Electrical issue with DCC and Mogul

[Terry Toenges]

I have two new Moguls that I bought in past few months. I have them as #4 and #5. 4 is the one I have been back dating. I can't remember if I even ran 5 after I took it out of the box and put it in the train cabinet to await back dating after I've finished 4.
Today, I put 5 on the track to give it a run and the EZ Command unit gave me the rapid flashing red light. I disconnected the tender and set the loco and the tender on the track separately. No flashing light with either of them. With them disconnected but both on the track, no flashing.
I hooked tender 4 to loco 5 and it runs fine. I hooked tender 5 to loco 4 and the red flashing light. Pull the plug out from the loco and no flashing.
That means something in tender 5 is messed up. I tried turning the tender trucks around but they physically won't turn all the way around. All four wheel sets have insulated wheels on one side and non-insulated wheels on the other side so that's not it.
Any ideas?

[Maletrain]

Terry, it sounds to me like you have the wrong tender, or tender trucks, or maybe just the tender wheels for Mogul #5.  The DCC Mogul is supposed to have an all-wheel pick-up tender, with 4 brass "ears" that extend up into the tender frame from each side of both trucks.  The tender you describe as having wheels insulated on only one side sounds like an old DC tender to a Prairie, not a DCC tender for a Mogul. But, I am not understanding how that would "plug in" to the Mogul, so it sounds like somebody has switched trucks or switched wheels in the trucks. This is most likely where the short is coming from, but, without knowing exactly what you have in the way of pieces, I can't say exactly how the combination of components is making that short circuit.  Please compare the trucks on the tender that works to the trucks on the tender that does not work, and see if they aren't different.

[James in FL]

Troubleshooting 101 Terry.
Find your meter and start poking around.
Sounds to me like something just not quite right in tender 5.
Check the entire circuit, including polarity between engine and tender.

Good luck

[Terry Toenges]

I was wrong about the wheel sets. I just rechecked the wheel sets on 5 and compared them to 4. On 4, the insulated wheels are on the left in front and on the right in back. On 5, all insulated wheels are on the left. I'm sure that is the problem. I changed them around. I can't check it tonight but I will tomorrow.
There are wipers on all four axles. The front wiper plate has the black wire soldered to it and the rear one has the red wire.
This is out of the box and I had not made any changes to 5. I did not change any wheels around. I just took it out and put it in the cabinet. This was the first time I tried to run it.
Thank you guys for your help.
As far as the "plug" - The new Moguls' tenders have to be plugged in to the locos or they won't run. On the old Moguls, that wasn't the case. I could run my old one without the tender but not the new ones.

[Maletrain]

Terry, I am now really confused.  I also have 2 Moguls, Bachmann Item #s 51756 (B&M #1363) and 51751 (PRR #3234).  Bachmann refers to these as "'N' ALCO 2-6-0 Steam Loco (DCC)".  The tenders on mine have all-wheel pick-up on both the front and rear trucks, just like the Bachmann Spectrum versions of the 2-8-0 and 4-6-0.

But, I notice that there are no drawings on the Bachmann parts website for what I have.  What that site shows for a "2-6-0/2-6-2 Locomotive" is a strange setup where the front truck is all wheel pick-up and the rear truck has wheels that are electrically isolated from the locomotive, with one wheel on each axle insulated from the axle to prevent creating a short circuit between the rails, like any freight car truck with metal wheels.

What you are describing seems to be different from either of these two cases - it has both trucks with wheels that are electrically connected to the axles on one side and insulated on the other, and axle wipers to connect electrically into the mechanism.  And, it is DCC.  To me, that sounds like a Model Power/MRC version of the Mogul, and MP/MDC does call theirs a "Mogul".  So, you may be asking for help on the wrong forum.  Or, at least you need to tell us what manufacturer made the loco you ask about.

For your particular case, it seems like you did solve your own problem by comparing your two locomotives, so things are good.  But for the future, remember that other posters will not be able to help you, and might actually mislead you, if we are misunderstanding what locomotive we are talking about.

[Terry Toenges]

I thought about putting it in the On30 forum but since it was kind of a generic electrical issue I put it in the "General Discussion".
It is my Bachmann On30 Moguls. I tried it this morning and it works. The one pair of wheel sets were reversed.
I never messed with the wheel sets at all and never ran it. It was still set for "3" for the address.
The front truck gets current from the left rail, it goes through the electric stuff in the tender and then to the rear truck passing it to the right rail and completing the circuit. Or it might be vice versa. I don't know which way the current is actually flowing.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,34501.0.html

[Maletrain]

Now I understand - it is a Bachmann loco, but On3.  I was looking at the Bachmann N scale locos while trying to understand your problem.  I guess we both need to start stating scale when writing in the "General" part of this forum.

[RAM]

I would check the wiring on the two tenders. 

[Terry Toenges]

Ram - It's fixed. The two wheel sets on one truck were reversed.
The trucks won't swivel all the way around in a circle so that's not it. The wires coming out of the frame to the trucks are towards the ends of the tender. The wires attached to the trucks are soldered on the wipers towards the ends of the tender. It's the same way on both tenders.
Either it got the wheels reversed at the factory, Advantage Hobby where I bought from messed with the wheels, or Advantage Hobby sold it to someone who messed with the wheels and returned it. I guess I should have tested it right away when I received it.

[bbmiroku]

Live and Learn.

[RAM]

Go to live steam.

[Terry Toenges]

Live steam... Like I really need another set of issues to deal with.

[bbmiroku]

Burnings and scaldings and meltings, oh my!

But at least you won't have to worry about your power bill any more!