Spectrum locomotive barely moves at speedstep 17

[miniman4256]

Hi, so I recently purchased a DCC Pennsylvania Railroad SD45 from Spectrum off of Ebay. It came in the mail today, and when I tested it, it wouldn't move at all below speed step 17. At speed step 17, it still goes very slowly. The headlight works, so I know that it isn't a power issue, and you can hear the motor below speedstep 17, it just doesn't run. I have tried resetting the decoder. I have tried resetting the address to the number 3 and back again, still to no avail. I did notice however that the motor was very loose. Like as in I could just lift it out if I wanted to loose. I do not think this is an issue because I secured it in place with some moutning putty, and the same issue still happened. If anyone has any knowledge of how to fix this, please let me know.

[trainman203]

You may have a voltage drop problem, either within the track itself being loose in places or with the power source.  It doesn't take much power to light up the headlight, it'll come on before the motor moves in many cases.  So the headlight might only say that something is there, not how good it is.  Get a multimeter somewhere and get a reading on your track.  My DCC system delivers between 13 and 14 Volts, apparently some others vary somewhat.

[jward]

Is this one of the older Spectrums with the split frame similar to an N scale locomotive?