Can anyone advise if the pick up wires from the trucks to the PCB are solid core wire, I have just opened up a club members HO Scale SD-45 and all the wires are broken, the loco also had a bind in one truck which turned out to be one gear in the wrong place, this was supposedly a new loco purchased from a reputable dealer, solid core wires for this use seems like a fudge repair to me.
Ted (Teditor) Freeman
From The Land Down Under
On my Bachmann diesels, the wires are stranded. I noticed they broke easily from the trucks when I added sound decoders. Joe
Many thanks, as I suspected, I am primarily N Scale so didn't have immediate knowledge, I just seem to fix other peoples problems cause I can't say no.
I worked on all scales in the 15 years my repair shop was open. There were only two times I saw solid core wire in a loco. One was prewar 'O' and 'Standard' gauge equipment, which usually had solid core wire. The other was newer stuff, manufactured with stranded wire, that someone else had "repaired" using solid core wire before it came into my shop.
Len
Another thing I forgot to mention, on removing the couplers to get the body off, one end was the Bachmann Coupler, the other end was a Kadee #5 secured with a larger (2.56?) brass screw, for a supposedly new loco it had some strange quirks within..
Ted (Teditor) Freeman
It appears to have possibly been a "pig in a poke."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_in_a_poke
Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Bewarest thou of used model locomotives, lest thee encounter the dreaded "pig in a poke"