I see.   Thank you very much.

Did that chassis come with the metal gear transmission?

Thanks guys!  I swear, this forum is more helpful and more informative than any forum I have taken interest in.

I run 14.8 Volts and am thinking of using multiple packs in parallel to extend run time.  Like Bill, I do not like trail cars.  I have the receiver in the locomotive and the batteries in the tender.  I have a whopping 36 feet of track (yes, that's thirty six) and it's all tight turns and steep grades.  One tender is shortened and 'bashed' to model a partial coal load and therefore has little room for batteries.  These 18650's look like the answer for me.

With packs made up of Li-po cells one must consider "balancing the cells" during charging.  I assume that with each cell having a cut off circuit, this issue goes away.

Having fun,
Rick

Bill,
Thanks for all the info!  I have a few questions.
   What size wire do you use to build the packs?
   What amperage do you charge them at?
   Do you run four cells alone, or multiple packs of four cells wired in parallel?

Thanks again very very informative!


Rick

Thanks for the input I really appreciate it.  This thing makes the same noise if the contacts are shorted at the connector.  It seemed to get a little worse each time it was run.  By the way, the locomotive is battery operated with no power to the rails.  Thanks again.

I had LEDs from Radio Shack that burned 'blueish-white' & I learned that I had too much voltage to them.  If I remember right,they wanted 3.3 volts & I had 3.6.  I cut them back to 2.9 volts & they burned white.  Bright, but white.  On one of them I put a small dab of brown paint on the tip to tone it down a bit & I like it just fine.

Thanks G gauge, I have read that before & it seems to be more about improving the card than trouble shooting problems.  However I think I will try adding those capacitors & see what happens.  Won't hurt---might fix it!

Thanks again

My Big Hauler sound card makes a strange burp noise rather than a chuff noise.  It is an older version without the volume control knob.  Looking for ideas on what to check.  I have verified that the problem is in the tender and not the locomotive.  I had another one that did the same thing but it had a visibly damaged (leaking) capacitor.  Changing that fixed it.  Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

So what turned out to be the problem with this locomotive?