I just bought an MTH F3 at a trainshow. It came from the Santa Fe Super Chief set. When I got it home and ran it on my layout I found it to stall out on many of my switches. I use Lionel 042 switches and have no poblems with other engines even MTH. It seems to short out but does not trip the “breaker” in my Z4000 or even totally reset, all I have to do hit the direction button once and it continues on its way. The weirdest thing is even though it does it on the same switches it doesn’t do it every time. When troubleshooting, I would reverse the loco a ways back and try again it it would pass a few times and then do it again. I am having a hard time guessing what is wrong. Also it seems like it sparks a lot from the truck area. I thought it was the trucks hitting the frame but got the same results even with the truck sideframes off. I am now at a loss and need some guidance please!
Did you check the spacing/arrangement of the pickup rollers relative to the switch elements.
yes…thay are as is from the factory. could this be a battery problem?
Can you tell where the arcing is occuring, either visually or by burn marks on the track ?
If you can tell where the arcing is taking place put a small piece of electrical tape in that spot. Maybe when it arcs it causes the e-unit to trip, I have a K-Line GP38 that would do this on an Atlas wye if you ran thru it from the closed position. The p/u roller being just wide enuff that it would contact the power and outer rails, a small piece of tape corrected this issue.
Have you cleaned the wheels on both sets of axles?
The battery is for the back-up for Proto Sounds(so you don’t lose the PS-2 settings) and has no effect on the engine when going over switches. Sounds more like the center rail pick-up is not making contact somewhere, to correct this you may have to add another engine(can use a dummy engine) with a wire from the center rail pick-up to the engine with the problem and attach the wirwe to the center rail power of the problem engine.
Lee F.
Flip the new engine over and measure the distance between the pickup rollers. Do the same for an engine that works with no problems. If they have different distances the issue may be the difference in location of the rollers. You may also have a roller set with a broken or partially broken feed wire. This can be checked with a multimeter or a continuity checker.
What is it that makes you think that it is a short circuit?
I found the trouble. The wires that go from the center pickup to the motor on bothe the front and rear truck are mounted in such a way hat they all (both sets) rub against the metal frame. the is just enough stripped to short out when the engine hits ANY track just right…boy was this a pain!