Wow, I’m quite surprised; it took several postings of recommended fixes to Walthers switches before someone suggested ringing up Walthers. They’re not bashful about their prices, don’t you be bashful about your consumer rights. Considering Walthers is one of the prime sources for model railroading I’m sure they don’t want to jeopardize their customer relations and future sales by marketing a product with apparent deficiencies in the manufacturing process.
Jon
Believe me, when this happened to me it crossed my mind! I even took out a an Atlas code 83 turnout and played with it for a while. There are some drawbacks to Atlas turnouts that I find too objectionable:
*That big, ugly black frog. Yeah, I can paint it, but it doesn’t look right and often doesn’t play well with the train car wheels.
*The stamped metal rails have a history of being too flimsy.
*Electrical problems in the Atlas turnouts are a little more common than in a higher value Shinohara or Walthers turnout.
On the flip side, they are less expense. They are much easier to maintain, fix, modify or throw away. But that honkin’ big ugly black frog…[B)]
I know what you mean. I had some back in the 80’s with insul-frogs that were so big that F7’s would lose power crossing them. I had to use an electrically conductive paint to coat part of the frog so the loco wouls keep contact, and that paint would only work if it was kept super clean. It wasn’t long before I went looking for better turnouts.
Why contact Walthers? All they’re going to at best is replace one turnout with another that may be bad. If you fix the problem yourself, it’s FIXED.
I’m hoping to get to Radio Shack today and find that low temp solder tape. If I can get that done, then perhaps one turnout will get fixed tonight. If it works (or if it doesn’t) you’ll hear the story!
Also, my hat’s off to the LHS who sold me these turnouts. Upon reading the troubles I was experiencing, the owner offered a full replacement of the broken turnouts. That’s MY kind of hobby shop! [:D]
Give them a plug! A good LHS is hard to find.
FYI, according to some “EXPERTS” you can figure that 5% of all turnouts on your layout will go bad in the 1st year of operations. I have repaired (3) so far out of 136. (2) Walthers (1) #6 double Crossover and (1) 3 way. and (1) Atlas Wye. I have replaced due to flaws in the mfg (1) Atlas #6.
I had many of Atlas Code 83 turnouts go bad just solder feeders I tried so many different things to get them working ut feeders was the best idea…
The hobby shop is One Track Mind. You may have seen Mark, the owner, posting questions and thoughts from the LHS manager’s perspective. He’s thoughtful and considerate.
By the way, I hit a snag on the low temp solder tape. Radio Shack no longer carries it and it’s not available on their web site. [:(] Any other sources or suggestions for a similar product?
I stopped in at my local Radidio Snack today to get a couple other things and checked. Yep no low temp solder. Talked to the manager and he said, “oh yeh I know that stuff we used to have it.” he checked out the catologue from the store and was shocked to see it had been dicontinued. However!!! He can still get some of it as there is still some left in the main warehouse. Call your local store and see if they can get some for you before it is gone. BTW, they are no longer making the rosin paste flux (the stuff in the tube) and except for a few stores that still may have it, it is gone.
Well, I promised an update on my efforts to re-solder the strips myself with regular solder and pencil iron. It worked…sort of…
On the first turnout I melted a tie off. I figured I’ll fix that with a piece of wooden tie when the ballast is laid. The ties distorted from the heat.
On the second turnout I got smarter and clipped off the surrounding plastic undersides to expose the rail underneath the clip strip. That went much smoother. A couple of tie ends tried to distort, but I pushed them back in place until they cooled.
The third one went smooth using the above method, but I had to go back and redo one strip. Almost unnoticeable tie melting.
In all, I’m back up and running and the track is already secured. [:)] I’m still disappointed that this occurred. But, taking off some of the plastic allowed me to see the root of the problem. It appears that what ever method Walthers used got solder on the back of the strip, but didn’t heat it enough to melt or to reach the rail on which the strip rested. Lack of heat? Lack of proper spread for the machine to touch both the strip and the rail to spread the solder? Both? [%-)]
Thanks for all your input and feedback. I did call Radio Shack. They are not able to obtain any of the tape strip low temp solder from anywhere that they could locate. But, they’d welcome my purchasing a cell phone. How about a new set of head phones? [{(-_-)}] Or, could I use some super cheap (cheap, super?) batteries? [:D]