I just bought an engine today, and when test run at the store, the front LED worked fine. The engine and tender were then separated and placed into the box by the owner, when I brought it home and put it on my track, everything else works fine but no headlight. Is there a way to fix this problem without sending it back to the factory? I have tried making sure the tether is firmly plugged in, which I think it is. Could the LED be loose or simply in need of replacement? How would I take the bulb out, or is there a wire inside the engine that perhaps came loose?
Its a Broadway Limited, blue Line J1a.
Btw, when it was test run at the store, the back up light never worked, nor does it now, so nothing has changed in that area. I’m not too worried about that one, just the front one.
Strange turn of events, I took out the tether plug and used a pencil to push it back in, now the tender light works for the first time ever, but no headlight! [%-)]
First check for a bent pin inside the plug. Sometimes they can bend over.
After that make sure the entire plug is seated. BLI has memo’s out pointing out the importance of proper seating. But as I said make sure a pin isn’t bent.
Also are you running DCC or DC? If DC I’d first do the above. If it still doesn’t run bring the loco back and have them reset the decoder.
Rats, no luck. It seems to be seated in firmly too. Its the strangest thing though, a few weeks ago, during one (of two) test runs, the store owner couldn’t get the front light to work at all, so he removed the front ‘door’ or ‘face’ of the engine, revealing the LED, he then took some tweezers (or something?) behind the desk and fiddled with, put the hatch back on, turned on the power and the headlight worked. He said something was loose and that he fixed it, I’m not sure if he meant the bulb, some plug socket next to the bulb, or what, but it worked fine until I brought it home and turned on the power. No more light. [sigh]
The situation is so weird, because now the back up light works, without me fiddling with anything. I’ve opened up the front of the engine now, I tried to ‘push’ in the bulb, but it seems tight enough already, won’t budge, and I don’t want to break anything.
BLI makes some beautiful locos, practically of brass quality, detail wise, but man, the QC issues are really frustrating. Oh how I hope I don’t have to send this back to factory, all for a headlight…[|(]
And things get even more strange. I just oiled the loco and powered it up, now the headlight works, but it has that dreaded flicker over certain parts of track, it must be a loose connection which is bad news for me.
I have had this exact same flickering problem with 3 Blue Line J1’s brand new, this has never happend with any other engine, even from Broadway.
Now what connection I wonder could possibly be loose? I’ll have to call Broadway when I have a chance and see if they can walk me through it. They did repair one of these for me once, but it took several months, maybe there is a simple solution of soldering something inside the loco, but I’m scared to do that.
Oh well, not the end of the world, just annoying. [banghead]
I was goign to say it’s the tether connector - 3 guys got the new T-1’s at the show this past weekend, and as we decided to not allow smoke on the layout, everyone was pullign off the smokebox to flip the switch to turn off the smoker. The second guy, after doing this, noticed his headlight wasn’t working. Thought maybe it got bumperd or something, turns out the plug fromt he tender was loose. Third guy - same thing. And it was the same problem, loose tender plug.
Yeah, I thought the tender plug was the problem, but no matter how secure the plug is, the light now isn’t working again. Back to drawing board I guess…
I wonder, is there a correlation between my engine’s flickering LED and the flickering that occurs in lit passenger cars? There must be some way to solve this without sending the engine back to Broadway. It seems like such a simple problem, but with no simple solution.
The other thing I noticed with my engine is that it runs jerky in both directions at any speed, so much so that the caboose behind all of the other rolling stock shakes back and forth, the effect is very noticeably and distracting. Is this in any way related to voltage levels? I think someone else brought this up on this forum, I can’t remember the thread or find it.
I think he said he’s using DC so he wouldn’t be able to have the locomotive standing still I believe… I have lots of problems with my locomotive headlights and I’m using DC, so maybe DC power isn’t so constant… I have really clean track too. Hm. If the engines have decoders I’d recommend trying them on a DCC setup and see if the lights still flicker.
No, they are fine standing still. The cars that flicker don’t really bother me, I run the old athearns with the bulbs, so I figure it comes with the territory.
The J1 is a beautiful model, but electronically very fragile. I’ve never had this problem with any other model, broadway or not.
An update though, I have thoroughly cleaned the track with alcohol as well as the wheels of the engine and the rolling stock. The light seems to functioning better now. I hope thats all the problem was. You wouldn’t believe how much black stuff came off from the wheels of the coal cars, that I don’t understand because they are fairly new, but I’m glad I cleaned them. The engine wheels weren’t all that dirty in comparison. The track overall was filthy, which again surprises me because its only 8 ft of track.
Thanks for the suggestions either way. It appears that this blue line version is very sensitive to any slight form of dirt or dust on the track which apparently may be greatly affecting the pick up. When lit, the LED is very nice. I hope Broadway fixes this problem in any future runs of this outstanding locomotive. So far with the Paragon 2 I1’s I haven’t had any issues with lighting, I hope this trend continues.
I don’t know how much track you have but if it was that bad try running some 600 grit sand paper over it and doing another cleaning. You might have a build-up in spots that needs some more help.
Bad news, the engine locks up every few seconds in reverse at continuous speeds, resulting in random break squeal sounds, even when at full throttle. Then, the power goes out. I try to start it up in forwards, and turn up the throttle but it occasionally locks up and looses power without even moving more than a few inches. Should I try installing a TCS decoder with better speed control, or is this a purely a mechanincal problem with the locomotive?
Should I send it back to Broadway at this point? Or should I first buy a decoder and test it out on DCC?
My gut tells me the engine is defective and in need of repair…[V]
If it is causing these kind of problems on DC then adding a decoder won’t improve anything and may cost you a fried decoder. You should probably send the engine back for repair or exchange.
It could be a loose wire internally, I had this issue with my first PCM Reading T-1, it ended up only picking up power with one side of one of the tender trucks, makign it overly sensitive to dirty track and turnouts. Once I found and fixed the loose wire (it was very obvious - it wasn’t completely loose and flapping around bt it was clearly not seated int he connector properly) it ran like a champ, speed step 1 over unpowered frogs. With the wire in place there was pickup across one side of the loco plus the tender - plenty to span all but absolutely incredibly dirty track.