Horn activates, without a battery installed, on my 2344?!?

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

I’ve just rebuilt a 2344 and it runs very nicely. However, when I run it the horn will spurriously activate. I was running it without the battery installed. I am assuming I have a short somewhere. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Darrell

2

I have problems with post war tenders sounding off on dirty track sections so I would say to look at your track and wheels on the diesel engine and clean everything again. For stubborn dirt I use an old pencil eraser to clean the wheels, make sure your wheels look 100% clean to eliminate this problem. Another possibilty is loose track connections that may cause miniture arking to take place without being seen in daylight conditions, run your train at night in almost total darkness to see if the track is arking out at a connection. If the light on your engine is too bright put some electrical tape over the light to check the track at night.

Lee F.

3

Thanks for the reply…This the only engine I am having this problem with. The horn is activating without the battery installed, which means that AC power is somehow causing the horn to sound. The horn should not function at all without DC power from a battery.

Darrell

4

The entire relay frame and the bracket that it is mounted to are insulated from the locomotive frame. When you put in a dry cell, that bracket and the relay frame are connected to the positive terminal of the dry cell at 1.5 volts. I believe that some other wire is intermittently touching that bracket and supplying AC voltage to the horn. (This is probably not good for it.) Other than a loose bare wire, the connection could be happening at the terminal block on the side of the relay, since one terminal is connected to the pickup (by way of a terminal on the e-unit). The insulation of the terminal stack could have failed. The worst case would be that the relay coil itself is touching the relay frame or core at some point, which may be virtually impossible to repair, in which case you need a new relay.

But look for a wayward wire first.

5

My 2344 did the same exact thing. What you will find out is that the horn itself is actually vibrating and making it appear that its actually blowing. To test this put a small amount of toilet tissue paper inside the top of the horn cavity. This will stop the free vibrations and the horn will then only sound with the battery as it should. I bet this stops the sounds.

Roger