GRRRR....emlins in the 4F!

[John Candy]

Started at Ampthill on Saturday, when the loco was taken out of box, ran in reverse for about one foot and then would not move in either direction.
The loco "chuffed" (without moving) when the control was in "forward" but not when switched to reverse.

I have spent about 5 hours so far trying to fathom out the problem.
The controls are all in the tender, with only the motor and speaker on the loco, the two being connected by push connectors.
Firstly, I checked the connectors which appeared to be sound but fitted replacements anyway.
This made no difference, so I dismantled the tender to see if any thing had come adrift but all seems to be in order.

The strange thing is, I then wired a different loco to the tender and it ran in both directions!
I then fitted a different power supply to the 4F loco and that ran!

Reconnected the 4F to its tender and back to square one!!

Stranger still..... if the sound connection is made to the loco (leaving the motor power connector disconnected) the engine "chuffs" in forward AND reverse.
Reconnect the motor supply and it will only chuff in forward mode.

With the loco disconnected, there is 20+ Volts at the tender connection socket (with control in either direction) but reconnect to loco and it does not move.

It seems there could be a problem with either the MyLocoSound card or (more probably) the Electron 12 ESC.
The loco is about 3 years old but has been run on only four occasions, with total running time of no more than 5 hours, so would not not have expected the ESC to have given up yet! The ESC relay can be heard to click when reversing direction and there is 20+ V at the connection, so why the blazes won't it move?

Unfortunately, to remove the ESC is major task (it is awkwardly located and would require the whole tender to be ripped apart), so I don't want to unless absolutely necessary.

HELP!!!

Now going back into the garden to work on the track, although at moment, I feel more like ripping up the lot and binning it.

John.

[AllWight]

Hi John.

Sounds suspiciously like the motor may be faulty or something is preventing it from turning freely. If there is no obvious reason for the motor to not operate try bypassing the jack plug socket for the speed controller power out put and hard wire it directly on to the motor using different wires. You may have a break in the wiring. Incidentally do you use multiple strand wire in your engine or single strand. If you use the stiff single strand wiring then the wire only needs one break and the whole electrical circuit fails.

Mark

[John Candy]

Hi Mark,

The motor ran perfectly when connected to an alternative power source just as an alternative motor ran fine when connected to the 4F power source!
All my wiring is multi-strand and there are no detectable shorts.

The suspicious factor is that, with the motor plug disconnected, the sound output "chuffs" in both directions but when the motor lead is re-connected, it will only chuff in the forward mode, so it would seem that the motor is having some influence, even though it is not turning.

I am hoping Peter Lucas may have some suggestions when he reads this, since it could be a glitch with the sound card.

Am going to dismantle the loco to see what is going on with the motor but since it ran with alternative supply, don't see what could be wrong there.

John.

[454]

Another thought John, if you have an Electronize ESC does it have a low, variable , high frequency setting?
If it does then try another setting whichever way be different. Like Mark I suspect the motor has got a fault where the ESC has met an intolerance in it's behaviour. By altering the frequency of the ESC to motor signal there may be a response which could be a clue to what is happening. Whatever you do disconnect the sound card until the unit is running normally, after all motive power is more important than sound in the primary sense of locomotion.

Best of luck until we come up with something better.

Cheers
Dave
454

[John Candy]

After a lot more tinkering (which gave variable results), I stripped the tender and replaced the ESC (like for like; Electron 12 models).

Plugged it all back together and "bingo" everything working normally.

Took the removed ESC and wired it up to the Dean Goods chassis and it ran perfectly!

Can only assume there was a faulty connection somewhere but that does not explain why the 4F tender output would run the Dean Goods but not the 4F.

Only hope these sorts of things won't happen too often.

John.

[454]

Now that really was a GRRRR...emlin !

No rational or logical explanation.

Dave
454

[AllWight]

Is the electronize man enough for the motor it may be that it was right on its limit and the replacement one ma do the same thing again. I personally use the Mach 5 speed controllers from Brian jones and have never had any issue.

Some time ago I fitted the viper system into two 0 Gauge locos for a friend and wired them both up at different times. The first one had 12 AAA batteries and is running superbly and the second loco was prepared a short while later for the same treatment. Unfortunately the Viper in the second loco did not like the 12 AAA batteries and duly cooked itself. It transpired that the Vipers are all different and the first one was although outwardly identical was in fact slightly more gutsy than the second. The Viper is designed to work on 12v and the 12AAA provide 14.4v. The second loco had the 12 pack reduced to 10 cells thereby giving 12v and with a new viper system attached it has since then behaved itself.

My Point is that no two supposedly identical electrical components are ever exactly identical. Maybe the Electronize that you have is right on its limit of its capacity with the sound card as well to contend with.

Mark

[John Candy]

Mark,

The Electron 12 (from Peter Spoerer) is rated at 12A continuous (30 A peak) at 24V and my supply is fused at 5A, so it was well within limits.

The internal tender wiring is all to terminal blocks and it is just possible there was a poor connection (perhaps atmospheric-related corrosion) although there was no evidence of such and the unit powered the Dean Goods whilst the 4F refused to budge.

Regards,
John.