I just received my Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation from my local professional installer. The original decoder was from MRC and really wasn’t up to par. So, in went a nice new Tsunami and speaker. Sure sounds great and runs well also. I don’t think the Tsunami install has anything to do with a problem I am having, I just wanted you to know.
I have a good selection of locos fron 0-6-0s to deisels and have no repeditive trackwork issues but this loco shorts the Zephyr at two (Walthers/Shinohara code 83) turnouts both forward and reverse. It passes all other turnouts easily.
Does this loco have any inherant issues with shorting?
Since these at 1/87 th models ‘tolerences’ (+/-) come into play, and No two prefab switches are EXACTLY alike.
. CHECK Engine & tender wheels and offending Turnouts with an NMRA gauge… (Make sure youre Engine is not problem). Bachmann HAS had some problelems with unwieildy engine to tender wiring.
REPLACE the turnout (See ‘tolerances’ above) .I recommend a KIT you install with a gauge,(such as ‘BK’ or ‘Central Valley’).
I have had problems with my Connie on uninsulated frogs at the Club ( as have others that run there ). My layout at home uses Atlas insulated frogs and I’ve never had an issue with shorts. Best of luck. It’s a fine running, and sounding, locomotive.
Bruce, are your frogs DCC-friendly (i.e., insulated or isolated from the rest of the powered rails)? It they are non-powered frogs, and the engine has trouble at two frogs, then my guess is that your wheels are coming into contact with power of the wrong orientation for the kind they are meant to pick up on one side, as suggested above. For example, both Shinohara and Peco frogs have narrow isolation strips, black ones, that separate the points rails. I have had to paint over that area with urethane or varathane in order to make it so that the wheel treads don’t come into contact with both rails at the plastic strip.
That is only one possibility. A single strand of wire misplaced and bridging, say when a curve or rocking motion (on a frog?) completes the bridge, will cause a momentary short. Wipers coming into contact with something they shouldn’t even if just for a second, will also do this. Is this happening when the drivers are being displaced transversely so that they can go around curves? Driver axle displaces right or left, and wiper perforce accommodates the displacement. In doing so, it contacts something else?
Bruce, I sympathize with you. I have noticed that you certainly have had your problems with the Spectrum engines and yet you still persevere with them.