October 8, 2020 Mabuchi FK-280SA motor

I made a great find for a direct replacement motor for the Athearn Blue Box locomotives, the Mabuchi FK-280SA.

The actual motor number to look for is Mabuchi FK-280SA-14200  12300RPM Dual Shaft Motor

 

 

The motor has 2mm OD shafts and the Athearn flywheels have 3mm ID.  My first few attempts were to us K&S 3mm brass tubing as shown in the following pictures.

  

I us a short piece of 2mm rod to hold the brass sleeve until the glue sets up.

 

The K&S tubing is a tad small in the Athearn flywheel so carefully making sure the brass sleeve is fully covered with CA Gel or Super Glue Gel the thick glue will self fill the difference in diameter. 

The 2mm shaft is helped by the 2mm hole in the Athearn universal.

UPDATE

Later on with the help of Hornblower (Model Railroad Forum Member) I found out that Evergreen #224 Styrene tubing is a perfect snug fit for the motor to flywheel sleeve adapter, regular CA or Super Glue and you are done.

Below is one of my Athearn SD9s with a Mabuchi Motor installed.  To keep the wires from touching the flywheels I use a short section of Evergreen Rectangular Tubing #258 to house the wires above the motor using Amazing Goop to attach it to the motor.

 

I use Micro Connector Pins to connect the wires to the Athearn trucks making the trucks easy removable without having to get out the soldering iron.  Red and Black #20 AWG Superflex wire, red to the right (engineer side) rail black to the left rail.  I always wire both sides of the trucks for better power connection, I don't depend on the truck to frame connection.

I don't intend to install a DCC decoder in my SDs, I always run my SDs in DC mode on my layout.  It would be very easy to install a decoder in any Athearn BB locomotive as the Mabuchi motors are fully insulated to the motor shell.

I use Amazing Goop to attach the motors to the Athearn Frames, a small .08" strip filler between the frame and motor gives perfect drive line alignment.