Quote from: AGSB on March 16, 2014, 12:47:50 PM
Just a question for thought. You state you just purchased a 0-6-0. Is this a brand new loco or was it used? If new, have you followed the instructions and broken it in, i.e. ran it forward for approx 1/2 hour and then run it in reverse for another ~1/2 hour? If it's new it may just be tight and needs loosening up.

Yes I would add did you clean it or clean the track. I have an 0-6-0 steam switcher and its sluggish and took a few cleanings before it would run smooth. Still stalls on turn outs.

Ok I thought the little boards provided extra benefits or were just something to plug into for the decoder. Yes I have hard wired decoders but was looking for a more professional way. Thanks for the info

Yeah I'm looking for the little board the decoders plug into, not the decoders themselves. Been looking all over. Essentially the wiring goes into the little board then the decoder connects to the board.

I've seen locos with a board built in with an 8 pin or the 9 pin plug on them then a separate decoder plugs into that. I cannot find these little boards anywhere. They appear to have some simple surge protection and some resistors for the lights already built in. Seems a good idea to have a board to mount the decoder to instead of wiring the decoder right to the train.

Does anyone know where to get these small boards?

I had to put washers in my tenders to weight them down.

Those locos have bad wheel binding problems. One side is not a full 90 degrees with the other. This cause a sort of stall, start effect

Are the wheels out of alignment. Some of those get an alignment issue problem. If the wheels are not perfectly 90 degrees on either side the loco will bind and stop.

Are the drive shafts inserted into the hexagonal drive tubes? You pick these things up and the shafts pop out.

I just upgraded two Richmond Spectrum 4-4-0s to that same controller (except light steam).

First off I found the output of the controller for lights (both) is 12 volts so any LED you get you have to get a resistor to drop down the voltage or you will blow the LED.
Here's a nice page on how to do that including calculating the resistor you need.

http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/step6/One-LED-with-a-resistor/

Usually the LEDs are like 2 volt/10ma and so a 1k ohm resistor works fine.

Do you have a volt meter? I would use it to determine the positive from the controller. I would then rig up a test with a 1k resistor and a 9 volt battery and the LED to determine its positive. The resistor goes on the positive in series.

Get some banana clip wires from Radio Shack so you can hot wire the controller and lamp then try it in a test case before soldering.

I upgraded two Richmond spectrum 4-4-0s to Tsunami sound controllers. For the lights, if they are LED they are probably 2-3 volt LED and the output of the controller is probably 12 volts so if you wired it up directly, yeah you most likely fried the LED. You can test the LEDs by taking a 9 volt battery and a 1k ohm resistor and connect the cathode to ground and the anode to the resistor then to positive. Here's an example and how to calc the resistor.

http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/step6/One-LED-with-a-resistor/

If the LED lights with a battery then you wired it wrong. I found that on my tsunami controller the so called positive lead for the head light was actually negative and the common negative actually was positive so I had to flip them (or the LEDs had flipped anode and cathode). So you can check that as well.

Get a volt meter to see the output of the controller chip. If its higher than the volt of the LED then you have to drop it down with a resistor. If its a lamp then the lamp is probably fine. The tsunami controller had an output of 12 volts to the head lamp and tail lamp and the LED was around 2 volts so thats a (12-2)/10ma = 1k ohm resistor. A 1k ohm resistor is usually a good general resistor to use.

So to diagnose see if the light can light up with a battery and resistor. If so then see what volt output is for controller and note which is positive from the controller and for the LED. Then connect lamp with 1k ohm resistor in series along the positive.

It could also be these locos have a bad binding problem with the drive wheels causing them to got out of sync and causing the loco to wobble so Bachmann may have pulled them. You can find them on ebay usually.

Well did you actually wire up the light? Also was it an LED or lamp? If its an LED you may have to drop it down in voltage since you can't tun 12 volts straight through a 2 volt LED. If you have a 2 volt LED and a 12 volt output on the controller then you need a 1k ohm resistor to drop that down or you'll burn up the LED.

If you press function 0 and the lights don't come on then either you did not wire the lights OR you burned out the LED when you first turned it on. If its a bulb then you can just wire it directly since most lamps can handle the 12 volts.

The bulb that came with the engine should be fine and no replacement needed. Was the engine DCC ready when you got it and you merely plugged in a controller?

I have a very similar small layout. 18 and 15 inch curves in two loops. I have the Athern Alco 2-6-0s and the bachman spectrum richmond 4-4-0s. Also 2 three truck shays and two climax engines. I also upgraded an old Riverossi 0-4-0 #96 to DCC. Its a nice engine for its era given it has a lot of articulated linkage for something that is more of a toy. Also got an 0-6-0 switcher. I also have two varieties of 2-8-0. One is the large Bachman and the other looks a lot like the 2-6-0 Alco.

Also some companies sell the very small ore cars in sets of 6.

I love the small steam stuff. I'm not into diesel at all.

I would recommend you try to get at least one loco with a Tsunami sound decoder in it. You'll be amazed how cool it is.

As for elevation what I did was two loops, 15 inch inside 18 inch and the outer loop is 4 inches higher than the inner with a 2 inch bed. So I have a drop of 6 inches total to the bottom of my river bed. I simulate a cliff/rockies environment. The two loops don't meet. So you can get elevation if you set up a second loop higher.

Ok I figured it out. Lamp is pressure fit onto the mount which is pressure fit on the loco. I had to open the loco to find the wire but they are just plugged into the ends of the led that are bent down out of the lamp.

I have a burned out head light on my Baldwin 4-4-0 and I am trying to figure out how to replace the LED. Do I pop the light face out from the front of the lamp? Do I have to disassemble the whole engine? Any done this before?