Inside a DCC concepts digital IP motor- when the lubrication has failed

This motor was installed back in 2017 and has worked fine until over the last year or two it has gradually failed, with sticking, and slow erratic movement until now the throw arm no longer moves.
I have had similar problems with 2 other motors of the same age.
Due to living here in Australia, instead of posting it back to the UK where DCC conceopts atre now located, I thought we might open it up and see what was going on.
I was surprised to find that the grease or whatever they had used in the original lubrication had dried out and caked hard, effectively meaning the motor had more resistance to overcome, the spindles had jammed and even after cleaning it and rebuilding it the motor failed to perform adequately.
(unfortunately I forgot to record that bit)
So i also noticed that now in the new motorrs literature it recommends to open up each motor and lubricate it every 5 years, with 24 motors installed on our layout it would be quite an exercise to do this. Cheaper for me was to replace the motor, hopefully the others will continue to be oeprating fine.

[@ngaugefouroaksstreetstatio6932]

Very interesting I have about 50 on my layout and 36 are from 2012 and also live in Australia, would be a massive job to lubricate them all.

[@allynwoodmodelling]

Yeah i think its the removing and reinstalling that would be the pain especially if its an N scale layout!, hard enough to fit them into HO scale points. Thanks for commenting

[@anthonyrushton5242]

Hello Al thanks for your support always welcomed and great videos keep up the good work

[@allynwoodmodelling]

Why Thank you sir Anthony, always like feedback, good and bad

[@peterpocock9062]

I've had a couple of the old Cobalt units stop switching. I pulled them apart to find the contacts on the wiper arm had, over time, "relaxed"! They weren't touching some of their adjacent pads. A bit of careful bending sorted that. While I was in there I used synthetic grease to re lube the gears and pinions. Do not use petroleum based greases. The fact is the synthetic stuff will rarely dry out. It rubs off long before that!
Thanks for your vid.😊

[@allynwoodmodelling]

Thanks for your comments Peter, It would be nice if there was some way of lubricating them without having to pull them apart, hadn't thought of the contacts, might have to revisit a couple of the dead ones,.
Cheers Al

[@TheFirefighter56]

Thanks for the info.👍

[@allynwoodmodelling]

No problem 👍

[@richardswallow1967]

Many thanks for information…

[@allynwoodmodelling]

Thanks for the feedback

[@chrisbarr1359]

They should send you a free replacement. Not your fault it failed. They know its a problem, thats why the changed owners manual.

[@allynwoodmodelling]

Yep but now as they are in the UK not AUS anymore it would cost the same to post it back as it was to buy a new one