Welcome back Randy.
Yeah, yeah, whatever. How’s that T1? [:D]
Really, welcome back.
-Crandell
You did, you did see a rrinker!
Thanks guys [8D]
As for the T-1, I’ll copy the message I just sent to Tom about it:
loving it! I needed to do a little minor work to get it all working properly, but now it runs and sounds great. It circles my layout with a train on spee step 1 (takes a LONG time) without stuttering or stalling. Out of the box it had a little hitch that was noticeable at slow speeds. First thing I did was check the lube. There was way too much grease under the sliders the spring the lead and trailing truck, which I cleaned off, but after removing the lower plate to look at the gears, they seemed almost dry. I added a touch of gear oil there and also used some powdered graphite on the drive axle bearings both at the axle and where the bearings slide up and down in the frame - the lead and trailing axles are actually sprung, the middle two just slide up and down freely. That mostly fixed things but I still had some power pickup problems - it seemed to only pick up from the right hand rail by the forward tender truck. I checked at the socket on the back of the loco and I had no power from the right rail, but did from the left. So I took the plunge and undid the three screws and removed the boiler shell. It really wasn’t difficult, they did design these things well. Before I even got further I noticed the motor was not aligned with the gearbox, but twisted to one side. There is a universal joint in the drive shaft, but it should normally be straight for best running. I then traced the wire that is supposed to conduct power from the right-hand side and found the wire was ok, but there seemed to be no contact between the wire and the frame even though it was screwed down. I guess all the blackening insulated things - I removed the screw and roughed up the frame under the wire’s terminal and then it worked. I also put the motor back on as straight as possible and put it back together - now it runs great.
The cool thing was it actually responded to the playab
Welcome back Randy. I was wondering what happened to you.
Looks like you have been busy! Glad you are happy with her.
welecome back was wondering what happened to you
welcome back randy…we will always need at least one electronic guru around here…happy new year!..chuck
Glad to see you are still around. I will probably be contacting you about some Dr. DCC work towards the end of the month.
Glad to hear about your T1 - I was in my LHS before Christmas and a customer was in picking his up - they were test running it and it kept de-railing. I was browsing some Reading books and such and later saw him leaving with the T1 and smiling so I guess they solved the problem. When it was running it did look great though.
–
Brad
Welcome back Randy. Isn’t it nice to be missed [:D]
Hey, Randy!
Got your e-mail. Thanks. You can ignore my response about posting because you already went ahead and did it. Good to have you back. [:)]
Tom
Gee, I should leave more often! [:D]
Well, maybe finally I can make some progress on the layout. That is, if can stop running trains and start building again!
When I got my T-1 another thing I was told was that there was a problem with the lead truck being jammed somehow and not moving freely, leading to derailments. Mine didn;t seem to have that problem. After having it apart though I can see how it would be possible for the spring to become dislodged and jam the truck if it wasn’t assembled correctly. I had to do the rear truck twice after I had it apart until I got the spring to sit in the right place while holding the truck on and installing the screw. One of those ‘octopus’ jobs.
–Randy
Randy,
Had to chuckle when I ran across this sentence. The difference between removing the shell of my BLI Mike and removing the shell of my Athearn Mike is night and day. With the BLI, it’s just 3 screws and it’s off - VERY intuitive. With the Athearn, its a screw here, tug, pull and pry off there, etc. - NOT intuitive. ( I still haven’t successfully been able to remove the Athearn Mike shell off the boiler yet.)
Tom
[yeah][yeah][yeah][#welcome] back Randy! You have certainly been missed! I had a Digitrax problem yesterday and ended up calling Digitrax (who were very helpful) instead of posting it here as I didn’t think the guru would respond [:(]
Cool about the T-1. tstage, you are right about the Athearn mike. I have two. I did manage to get the shell off the first one… Of course that is one reason it is in the spare parts box now. LOL