Hi all
Hopefully someone can help. I bought a Bachmann K4 today and after fixing the solder short on the circuit board in the tender I fitted a Soundtraxx TSU 1000 and 8ohm speaker. Tight fit, but after some surgery it all went in. Ran fine for about 3 minutes until the decoder overheated. I then taped the flat side of the decoder to a metal weight in the tender to help cooling as recommended in the installation guide, still over heated. I then ran without the tender body on for max air circulation, still overheated.
Surely the motor draw in these K4s isn't too much for a 1A decoder?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Dan

I've just done it, bought an NCE powercab DCC controller. Works great with my nice new Athearn Big Boy, but the 2 Bachmann locos I have with chips in seem to struggle. I have a N+W J class and a Berkshire. Both of these exhibit loud humming when trying to start up and don't start moving until you reach about speed step 40 (in 128 steps mode). I thought I'd read something about a possible humming that could be fixed by changing the start voltage in the CVs. I tried that, but it didn't seem to have any effect.

Any advice as to how to fix this?

Thanks
Dan

Just want to get an opinion of someone who's been to Steamtown. We live in Southern New Jersey and go to the Strasburg railroad a few times a year. I was thinking about taking my son ot Steamtown this coming Sunday. Obviously the Big Boy would be a big plus, just wondering how the rest of it compares with Strasburg. Do they have a model store there?

Thanks
Dan

Hi

this has bugged me for a while. Not being too familiar with north american locomotives when I first saw the cab forward I was quite intreiged. The benefits of having the cab at the front are fairly obvious, but I'm struggling to figure out how the coal from the tender was transfered all the way up into the firebox. Somehow I doubt if the fireman was made to climb all the way along the length of the loco with shovelfulls!

If anyone can set me straight that would be appreciated.

Thanks
Dan

Ok, I did it. bought the Hornby Live Steam Mallard set. I was going to get the Flying Scotsman, but the price was too high for me right now.

See video below

Hi

I'm still in the dream/fantasize stage of my layout and plan to wire for DCC. My question is, as I'm a Brit living here in the US I want to be able to run both British Hornby and US locomotives (that should make some of the purists shudder!), can they both run on the same DCC systems?

Thanks
Dan

Just thought I'd share my experience with my new Decapod. When I tried to run it for the first time nothing happened, lights would not come on and it wouldn't move so I immediatly suspected a short somewhere.

To cut a 45 minute investigation short what I found was the copper strips inside the body that make contact with the wheels to pick up the current were maybe 1/2 mm too long (in horizontal length) and were therefore raised up bridge like and making contact with the metal weighted base in the loco. To solve I just cut a couple of strips of paper and stuck them over the offending contacts to insulate from the rest of the loco, with a space to allow the gear to fit in it's dip. Screwed it back together and it worked a charm.

Hopefully this will help someone else who may experience the same. I may have a loco with paper inside now (actually strips of an Acme supermarket kid sticker that my son graciously volunteered for the task), but saved on sending the thing back!

Dan

Hi

I'm new to the hobby (well, new if you ignore the years as a child playing with my grandad's trains). I've just bought a Spectrum 'Cavalier' set with the J Class loco #613. The lights light with no problem, but the locomotive seems 'sticky'. When the power is turned on the motor hums, but it does not move unless the power is turned to 100% and I give it a push. It then runs ok, but seems to be a little jerky. My internet searching turned up that this particular set may be discontinued, so I'm wondering if it has been stored for a while and just needs some lubrication/running in (it ran for ~ 1 hour yesterday and seemed to ease a little, but still won't start by itself and doesn't move at all under ~ 60-70% power. Otherwise should I send it back to Bachmann, I don't feel like I'm capable of any major surgery on it. Thanks for any help.