Greetings:
I’m troubleshooting some irregular chuffing in from the tender included in the k-line 1307 PRR Freight set. Here’s the scenario:
-Chuffing is fine with engine and tender alone
-Chuffing is fine rolling the tender by hand
-Chuffing is fine with small line of freight cars
-Chuffing becomes extremely irregular pulling 4 “Fleet of Moderninsm” passenger cars
This is running on a small oval, powered by a CW-80. Whistle and bell work great. Battery in tender replaced with a known new battery. Same problem exists using another, albeit smaller transformer.
Based on my symptoms, I’d guess the sensor is OK and I have some sort of power (weight of cars and demands of car illumination) or physical (IE, the wieght of the cars is effecting the tender’s truck/chuff pick-up dynamic)
Where do I start trying to run this down? Finishing the post has inspired me to try one trouble shooting step I have not, Run engine, engine plus one passenger car… adding cars succesively until the problem kicks in… Where do I go from there?