Two wires from the harness that connects from loco to tender have broken off. Is this something that can be repaired and how would I go about it? Willing to attempt the repair myself just don’t know if I need to replace the whole thing or just try to reconnect the wires with solder or something. Sorry, very new to train electronics and would appreciate any advice.
This is an HO Lionel Polar Express engine.
Yes, maybe. These connectors are assembled as a one time use and not intended to be serviceable but it is possible.
Depending on the design the plugs will have metal inserts that may be in theory removable. But it isn’t an easy thing to repair. Getting the metal insert out in order to re-affix the broken wire is the tricky part.
If instead you can just winkle out the stub end of broken wire from the back of the plug you might be able to create a pin on the good end of wire, strip a bit and tin it. It may then be possible to jam the tinned end back into the back of the connector.
Otherwise, the metal insert needs to come out so that you can re-affix the wire, clamp or solder it and stick the insert back in.
Or you could buy and install a replacement JST 6 pin connector which could be either spliced in or wired back to origin. It’s hard to tell from the photos whether your connector is a JST. If it is you just need to find the same size and use the female end to rewire and then connect to the male locomotive end.
Heres a video showing disassembly repair of a two pin JST for example:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kRvDgiX4Sk4
and this is for a different type of similar connector:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0G7iIwfuaJ8
Great opportunity to install that decoder, eh?
I’am the “adventuresome” type, and would try and figure out how the wires are attached to that plug, and try and figure something out.
Maybe even a way to “bypass” these two wires the tender.
Not much help, I know. Good luck!
Mike.
EDIT: LSM posted while I typed. His idea sounds like try.
Before you start messing with it.
Looks like only two wires are broke off at this time.
Put a drop of different color paint on each wire of the harness and on the socket where the wire goes to.
Just in case when you start the repair more wires start to break off.
That way it will be easy to match the wires to the socket location now or next year when you get the Loco. out of the box to run again.
The connector in the plastic plug is a tapered piece with a pin on the top so it slides in the plastic piece and locks in place.
You can “usually” press a pin or similar into the top opening to compress the connector allowing it to be removed. It’s a finicky, pain in the butt process, but it can be done. Once out, you can lightly solder the wire back onto it. Use solder sparingly as too much won’t allow the connector to be re-inserted and seat properly.
Mark.
I thoroughly agree with the advice to color-code the wires, with the one caveat that you mark the wires at least one ‘stripping distance’ from the terminal so you won’t have to color-recode any that subsequently break.
Contrary to ‘revealed wisdom’ there are ways to field-repair JST connectors. Aside from the pages on the JST site itself, there is this discussion of various types of these connectors and how to work with them:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?1493712-JST-connector-confusion-the-real-story
(I doubt we will get whining over the technical TOS violation of posting to other forums, as the one in question is to a different hobby, but if there is a complaint PM me…)
I have to suspect that if those two wires have fatigued, the ones adjacent to it are probably thinking about going, too, so it might be wise to remove the connector and get clean wire into all the pins at one time, especially if you are ‘gerontologically challenged’ about fine work with little barbs and pin/socket elements [A]. If the wire is cheap or prone to breaking easily, now might be a good time either to splice to it or replace it with a better grade… I am one of those people that wraps and solder-tins the ends of these wires whether or not I’m just crimping the terminal on.
It has been recommended that you make a strain relief of some appropriate material like Goo, adhesive caulk, or hot glue to preclude the sharp bending or kinking close to the plastic connector skirt that has caused this in the first place. This can also be used to make or attach ‘handles’ to facilitate breaking or re-establishing these connections in future – they were designed as connectors, not plugs and jacks.
Get inside the tender, solder a two wire conector like one from ‘TCS #1301 or Miniatronics Corp. #50-001-02’ to the locations of where the broke wires would go to inside the tender. Route the wires out of the tender. Install the other half of the connector to the locos.'s wires, cover the joints with shrink tube. Reassemble the tender, plug it all together and test. If not sure of your work, test first then reassemble the tender.
The TCS #1301 parts have very flexible wire.
TCS and Miniatronics should make four pin connectors also.
There are only six wires, I’d do them all. Remember to mark each wire and connection before messing with them.
The connectors are a standard type. The pins themselves are held in by a small tab - in the first picture, note the rectangular ‘window’ just above where the whires go intot he shell - in there you should see a small tab sticking out just enough to hit the connector shelll. There’s actually a removeal tool for these, but it hardly seems worthwhile to buy for one repair. A tiny screwdriver can work, the trick it pushing the tab in while also pushingt the pin from the connection side out the back (don’t pull the wire, it will break off). The pins crimp on the wire - again there is a tool for that, but working caregully you can probably unfold the two where the wires came off enough to remove the broken piece of wire and carefully solder the wired back on. You can’t leave a big blob of solder, or the pin won’t fit back in the housing.
The idea of replacing the whole harness with a different type, unsoldering the tender connector as well, may be easier.
–Randy
This is more than likely a IDC (insulation displacement connector)
the insulated wire is pressed into the connector. You can remove the terminal end from the plastic connector, remove the broken wire-clean out the connector and then press the wire back in re insert the terminal into the connector. Has said before -you better ID the wires before another one breaks. I have repaired more than one just like the one you have.
Second picture has a better view of those tiny tabs (the silver rectangle window) in the connector shell.
Having messed around with JTS wiring in a 9 pin decoder socket I recommend you consider the replacement technique described in this post. The recommended connectors will be more durable and easier to connect and disconnect.
Everything can be fixed. The question should be is it cost and time effective? If there is no sentimental value I would check e bay for a used one first and just replace it as a first choice.
I was about to say ‘have we reached the point in this hobby where scrapping a locomotive is justified by two loose harness wires???’ when I realized that to many this might indeed be less expensive overall.
[Edit: of course this might be a huge whooooosh! on my part, and ndbprr might just be referring to replacing the harness. But what’s the sentimental value of a harness? Or where can you find HO Polar Express locomotives on eBay for under $15 in running condition?]
I had a CLK55AMG with xenon self-aiming (thanks, Mike!) headlights, one of which stopped working with a good bulb. Shop cost to fix this involved something like $1200 plus labor; WATCH OUT for 25,000volt danger, no user-serviceable parts inside. On inspection, someone had “repaired” the igniter by substituting a bugle-head drywall screw (!) which cracked it; I got a replacement off eBay for ~$120. While waiting for the part (and driven, I confess, by a certain disdain for MBNA costs) I opened up the dead igniter, to find the problem was just buildup on traces of a PCB, which I ‘fixed’ with a pencil eraser, then closed the cracked case with adhesive silicone. Worked just fine.
Or to put this in a more MR context: when I was very young, among my treasured possessions was a Mantua Pacific, with its fiber drawbar which periodically a kid would break. This if taken to the dealer in NYC cost many dollars, then gold-backed dollars at 35 to the ounce, to replace. I think I was 8 by the time I discovered you could buy these drawbars as parts and put them in with a little care and a small screwdriver – would that someone had told me this was possible earlier. Let alone make one of more durable flexible plastic strip with two holes
Have you looked for a replacement?
Perhaps buy a spare? (Part is $5, shipping is $10)
https://www.lionelsupport.com/ContactUs/
Cheers, Ed
If you carefully measure the pin spacing in mm you can buy prewired JST connectors off eBay.
For instance “6 pin 1mm JST connector” =https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2060353.m570.l1313&_nkw=6+pin+1mm+JST+connector&_sacat=0
“6 pin 1.25mm JST connector” = https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=6+pin+1.25mm+JST+connector&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=6+pin+1mm+JST+connector
Just make sure the pin spacing is correct to .25mm, they are available in .25mm increments.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
I had not realized his problem was in a double-connector-ended separable harness, although he clearly said this right in the original post [D)].
If it is indeed a problem in such a thing, his first best solution is to get the replacement, glue up strain reliefs at both ends to prevent the ‘problem’ from reoccurring, and save the old one to tinker on at leisure for the ‘spare’. I cannot find this on eBay either by its Lionel part number or logical search terms (e.g. “Lionel 6-pin harness”) and so even with relatively high S&H I think it would make sense to order from Lionel as Ed indicated unless one of us knows a better specific source.
A little off topic but an automotive headlight needing 25k volts and an igniter won’t be a “halogen” but an arc type. These are touted as superior to filament type when the reality is much different. xenon is not a halogen and the operating principles are completely different between capacitive discharge arc lamps (referred to as HID for some reason) and halogen filled filament lamps. HID and now LED headlights are ridiculously expensive to replace and cannot be repaired. My first set of four “quartz iodine halogens” from Cibie cost around $100 in 1975 when sealed beams were $5 or so. We have not made any progress since then and headlight units are now $1,500 EACH, completely unserviceable and very frequently blind oncoming drivers because the automatic self levelling doesn’t work well enough.
We had to scrap a perfectly good American made Thermador stove because the little electronic brain controlling the clock also controlled everything else. When Thermador got merged into whatever the quality and servicing quality took a nosedive. That $100 part was no longer available and it was impossible to bypass it. Unrepairable. No progress made there either.
Fortunately, model locomotives are still repairable with modest skills. The most cost effective solution is noted above: just buy a more commonly available and easier to use connector and either splice it in or rewire back to origin. Or, if it is JST then it is actually can be serviceable, in a way. Solderless means insulation crimped in this case. If you can pry out the pin, uncrimp it and stick the stub end wire back in, recrimp and reinsert into tghe plug you’re good. Or, as suggested, if you can measure the old plug or compare to a new plug just get one and wire it in.
The most common cause of failure for the wiring into the back of these connectors is using the wires as a handle to pull the plug out of the locomotive. The preferred method is to use a jewellers t
Thanks for the correction - that was a bonehead senior moment. Revised in original.
I remember those original quartz-iodine bulbs that you had to be careful not to leave fingerprints on, and the Euro prices we were offered when sealed-beam incandescents were our only ‘legal’ choice. (Those laws as written made sense in the '30s, when replaceable-bulb 6V lights required ridiculously large reflectors and careful alignment to work, reflectors were of uncertain quality, etc.) I rejoiced when halogen sealed-beams came in (I joyfully put them on the '76 Eldorado and could actually sort of see things at night!) but there is no real comparison to photocoagulator-grade HID – at least in my opinion. Someone at one of the auto magazines remarked that they let him actually, finally SEE at night, and I have now been spoiled by discovering this myself. (Yes, there is the with-phenomenal-cosmic-power-comes-great-responsibility of ensuring correct aim, but that goes with the territory – aka why I haven’t converted the Jags to HID bulbs…)
The self-leveling is a projector-beam issue more than an HID one. It is fun diagnosing and fixing these but it can be done; whether it is worth it to the people these cars were target-marketed to is another story! I subsequently had an internal-harness problem in the opposite xenon assembly on that AMG, and had a Mercedes ‘master tech’ repair it… a number of times. Turned out the master-tech training from MBNA is mostly diagnostic followed by part$-changing – the guy couldn’t even reflash an engine-control com
HID is a proper term for these lights - High Intensity Discharge, exactly what they are. No improvement? They are vastly superior to any car I had before with standard lamps. Infinitely better than cars that had aprticualrly weak sealed bemas (most GMs, my truck also has really poor headlights - so much for Toyota making the best of everything), I used to think the Xenon lamps were a gimmick, seeing as how my BMWs without had quite good lighting, but this one makes those earlier ones look like they were using a couple of flashlights strapped to the hood. When buying used, you don’t get to specify such things, so, now I have Xenon lights. At 8 years old, the self levelers still work fine, and so does the other nifty feature my car has - the headlights also steer so I’m not turning into a dark corner that only becomes lit up after completing the turn. Realy neat feature.
To throw away a loco instead of replacing a $2 part - such is the way these days, it seems. One of my favorite YouTube channels is a guy who goes around picking up non-working lawn equipment, anything from bloweds and trimmers to mowers and snowblows to lawn tractors, sometimes free and otherwise for pennies on the dollar. 99% of the time, all they need is a little cleaning of the crud in the carb and an oil change, and they run like new.
Unless you have the Polar Express loco because someone gave it to you and you really don’t want it - but in that case I’d put the new harness on and pass it along to the next person.
–Randy
Mel’s solution is probably best for a long term fix, however, our club members have used electrical conductive epoxy to make this repair. A harness repair like this with the epoxy can take some strain, but replacement as Mel has indicated will be more reliable.