metal. The limiting factor in getting the train accelerated out of the fiddle yards at running speed tended to be adhesion rather than motor power.

Jol

[petermeyer]

When the 14mm wide flat cans became available I used those in the larger models such as the Renown, Precursor and C Class 0-8-0.

Jol

Jol,

Are you sure you can get a 14 series in a C Class? It’s no bigger than a Coal Engine only longer. The reason I ask is because I’m building one at present.

Peter

[nberrington]

With the difficulty obtaining Mashima's, I've put small coreless motors in my last few models. They are small and extremely powerful. (I've retrofitted a few just last week). These are pretty economical - both in size and cost. It's a situation where you put in a smaller device thinking it can't possibly have the chops - and then it does! Less really is more.

https://www.ooworks.co.uk/motors

Chris at High Level has a wider range of sizes (for a few quid more), some with massive amounts of torque. I was shocked at how many wagons a tiny diesel can pull when kitted out in these things. You also have the excellent service you would expect from Chris.

https://www.highlevelkits.co.uk/motors

The only caveat it that they apparently don't like feedback controllers and older DCC chips. They seem quite happy with modern chips though.

[Will L]

I do think there is a strong tendency to overestimate how powerful we need our motors to be.

The first thing to remember is that as Jol said...

... The limiting factor in getting the train accelerated out of the fiddle yards at running speed tended to be adhesion rather than motor power.

I'd go further and say that if you want to avoid frying your motors, you should always build your locos so they will just spin their wheels if they meet an immovable object, or too heavy a load. In the absence of a significant run, mine all get tested/run in spinning their wheels against a stop anyway.

I have found that quite small motors provide all the power you can use, as spinning the wheels when the load gets too big proves. Fitting a bigger one only becomes an issue if you run very heavy locos on heavy trains on large layouts. My preferred motor was the late lamented Mashima 1024 which would pull loads as heavy as my locos could manage (thirty odd 50gm wagons up a 1 in 50 hill) all day.

The second thing to remember is that quite often the thing that absorbs the most power is the loco's own chassis. If it is a bit stiff it can easily eat up more power than the trains it pulls and it's power consumption is not limited by the available adhesion between wheels and rails. So if you find your motor is getting too hot to handle, the first thing to question is how free running is the chassis, not the size of the motor.

[Daddyman]

Chris at High Level always discouraged me from buying 12-series Mashimas in the days when he had them. I can't remember why, but you could drop him a line/ring him to ask...

[Tim V]

I remember that about the 12s, the 10s were a much better motor. I have a couple of scrap 12s. The 10s were my 'go-to' motor for a while.

Academic now - no longer available.

[Jol Wilkinson]

When the 14mm wide flat cans became available I used those in the larger models such as the Renown, Precursor and C Class 0-8-0.

Jol

Jol,

Are you sure you can get a 14 series in a C Class? It’s no bigger than a Coal Engine only longer. The reason I ask is because I’m building one at present.

Peter

Peter,

I used a Mashima 1420, driving the back axle in an "underslung" position with LRM 50:1 gears. The motor projects up into the firebox (I had to remove the end of the motor tail shaft).

Jol

[Jol Wilkinson]

Chris at High Level always discouraged me from buying 12-series Mashimas in the days when he had them. I can't remember why, but you could drop him a line/ring him to ask...

It seems odd to stock a product and dissuade people from buying it. It may be that the 10XX series had become available and Chris felt those would suit your needs better.

[bécasse]

The thing that really convinced me that the 10xx series were better than the 12xx series was that they were quite happy maintaining very low rpm even using a "stone-age" controller. I went through a period of making fine-scale 7mm scale models of two-foot gauge industrial locos with two-stage gearing and an effective gear ratio around 1:200, and I found that I could test run them at speeds so low that they took the best part of an hour to traverse a one metre length of track. Despite being 7mm scale, the prototypes were so small that the models were more akin to 2FS, albeit with a wider track gauge, and there was no chance of fitting DCC so they had to run on analogue DC.

[Philip Hall]

I’ve got a couple of 1224 motors left and a 1220 I think. The 1224s were regarded, for some reason, as a bit fragile, but I have had one in my NBR R Class 4-4-0T for a very long and it runs very well. It had a lower rpm than the 1220 but starts more smoothly as a result.

I can also speak highly of the 00 Works coreless motors. I have converted two of their D15 engines which run quite beautifully. They had (I think) Markits gears, possibly 40:1, and this was a puzzle, as I always thought that worm gears were not advised for coreless motors as the bearings were not designed for end thrust. Maybe these ones were more robust.

Philip

[davebradwell]

Whether a motor can take the end thrust of a worm depends on the letters in its manufacturers part number - there'll be a code for it - and not on its type. I see Chris G assures us he's ticked the right box with the new coreless motors in his High Level range.

Can't say I understand this thread, surely you fit the most powerful motor you can rather than the most feeble you can get away with. All within reason, of course. Larger motors tend to run more slowly and therefore more quietly for starters.

DaveB

[Noel]

I still have J D Smith's evaluation published 1/92 as part of the EMGS Manual, which shows that the 1220 is significantly more powerful than the 1224, although the 1224 has a higher torque at its maximum operating rpm, which is about 2/3 that of the 1220. JDS attributed this power difference to the high armature resistance of the 1224. He made no other adverse comment.

[4479]

Some numbers might help. These are from the helpful Branchlines price list dated November 2021, which tabulates motor characteristics including power. So:

Mashima 1220 Max power 0.68W @ 9500 rpm
Mashima 1224 Max power 0.48W @ 6000 rpm
H.1024* Max power 1.60W @ 16000 rpm

* Stated in the Branchlines notes to be identical to a DS10

Note the differences in maximum rpm as well as those for power output. You really don't want to have your motor screaming away if you need to extract the maximum from it, as Dave infers. However all of this is speculative as we have no information about what the requirements are for the 1224. Is it intended to go in a Pacific hauling 12 carriages at speed up 1 in 100 incline, or a GWR 0-4-2T with a plastic autotrailer? Horses for courses and, although the 1224 does seem a bit feeble, in a whitemetal or brass 0-6-0 it might do well enough with ten or a dozen wagons.

Bob

[Jol Wilkinson]

I think we should remember that when the M1224 was introduced it was a definite step in the right direction for those modelling small locos.

From memory, I recall that the DS10 was something of a screamer and had apparently been developed for diesel outline models with twin bogie tower gear drive. There were other small motors, but invariably not very good. The MMRC range, Airfix, ECM, Romford, K's HPM2 (sorry for mentioning that one), etc. were what we generally had on offer. They were also generally designed around the concept of a motor that was bolted to the chassis and gear meshing (usually Romfords) could be a bit hit and miss unless you were willing to spend some time adjusting the mounting. Sagami did a range of can motors, but again tended to operate at higher rev ranges. Portescaps had come onto the market but were expensive and the gearbox profiles didn't always fit easily into some kits (although Mike Trice produced replacement gearbox sides). They also needed a suitable controller, such as a Pentroller.

The gear systems available were also rather restricted, Romfords having been the commonest readily available. It wasn't until Branchlines and others started producing etched motor mounts based around 100DP gears (a la Ultrascale) that we got a variety of options to fit into kits. Sharmann, AGW and Exactoscale produced enclosed gearboxes, but these didn't seem to be so popular.

Mashima were probably the best range we had access to over a number of years. Yes, the 10xx and 14xx were better and more powerful than the 1224 but I have never felt the need to replace them where they were already fitted. Of course I don't run the smae sort of locos/trains that Roy Jackson did on Retford or Tony Wright does on Little Bytham.

[Michael Waldron]

Thanks Gents for those observations.

As was mentioned, the theory in the Branchlines literature was useful, and appeared to support (or was the source of) the generally held opinion that the 1224 was the weaker of the two in that bracket - but when they were actually fitted and operational was what I was really hoping to hear comments about - whether (as Jol says) a need was felt to replace them, or not. In other words, did they fulfil what was asked of them.

For the record, I have two LBSCR Craven 0-6-0 standard / Slaughter heavy goods locos from the 1860s (in the last years of their useful lives - 1890s) to power - using RRC+ and motor upright in the firebox, with 60:1 reduction for near crawling pace operation on ‘heavy goods’ trains, many wagon and vans of which are white metal.
Admittedly nearing scrapping dates, they weren’t called upon to pull the heaviest trains any more, once `Stroudley’ C classes had taken over from them.

Mike

[Geoff]

I built/part scratch-built a Slaters 0 gauge Manning Wardle 0-4-0st in S7 and used a 1224 vertically in the firebox driving a Highlevel gearbox at around 60:1. Virtually silent, runs smoothly on a Zimo decoder without a flywheel and has survived 5 exhibitions as station pilot on my small layout. It even survived some accidental abuse when soldering wires to the brushes, the holders of which had to be superglued back into place. Fortunately, I have a spare motor, but they may still be available form somewhere like Branchlines, and also turn up on Ebay.
Geoff Stenner