BLI F7 Sound repairs made.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

As you know I thought the BLI’s F7 were good engines but quiet.

A Forum Member posted this:

http://tonystrains.com/tonystips/2006/060206b.htm

I ordered some packages of the Stik Tak from the Tony’s online store and waited a few days for them to arrive.

I opened the stick material and filled in the holes behind the speakers on all 4 of my units. I also taped the fans which had holes and blades in each one.

I took a section of the sticky tak from the package and used a hobby knife to slice it down 2 or three peices and simply moved the wires to the middle, inserted one blot on one side and the other with the middle blot going onto the center around the wires.

I took care to stay away from the electronics and out of the small metal holes on the speakers themselves. I used a small 2 inch peice of sprue from a kit to sorta “Tamp” the putty in.

Reassembled and tested the units on the track and thought that there was a good improvement in volume. One of the units failed to respond and I think it’s sound was turned off via DCC. We will reprogram that unit tomorrow.

Final verdict, I think the simple repairs were effective.

I marked the metal chassis of each of the B units with a F (For front) so that when I put the shells back on I wont experience funny direction problems.

The worst thing about the entire experience was the front couplers on the manned F7 Cab units. Thankfully they are easy to remove and reinstall with the one screw. My nerves sometimes are not stable enough and I have to wait until I can manipulate the small screw with some precision.

I will try to make another video of these units soon.

2

Safety Valve - Glad to hear the patch job was successful. Thats good to know. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. It does show how critical the enclosure is to good sound vol and quality.
Terry[8D]

3

I’m really surprised that with such great sound(actually too loud) on the BLI E units, that there would be any problems like this with an F.
Bob K.

4

Well the speakers were not sealed. When I ran two of the units on the bench I worried that I would actually disrupt the wife’s slumber.

I would think the factory did goof on the speaker gaps, they should have seen it (Or heard it coming -bad pun)

5

I just hope the the overall problems with the BLI "F"s are only an isolated thing and not any sign of things to come.
Bob K.

6

Problems? Heh. Maybe.

Three of the units survive the surgery and all are nice and loud compared to last time.

The 4th unit suffered a internal failure somewhere in the audio sound but does beep when we attempt to reset, program and generally do what we can to get the audio back.

The 4th unit is going back to the factory and hopefully they can find and fix the problem.

I found the lack of a hard reset jumper a problem.