I have just received my Spectrum SP Hicken Ho scale tender and tried to run it with my Spectrum Light Mountain. When I turn my controller on the lights illuminate, but the loco does not move! I have subsequently tried the Light Mountain with its original tender, and a Spectrum Vandi tender and they both work fine.
Bearing in mind the tender is brand new, out of the box, running on clean track, does anyone know whether I have a dud tender, or is there something that I am doing wrong?
I don’t know the specifics, but over on the Bachmann forum it is reported that not all the tenders are wired the same so some swaps are not possible without redoing the wiring.
As jsoderq wrote, the tender is wired different than other Spectrum tenders. You’ll have to open it up and compare the wiring to what is is the others. My guess is that it does not have the circuit board in it that is in the tenders that come with locomotives.
Sounds like I will have to get my soldering iron out then.
I take it that this will be a relativly easy operation to perform? Does anyone have an electrcial diagram of how I need to wire the tender in order to make it work with a Light Mountain?
I will try the Bachmann forums, but can anyone suggest where else I might find such information?
I find it very STUPID on Bachmann’s behalf to make and market seperate tenders with all these electrical variations. Every Spectrum comes DCC ready and all tender wiring should have followed a STANDARD. Tenders should be interchangable on every steamer with no fuss.
Bachmann turned the DCC socket 90 degrees between the light and heavy Mountain tenders, for some stupid reason. SoundTraxx made a decoder that could be plugged directly into the light Mountain’s tender socket. When a member of our local club sent a light Mountain back to Bachmann for repair, they sent him a new heavy Mountain replacement, but his sound system would no longer fit into it.
He contacted SoundTraxx, who sent him an addendum sheet on how to modify the Bachmann heavy Mountain’s tender so the light Mountain sound system could be fit into it.
SoundTraxx said Bachmann products were driving them crazy because every time a new model comes out, a different decoder design has to be devised.
I have to agree, you would have thought that Spectrum would have made all tenders generic for each locomotive.
I think I am going to remove the pcb board from the Light Mountain tender and swap it with the board in the Hicken tender - I prefer the look of the 12 wheel tender so the short one can be confined to the loco depot.
4884bigboy - I have got one of the 8 wheel vandi tenders and it works well with both the light mountain and my 2-8-0. I had it connected tot he 2-8-0 the other day coupled with my Rivarossi 60’s and the whole train looked something special! Can’t wait to run my Light Mountain with Hicken tender and a rake of Walthers Heavyweights!