Monorail Playset Motor Thread

[reactortrip]

I joined this forum because I was searching for broken monorails to experiment on, I didn't find any, but I did start experimenting with mine and decided to share what I have learned so far and what I am doing as I go along. I fully encourage anyone else to add what they have done to this thread as well. I am a DIY person and am a huge advocate of open progress. However I will warn you, this is potentially hazardous to your monorail and proceed at your own risk.

I am probably like many of you who bought this set thinking it would be supremely awesome around my christmas tree:

Unfortunately it's much better looking stationary then it is limping around the tree because of a poorly sized motor.

Well I have since removed the engine from the tree.

First thing I did was remove the batteries. Always remove the power source before you play with electrical systems. I am a safety nazi on this aspect as I have been zapped and know the dangers. Of course I have hot handed 161kV, so I am not a smart cookie. LOL

Next remove the 5 screws on the bottom of the engine:

Now that you have those out, you need to seperate the two pieces. THESE PIECES HAVE WIRES BETWEEN THEM, SO BE VERY CAREFUL AT THIS POINT. You need to push on the LED lights on the front and kinda push back and ten slant up, this is not for the nervous and I take no responsibility if you choose to do this yourself:

Next you need to remove the three screws covering the gears:

Now you have full access to your motor, the gear closest to the worm gear is removed in this photo:

I used a caliper to take some eyeball measurements on the motor:
2mm shaft
10mm long and 6mm wide worm gear
29 mm long 20 mm wide and 15mm tall body

I found the 10x6 worm gears in the UK called MOD 0.5 worm gears. They were $8 for 10. I went ahead and got a pack because I will probably being testing several different options.

Next phase is some electrical testing. I will keep you updated of my progress in the future.

 

[reactortrip]

Selected my first motor for testing.

Going to try the Tamiya 15256 Hyper Dash 2 High Speed motor. measurements are close and it has a 2mm shaft. I should be able to rig some mounts/spacers to get it to fit similar to stock.

19300 rpms at no load

It was made for racing 4wd RCs, LOL. Runs anywhere between 1.2 to 4.8V with no issues. It is a the high speed/high torque replacement for the Mabuchi FA-130 motor which could very well be the stock motor from what I have learned so far.

Here's a stock photo of it, mine is in the mail:

 

[NHMickey]

Hmmm.... A faster monorail. I took mine down as it drove me nuts that it would just limp around... Nice post

 

[reactortrip]

Small update, still waiting on the worm gears from Europe. Received the Hyper-Dash 2 motor from Japan this morning.

Looks like we got a perfect fit. Can't wait to start testing this puppy out.

 

[CandyMandy]

Upgrading to a higher torque/rpm motor is nice.

But moving to full remote control via radio of speed and direction is even better.

We have done that, to a Monorail purchased from the guy on eBay who sells the sets with an already installed higher power aftermarket motor, using the instructions in the link below.

http://www.mindspring.com/~bobquincy/wdw/monorail/rcmonorail.html

The hack work described on the R/C receiver and servo wasn't that hard, the slightly trickier part (as the link warns) is squeezing the results into the tight spaces on the monorail (get ready for a lot of quality time with Mr. Dremel).

But once that's done the results are spectacular.

For that upgrade takes this from being a toy to a working scale model.

Throw in a modified Disney monorail switching station (with a mechanical tweak to remove the design flaw that lead to switch jamming issues and audio upgrades in the form of a larger, beefier speaker as well as a low level audio line out jack) and you really impress the Christmas guests.

 

[reactortrip]

nice, didn't think to do the full remote servo radio, that may be my next step. I may try to find something more updated than his thread to save space. These have shrunk considerably

edit: Nevermind, he has a better version that does fit better:

http://www.mindspring.com/~bobquincy/wdw/monorail/rcmonorail2.html

He does sacrifice the soundboard and honestly, I felt like chucking that thing out the moment I opened mine up. It annoys me so; and without it; the kids can't asked to hear it.

I may move to a different power source even more juice than what he switches too and go bigger with the motor as well.

Well for those people who just want to get their's faster first. I will finish this portion of it.

Got my worm gears in, fitted them on the motor.

Desoldered the old motor, the cap on top is just a small .1uF

Soldered it all back together same as it was before

Got it all back together

Back running like a Champ:

On my track around my christmas tree.

Original stock motor: 40 seconds to complete a lap.

Hyper Dash 2 motor: 16 seconds to complete a lap.

It is quick and torquey. Very very much improved and runs a respectable speed.

 

[reactortrip]

Shot a short vid that shows the difference, new motor is in the pip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfPb09oTnrc

 

[CandyMandy]

U

nice, didn't think to do the full remote servo radio, that may be my next step. I may try to find something more updated than his thread to save space. These have shrunk considerably

edit: Nevermind, he has a better version that does fit better:

http://www.mindspring.com/~bobquincy/wdw/monorail/rcmonorail2.html

He does sacrifice the soundboard.

And in the process (a) contradicts his entire original design philosophy (add enhanced functionality while retaining as many original features as possible, especially the OEM lights and sound), then (b) recommends an approach which requires more, not less fussy Dremel modification of the cab unit and (here's the kicker) let's the reader know the material costs triple. All for the supposed "benefit" of keeping the r/c components solely in the cab unit.

I'll stay with the fully featured (more realistic), proven and lower cost method!

 

[reactortrip]

And in the process (a) contradicts his entire original design philosophy (add enhanced functionctionaity while retaining as many original features as possible, especially the OEM lights and sound), then (b) recommends an approach which requires more, not less fussy Dremel modification of the cab unit and (here's the kicker) let's the reader know the material costs triple. All for the supposed "benefit" of keeping the r/c components solely in the cab unit.

I'll stay with the fully featured (more realistic), proven and lower cost method!

Ah, that stuff doesn't really bother me. I don't mind spending the coin to do it. As I said losing the sound isn't a problem for me because I am not a fan of it. I am replacing my original LEDs anyway. I don't want the green. I've got some white ones I plan on replacing the old ones with and thinking about running additional lighting to the rear. Because the "realistic" version isn't green. So re purposing how they are mounted within the monorail would be relatively easy.

Heck, I may not even use the radio he is using in either of the ones posted. He just suggests them as a baseline to give people an idea of what he did. I may as well just go my own route instead of following that plan. I have plenty of in house small RC devices I can use. I know I have some very small IR controllers that I may be able to fit to this application. I will just have to think about how much I want to do to it. Stepping up from 3V to a higher voltage would give me access to a much faster motor and different radios. I am not limited to his plan.

 

[reactortrip]

I got bored. I could easily put this little IR receiver into the monorail without any modification to the monorail. Even with this little lipo it could spin the stock motor. If it can handle the amperage of full load in the monorail with a better power source is the big question. The traces look like they should be able to, but we will see. I am not too worried about it, it's from an old POS 2 channel heli that someone gave me because it was broken. Probably cost $5 at the mall. I did some testing of the IR and it looks like the IR should work without for the range I am needing.

Bob's builds were from 07 it looks like, the chinese have seriously flooded the market since then with cheap decent small size receivers that are much cheaper than the route he recommended years ago if you really want to go as cheap as possible.

Actually his first build is from 2000, his selections for something small were almost nil when trying to do it on the cheap side.

 

[simzac]

To each his own, but I like the slow moving one much better. It's a monorail, not a racecar.

 

[CandyMandy]

Note to anyone looking to do the remote control upgrade: The other factor to take into account is battery strategy.

The link to the mod overview shows two approaches, one first one being four standard AAs (to give you the nominal 6V to get standard RC equipment running) or the later one using rechargable smaller AA ni-cads.

The tradeoffs? The standard AAs are definitely easier to fit; you already have a working bay for two in the cab and it is easy to add two readily accessible AA battery holders in the car behind the cab (the newer monorials with the opening roofs are ideal for that, that door is just large enough to allow batteries to go in and out, no need to unscrew anything). But their higher weight does result in some additional load that slows the train down a wee bit.

And while the smaller rechargable ni-cads are fussier to work with (the soldering connections) they offer the advantage of being a little lighter and staying permanently in the cab if you add a recharging jack (no ned to remove any batteries). The downside is waiting to recharge the train when said batteries run down (using the regular AAs means just a brief delay while you swap in a fresh set).

 

[Micca]

This is great stuff. I'd love my trains to run more smoothly around the track.
Please update the thread with any future mods.

 

[CandyMandy]

Another note: the Tamiya Hyper Dash 2 motor upgrade reactor trip walked us through does have more torque and definitely adds speed to the train. If you are just interested in that (not remote control), changing to that motor is a nice, simple mod. Also, you don't have to go to Japan to find it, the Hyper Dash 2 is readilly available at many domestic online hobby stores and is cheap (around $4-5).

However, if you want to both do the Tamiya motor upgrade and get into remote control, be aware the amperage draw on the Tamiya (almost 1 amp when running on 5V, according to tests my husband did) is much higher than the stock (or Ebay seller upgrade) motor and will fry the driver chip on a typical servo board unless you modify the circuit. We've done that, and can share the changes with anyone interested.

 

[wyattsdaddy2]

Hi kids,
figured it was time i joined in, hope you don't mind the company.
I am the unofficial "king" of the disney high speed monorail and have been for years. I've installed no fewer than 1000 of these via ebay and c-list, local ads and such and i do about 6 a week. If you don't feel like getting into it yourselves i do it for $25 plus $5 shipping under "collectitall41". There is a better motor than all have suggested and no additonal power is needed, 2 aa's works fine and for a long time considering mine triples the actual speed.
If you'd like to see my work, go to youtube and type in custom monorail, my vids always come up first (wyattspoppa) or you can find the links on my ebay auctions, both for a total monorail in a box fully custom done already or you can just ship me your engine car. I can also rebuild the rides that always die, dumbo and astro orbiter, and they will run forever, that took me a year longer than the mono engine to custom-rebuild. I've done so many monos that i do one from start to finish in 9 minutes flat and never, ever had one fail in 4 years of doing these. The motor was everything, no custom gears needed or jury-rigging the innards as many have tried or suggested here. Because this is my business i can't publicly disclose where i finally found the perfect motor but i will answer inquiries individually as i was a fan and hobbyist long before i added it to my business so i'll pm you if you need help. Check out my vid racing a solo diz mono with my motor pulling all 5 cars and lapping in a quarter lap! Sorry about the caps, i'm not yelling i just left it on and didn't feel like re-typing!

 

[reactortrip]

hmm, 6 a week, maybe I need to start listing some on ebay with the link to this board in my auctions so if anyone wants to attempt it themselves they can.

I don't see any "jerry" rigging on anything I posted as far as the engine upgrade. The custom gearing is the same exact gearing as comes standard.

The other stuff about turning it into an RC vehicle is on a whole never level than what your upgrade does, so please understand Candy was trying to provide us with some better mods. Which I fully appreciate her for adding valuable information to this thread on the monorail for us who like to tinker beyond a basic motor upgrade. It's a whole lot better than a sales pitch without providing any information.

BTW, I took your video and did a comparison test to my video and my train was slightly faster than yours through a single turn piece.

 

[wyattsdaddy2]

Easy there champ. only my friends are invited to be so abrupt with me so throttle back on the lecture, and only my English teacher is welcome to critique my writing, you are neither. The whole "happiest place on earth" got by you that day huh? I've forgotten more about Disney Monorail playsets than you'll ever know. I've custom built well over 1,000, I'm the only guy on planet earth who can rebuild all 7 Disney animated Monorail rides (4 DCA, 3 Diz) and I did the remote years ago using a ceiling fan remote first, a helicopter servo later, but Bob Quincy is the master. It's all a moot point as Disney is introducing the Mark VII playset at the D23 Expo today and it has a remote, I'll be one of the first in line. As for your dad being bigger...errr I mean your Mono going faster than mine, if you watched my video, I raced a stock Disney motor as you did, but I'm guessing you missed mine was pulling all 5 cars, the stock Diz motor I raced was solo. I could have (and have) made it much faster, but it chews through batteries twice as fast and gets the PCB dangerously hot, henceforth 19,000 rpm's is a poor choice. Also, should you add custom tracks that are popular with my clients, ones that allow for tighter turns and inclines, your motor will constantly "spin-out" and hesitate, wearing down the rubber wheel to boot. I wasn't pimping my wares, simply sharing my success on the project with fellow Monorail enthusiasts and 90% of folks who'd like to have this done, won't or can't do the work, I do it for them. Think many mom's are gonna have time to learn how to use a soldering gun, further still, about one in ten I do is mailed to me from wives who's husbands tanked the job asking me to fix it, so plenty of men out there aren't skilled with intricate wiring either. I do it for them fast and cheap. I was working on the inertial navigation systems of the F-15 Eagle when I was barely 18, chasing open circuits in a $30 million aircraft, about the time you were watching Sesame Street, but please, feel free to teach me about a $3 RC motor anytime. I can do 5 of these in about 30 min!

 

[CandyMandy]

It's all a moot point as Disney is introducing the Mark VII playset at the D23 Expo today and it has a remote, I'll be one of the first in line.

Enjoy your new purchase. Knowing the type of sourcing Disney does for these toys, I wasn't at all surprised to learn that the remote it includes is very, very basic.

Specifically, it doesn't have the "Bob Qunicy-inspired" highly variable, independent speed control for two different trains at once-- which is precisely what the Futaba RC transmitter unit we use as our remote provides. The speed control in particular is critical if you want realistic scale operation, without it what you end up with is cheap toy-like motion. And being able to run mutiple trains at once from one remote makes an additional huge difference in realism.

And the sound function on your new remote can't activate the six different resort and park destination audio tracks in a WDW TTC switching station unit. Ours can, via a small, leftover Sony remote my husband hacked. He did this over the spring (said it was relatively easy since the trigger path for each of the different soundtracks in the TTC unit are all individually, directly accessible through existing traces on the manual selection switch on the station). The small Sony remote is attached to the side of the Futaba transmitter, leaving us with overall "choice of which sound and when" control capability that is superior to what that new Mark VII of yours comes with.

I say that because -- given that single yellow sound button on your remote-- whatever ranges of sounds your new monorail has, inevitably they all are accessed through the tired, annoying "one-at-a-time-in-the-same-repeating-sequence" fixed toggle mode. That cheapo design is also how the stock sound effects in the Disney Main Street Train Station model work - which is precisely what led my husband to hack that item so we could make the different sounds directly accessible. That's a tangent which will ultimately lead to a future, whole separate discussion on modding the WDW HO scale theme park train set Disney sourced from Lifelike (pictured below). Out of the box, the stock version of that product is very, very cheap, almost junk. But in terms of accuracy to prototype (particulary the Walter E. Disney locomotive and tender units) it holds real potential and can be dramatically improved.

But back to the monorail: also in comparison to your Mk VII, all six of our monorail destination sounds are heard via an upgraded 3" speaker inside the TTC unit , not that cheap tiny plastic thing in the monorail cab unit, which is probably what your Mark VII uses. Which again leads to better quality (clear audio at adequate volume, not the "squeaky, tinny 1960s transitor radio" sound one gets from a stock monorail).

And lastly, our remote control trains are in authentic WDW color schemes that make our layout more truly prototype, not the Disneyland colors of your train, which don't go with any of the more extensive range of WDW monorial accessories (I guess some people are waiting -- and will likely be waiting forever -- for playset versions of the Disneyland Hotel, The Grand Californian, the Paradise Pier, etc., etc.) That or enaging in very involved re-painting of their Mark VII to reftofit it to WDW colors.

 

[tcsta]

Candy - any chance we could see some pics or a write up describing some of the details of your set? It sounds really neat, and I would love some new ideas to try.

 

[CandyMandy]

Candy - any chance we could see some pics or a write up describing some of the details of your set? It sounds really neat, and I would love some new ideas to try.

My husband finally took shots of the whole layout over Christmas (the one time of year the whole shebang is set up), I will see if I can upload some. The pictures will help with descriptions of how things have been modfied and function.