I made another batch of gears since I need one for this loco and eight more for the second one that needs new gears. I print a number of extra as it takes the same amount of time no matter how many or on the build plate and some fall off during the print as I selected the smallest support possible. I'll add a third support for the gears on future one and maybe not as many will fall off (UPDATE: Using 3 supports only 3 gears fell off on the next print). The ones that fall off end up on the bottom of the resin tray. I use HF paint filters (100 for $9) to put the resin from the vat into a cottage cheese container. Scrape the failed prints off above and then use the filter to pour the resin back into the vat. The first couple of runs printing the gears and frame isolators I let the build plate drip back into the vat for quite a while. Then stuck it into the cleaning container that has denatured alcohol in it. The container sits in the Elegoo wash/cure station and propeller in the container spins and washes the print. There was still fair amount of resin on the build plate that was also washed off. Not great as it is wasted and contaminates the denatured alcohol faster. There is a basket you can put in the wash container but these small parts would fall through and down to the propeller. I found a large flat strainer for $4.00 at the Dollar Store next door (handy location for us) and removed the wire netting and pushed it into the basket and …. …. put the gears and frame isolators into the basket and lowered it into the denatured alcohol and ran the clean cycle on the station for about 4 minutes. Next the wash container was removed from the station and the round curing disc was put in its place. I ran the 'cure' cycle' for about 3 minutes. Tried to turn the prints over the best I could and ran it another couple minutes. The wash/cure station is a great addition to the printer and if it went down I'd be ordering another one right away. Below the printer and wash/cure station shown above are shelves where all the supplies and equipment needed for resin printing are stored. There is another shelf to the left out of view that I use for dealing with the build plate when it comes out of the printer and is a place I can pour resin in or out of the vats. To the right in the picture above you can see the edge of a bed sheet that gets pulled over the whole station when not in use to help eliminate dust. I'm glad I took the time to build the print station as it has made the whole process that I wasn't looking forward to very manageable and actually enjoyable. I printed a lot of gears since they don't use much resin and print as fast as one which was all I needed and I'll need more for the second DDA40X I have that also has cracked gears. I put the one gear in the loco and tested it first with my 5 volt power supply and then moved over to the layout where I could connect it to the track power as shown above. It was catching a little and stalling the motor in one direction so pulled the gears/axles/wheels back out and tested them one at a time in the truck housing and they all seemed fine. Put them all back in and everything ran fine. Not sure what was going on. After the test with the loco upside down it was onto the test track and the loco as you can see is running great at all speeds (click on image above or HERE ). I have no long term report at this point as to if the gears will hold up or not but so far I'm impressed and happy with them. Also they cost penny's to make and at this time I've had the loco apart and together and could replace all 8 axle gears and have the loco back on the track in about 30 minutes with new gears if needed. You can also bookmark this info on my site ( HERE ). You can find the print file for the gears on my thingiverse.com account ( HERE ). Sumner
Any chance of gears for the 3rd (i.e. newest) version? Bachmann doesn’t seem to have solved the splitting problem after all these years.
Maybe, I have two of the newer ones that came DCC. Ran one, probably only a few minutes if I did, on the test track when it came in. The other one was sold as 'parts' loco but wasn't all apart when it came if I remember right so will have to see what if anything is wrong with it. What I need to design a gear is if the truck design is the same.........the large gear that the worm drives, one of the idler gears and an axle gear. If you have yours apart and wanted to send those I could try. I've got too much going on right now to tear mine apart. I put the second one I had together (2nd gen.) yesterday and the new gears are fine in it but it has a motor problem. One runs a lot slower than the other one so it is like trying to run two locos in a consist that are nowhere near speed matched. I might have time to look into that today but then we will be gone for a bit. Sumner
Must of heard me talking about it. Went out to run the loco today to think about the motor problems and there were none. Ran as good as the other one at all speeds (creep to way to fast). Both motors seemed to start turning at the same throttle position. Probably only needed to be run in some. I'm sure they have been sitting for some years now. I did sparingly oil everything. Figured out why it was derailing in one direction at a turnout also. Couple pin was hitting the servo wire that throws the throwbar in the middle. Nipped the servo wire a little shorter and that problem was fixed. I think I'm going to put a LokSound sound decoder in one of the DDA40X's and a LokPilot non-sound in the other. So far no gear problems and I've run both a fair bit and have tried to abuse them some. Long term, who knows Sumner
Do you have one of the newest versions with split gears? I haven't heard of it being a problem with them.
I don't have one personally (yet!), but I've taken a couple of 3rd-gen DD40s apart on the train club's maintenance bench to diagnose running problems that turned out to involve split axle gears. I've also seen it in a couple of similarly new doodlebugs and a latest-generation C44-9W. So it's definitely still a problem Bachmann has, although maybe not a 100% inevitability like the older ones. I don't think I've ever seen a first-gen DD40 axle gear that wasn't split.
I thought about getting one but the Spookshow review looks like they aren't worth having and they still go for quite a bit of money. In fact all versions can go for quite a bit. Way more that they should if they have the split gears. I think all the axle gears on the two 2nd gen's I bought were split. With the new gears though they are really nice runners and creep about as slow as anything else I've run. It will be interesting to see how they run with sound and non-sound decoders. If the gears last a reasonable amount of time and basically don't cost anything to print I'll be happy. Sumner
I have a chassis and trucks from a second-generation one that I was hoping to use in a DD35 kitbash many years ago, but that project turned out to be a non-starter. My skills at the time just weren't up to adapting the trucks to a frame with the correct scale length and width, and the cracked gears were the final nails in the coffin. Now that 3D printing is a viable option, I'm considering taking another shot at it, this time with printed parts.
k I got a DD35 shell from James Trains and a non-powered chassis. Of course it is still sitting in a 'some day' box. He shows how to power it with the DCC version DDA40X frame. I bought one of those that was marked repair (not sure what is wrong with it) that I hoped to use for $76 and still might if it is repairable. I got another that is fine for $93 but didn't want to cut it up but might consider now that I've got these 2nd gen's working. It is hard now to find one of the DCC ones for under $200. I also need to look to see if the 2nd gen is a candidate for the James Trains shell. Not sure why he didn't use that model unless it was because of the split gears. I talked to him (email) last year to see if he was still planning on making gears for the 2nd gen. He said that he still hoped to get to that. If he does maybe his will be stronger than what I'm printing but so far I haven't see a gear failure, but this is early going with them. I bought a Doodlebug that has good gears and converted to DCC and have another one that has split gears so bought some of his gears for it (yet to be installed and different than the DDA40X gears). I also asked if he had plans for a DD35A and sounds like that might also be a 'some day' project. I looked a little at using his DD35 shell and a GP35 shell but there would be a lot of work to pull that off. The 35A is longer than the 35 but I could never find out exactly by how much. Since you cut the chassis shorter on the DDA40X to use it for the DD35 maybe it might be close in length for a DD35A or at least could be adaptive. All of that it way down the road for me though but let me know if I could help in a limited capacity. Also sent you a PM, Sumner
I knew it had been a while since I shelved my DD35, so I scoured RailImages for my last update. Turns out it was over fifteen years ago, back when N scale 3D printing was a pipe dream and dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Back then I got as far as kitbashing a DD35 hood from a pair of Kato GP35 shells, but that shell was narrow enough inside that the 2nd-gen DD40 trucks with their end-mounted worm gears couldn't really pivot around any corner whatsoever. That and the split gears pretty much killed the project. At the time I was trying to modify the truck gearboxes with styrene to move the worm over the middle idler gear. Now I'm tempted to redesign the modified gearboxes as printed parts for additional strength and see if I can't revive the pipe dream.
I'm wondering if that is the reason James (James Trains) used the last version (DCC version) of the Bachmann DDA40X as the one to use under his DD35 shell? I should be back home tomorrow so will maybe try and do some checking soon with the 2nd and 3rd version and a GP35 shell Sumner
