While watching my train running around the track, it suddenly stopped with the CW-80 blinking. All the wheels were good and no derailments, so I started pulling one car off at time until the short went away. It turned out to be my lighted box car that I just replaced one of the trucks on. This car only actually ran about 2-3 hours since I bought it brand new, but I thought it was the light bulb. After fooling with it, I put it back on the track and it’s been running fine for a ½ hr with the light on the whole time.
I can’t figure out what happened. Is this a normal thing or do I have something wrong?
First question I would ask is, are you certain roller on one truck wired to roller on second truck?
Bad connections, you never know.
Centre photo, hard to see exactly where the soldered portion of the roller spring is. If the solder globule is big enough, or the speing tab is bent, it could contact the axle.
Re-clip the pickup assembly into the truck, looking closely at those point.
We are certain it is the pickup truck on this end, and not the other?
Its all still soldered exactly as it was from the factory and I can’t see any nicks in the wires. I am wondering since it is a new truck that something in the axle contacts my have come in contact with something like you mentioned in the 1st post.
Oh and thanks for clarifying the type of car. I just couldn’t think of it at the time.
If it is a Lionel lighted car, look for the problem in the center rail roller area! I had a lighted caboose short out on me a couple of years ago, could not figuire out what was wrong until I took the car off and saw the melted plastic near the center roller, the center roller has too much free play. DON’T use lighted cars with command control engines; either TMCC, Legacy or DCS, the constant 18 volts fries the center roller pick-ups that Lionel made within the past five or six years.
I have this problem with the Williams passenger cars I have from the early '90s. The wire that goes to the pick up roller was the culpret. I place electrical tape where the wire connector attatches to the roller was touching the truck frame.
Well after playing around with it I did notice that the axel contactor was pretty loose and could swing a wide range so when I put it back together I made sure it was exactly parallel with the wheels. I still don’t know for sure what happened, but it hasn’t shorted since.
When I installed the new truck, I did it in a hurry without my reading glasses on and I might not have had the contacts in exactly right although I really can’t see how it could have shorted.
It has been running a lot since I put it back together and I’m crossing my fingers. I had a 1 ½” yr old child fall into it the other night and the whole train buckled up. I figured if something was going to fail it would have happen then.
If it shorts again, trace all the wires for worn/cracked insulation. I had a brand new just out of the box passenger car short out because Lionel had used what appeared to be salvaged wire and the insulation was worn through in 2 wires which would touch occasionally when the car turned to the right.
