Quote from: jonathan on April 30, 2010, 12:25:13 PM
Car Guy,

Breaking in does help smooth the engine out.  Here are a couple of other suggetions:

One of the more common issues with the Connie is the low hanging wiring.  I once thought I had a serious problem with jerkiness.  It so happended that the cluster of wires that come out the bottom have little rubber ring things wrapped around them.  They were catching my track nails (especially in reverse).  A quick adjustment solved that.  I moved the wires from the left side of the draw bar to the right.  You can also solve it by moving the tender post to the farther back hole in the draw bar.  

Speaking of wiring, make sure the plugs to the tender are seated properly.  When new, it took me a couple of minutes of checking to make sure they were clicked into place.  I never, ever unplug them.  I even "kitbashed" the black box, so the engine could be stored all put together.

The most delicate part of the machinery is the contact wipers resting on the drive wheels.  It doesn't take much to get these kinked so they don't make good contact with the wheels.  I adjusted one with a couple of straight pins (working slowly and carefully).  It is not too difficult to get them back into shape.  Though I found it a little hair raising, due to the small and delicate nature of these tiny parts.  I think, in the production phase, these are the easiest parts to get mangled in assembly.  It would be difficult to see during a quality check.  They are hard to see in any case.

I haven't figured out how to clean the wipers, yet.  I may try wiping some 600 grit sandpaper in between the wheel and the wiper (grit side to the wiper).  I'm not that brave, yet.

Lastly, clean track and wheels are a must, if you want cool runnings.

I'm not saying any of these things are causing your Consolidation to run poorly, just some suggestions from things I've played with.

Regards,

Jonathan

Jonathan, good post. If you're referring to the wipers on the tender, just remove 1 wheel and you can slide the wiper off and clean it with alcohol. Remember to put the wheel and axle back in the way it came out, as 1 wheel is insolated and 1 carries the current to the axle and wiper. Both wheels and axles on the truck have to be oriented the same way...check with a meter if your uncertain. good luck

Hope someone can come to my rescue here! I have a Bachmann 4-6-2 light Pacific DCC w/ sound NYC 4552. One of my helpers? decided to try and repair the harness and in the process tore all the wires from the connector. This is a fairly new loco, so is there a way to get the pinout of the connector from the factory or am I going to have to try to  read all the connections coming from the loco? If that is the case, what should the motor read in ohms and how can I distinguish the + and common of the light. Also, is there 1 contact that is not used? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated

Also, is pin1 on the left or right?





Squirls b crazy

I'm going to take a wild guess and say if you have 14 volts on your track that it's AC, not DC. 14volts ac is what usually comes from a DCC controller or power supply and would explain the symptoms you describe, but I'm not there looking at it so i'm just guessing but let me know if you figure it out, it's driving me crazy too!!

that explains it explicitly, i will proceed with caution next time, thanks everyone for your submissions......Guy

AMEN brother, I did a Thomas SALTY locomotive...no tender, so everything had to fit in the loco. it took a while and I smoked a decoder in the process, but if you're up for a challenge then that's exactly what you'll get....Good luck and don't forget to ask for help if you hit a brick wall......there's a lot of experience on this website

thanks guys, but this is from the BACHMANN catalog and says its universal for ho......no other info....still looking to find specs. hooked it up to my variable power supply and got nothing

try running the track voltage up to 9 volts w/o the train on the tracks. you used a 9 volt battery to test it, so you may need that voltage to run. you may need a seperate supply for the crossing and fire it through auxiliary contacts on the switch machine. also, re-test it with the battery to make sure that something didn't burn out with the reversed polarity. good luck

I picked up some leds from Bachmann that are universal, but haven't found any specs on them in regards to voltage and color coding on the wiring, hookup info. Any help? the wires are yellow and white

are you running DC or DCC? if it's DCC you will need to add a bridge rectifier to change the track voltage going to the crossing lights to DC

Thanks everybody. I figured I had to change the wires, but I thought I had them correct and didn't want to mess with those small wires. I swapped them back and all is well, but everything worked fine when I ran it upside down Australian style.   

I recently replaced a motor in a dcc/dc 2-6-0 with an unknown history. I thought I got all the wiring correct, but the lighting and motor are backwards in regards to the programmed sound, I reprogammed the chip so the motor directions are backward and cv 33 and 34 so the lighting forward and reverse stays on in both directions when I run DCC. I will mostly be running this on DC and all the programming changes made no affect on the dc running. .......any ideas?? thanks, guy

where can I get replacement brushes for the old style Brill motor OR would it be wiser and more economical and possible to change it to the newer can motor/power truck combo?