Monorail motor issues

mmac2002 · May 2018

I recently bought a lot of monorail parts. When I got it home and started sorting out the different parts, I was testing the motor and it seems to be dead. I have switched the middle switch every way. I have tested the battery with a couple of lights that were also in the lot and they turned on. Is there any way to determine the root of the problem or do I just need to replace the whole motor? Any advice is appreciated.

madforLEGO · May 2018

Sometimes the terminal cables or even the plates do not work right.

I have found that if you take a 9V battery and place it right on the terminals on the electric brick of the motor in the right way you can get the motor to work (if the motor works).

oldtodd33 · May 2018

You might also try spinning the motor around by hand using the brass gear on the bottom of the motor. Sometimes if they sit without use for a couple of decades they can get a little oxidized or mechanically frozen.

mmac2002 · May 2018

Thanks for the advice. Tried both of those and still nothing...

Switchfoot55 · May 2018

Never underestimate the tried-and-true NES cartridge method of "blowing on it"...

I had a used motor I happened upon a couple years back that took a lot of fiddling before I finally got it to work. It was a bit of a combination of the above mentioned techniques.

Fingers crossed for you that it starts working!

darthlewis20 · May 2018

I accidently had my mono rail motor, left the battery in and it leaked. years later I returned to it to find this and thought I should of taken that battery out!

mmac2002 · May 2018

SUCCESS! This morning I decided to mess around with it before work. Taking the advice of the "NES method", I hit the sides a few times bounced it up and down on the table a few times and spun the gear manually a little bit. I then attached the terminal brick and pressed the button on the battery box and it turned a little and stopped. I was super excited that there were signs of life. I repeated the above steps and eventually it stayed on!!!! Thanks so much for the advice! You guys rock!

MrJackson · May 2018

Glad to see it's working again. I was showing my monorail setup to my wife last night now that the city is built. It's total genius how they designed it, with the sliding switch as the directional control. Everything is mechanical. Seeing that thing go up and down inclines is really pretty cool. And the best part is it's designed to run above things so you're not burning valuable square footage on track. The 4-wide car does look a little dated, but in my opinion it works as a tram, and if your layout is strictly Town, not City or a blend, it's aged spectacularly.