Having issues getting two of my five DCC-equipped locomotives to run. They happen to be my two oldest as well. Do they need to have the wheels cleaned? When selected, they might go a quarter or an inch, but no more. They are recognized as I’ll see the headlights flicker once in awhile.
Any ideas?
Fitcat,
The easiest thing to try is cleaning both the track and your locomotive wheels. I use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and a Q-tip. (You may also want to clean your rolling stock wheels, too.) Be careful that you don’t leave cotton strands from the Q-tip behind. Sounds like dirty wheels to me.
Tom
dirty wheels
dirty contacts on the wheels
even dirty track
more drastic - loose or broken contacts inside the loco (like those metal fingers Athearn BBs use).
If your wheel surfaces are shiny, and if rubbing them with a tissue and alcohol doesn’t release a fair bit of black streakage, the chances are good that it is the track. If you run metal wheelsets on some of your rolling stock, they and the locos should keep your track quite clean, but that is not necessarily the case. Track should be wiped with a Bright Boy, 600 grit or finer sand-paper across the axis of the rails…go light!..or use a metal polish. Even so, this probably needs to be done seldom if your environment is not polluted (sulfides, nitrides, etc.) and you run trains a couple of times a week.
It is very likely that your wipers above the axles, or behind the wheels, are getting gunk built up and they are not able to maintain good contact. If they can’t be metal-to-metal, the electrons can’t get to the decoder or to the motor.
The remaining possibility is broken wires or solders, or some other discontinuity inside the shells.
The situation you describe sounds to me to be the track/wheels problem. If one loco out of three was doing it, I would check the insides of that loco closely, however if two or more are doing it and the wheels are reasonably clean, the odds-on bet is that it’s the track. Start with the easiest solution and work toward the hardest.
[#ditto] But one quibble: Cleaning your rolling stock wheels shoud not be optional. If the problem is dirty track, then the wheels definitely picked up dirt, crud, etc. And will transfer it back to your nice clean rails in a New York minute!
Did these locomotives ever work properly?
If so, then you are definitely having problems with an open circuit somewhere. I just cannot imagine the wheels are the problem. If the engine went a couple of feet or stopped and started, I’d think so. You could even have something binding inside.
Can you talk to the decoder on the programming track?
Do the lights flicker on/off?
Do both engines act exactly the same?
Give us some of the answers to these questions and lets have another try.
Best regards and good luck
Joe
Just an idea, but you might use the quarter trick to lay a quarter across the rails on the same section of track as the locomotive is sitting on. This should trip the circuit breaker on your DCC system. If it does, then you know power is getting to the track OK. If it doesn’t trip, then you may have a poor feeder or joiner connection.
Some motors draw a lot more current than others. This can sometimes allow the engines with lower current draw to operate fairly well, even with a poor power connection to the track somewhere.
As the others said, check the connections in the loco including the motor brushes. If all else fails, try reprograming your decoder to the factory default setting. The instructions for doing this or the default CV values, are listed in the decoder instructions by most manufacturers.
[#ditto]
If only two of your locomotives do this and the rest run fine, then you have a short in the locomotive or track somewhere. Some how you need to get into your locomotive and give a good look over the wiring and see if any wires are touching other wires. Then you want to check to see if the feeder wires to the track are hooked up correctly. To me it sounds like a short. Does your system beep when you try to run these troubled locomotives?
Happy railroading[(-D]
James