Buenos Dias Amigos.
I bought the #990 Command set about a year and a half ago. The base charger went south after several uses and had to be repaired. After speaking with several acquaintances, they related the same story.
My question to you all, is - How frequent is this problem happening and does Lionel have a better plan of attack?
This is an expensive ($350.00) piece of Chinese plastic, and I’m hoping that they will make it a reliable one. The warantee period (1 year) does not seem to be long enough, if I have to send it back to Loinel every few months - then it will become a VERY expensive piece of Chinese plastic.
Juan.
Never had any issues with mine in 2+ years I’ve owned it.
I had one out of the very first shipment and have not had any issues with it at all, and that has been 2 1/2 years of use. I sent it back to lionel to get its v1.2 update and that has been the only time I have sent it, operation has been flawless.
According to your post, I presume you have only had 1 issue with it so far and Lionel has repaired it. Hopefully it will be the last time, just be optimistic. [;)]
Speaking of Legacy. Has anyone received the 1.3 software upgrade yet? I thought it was to be shipped/mailed in May, 2010 I hoped.
I emailed them 2 weeks ago and they responded they hoped to have them in the mail within 3 - 4 weeks. So look for it near the end of June. [:)]
Forget about using the base station as a charger for batteries (from legacy users group at York). Put a piece of electrical tape over the prongs and use alkaline batteries.
Bill D
I too assumed that the Legacy base could act like the phone rest and would charge the batteries to max. charge and then go into a steady state mode. I found out that this critical design element was lost on the designers of this product. Shame on Lionel! The first night of install, it ran fine, and thankfully we stayed up very late operating trains with this new “toy”. Upon getting up and going to the basement the next morning at 7:00am, coffee in hand, I found the base too hot to touch and immediately unplugged it and set it in the fridge. The rechargeable batteries were fried, but the base was saved. I now have the base plugged into the same APC surge protector that I protect all of my transformers with, and only power the Legacy base while running trains or working on the layout. This methodology, while no substitute for good design, allows me to have it sufficiently charged for even the longest session, and I’ve not burned up another $15 set of rechargeable batteries.