No More BLI Locomotives


D&J RailRoad

D&J RailRoad

Professor of HO
I'm tired of the p poor quality of their stuff. This is the third loco in a row that didn't work correctly.
SW7 w/Paragon4 decoder.
Intermittent operations.
Sometimes it runs, other times it won't respond at all.
 
Im having the same problem with an atlas. Im not familiar with BLI.

Is the decoder a circuit board that is held in place by small notches in the frame that also doubles as the power pick up for the board? If so, this could be the same problem i have with my Atlas N scale. I think my problem is age related wear. It ran perfect 10 years ago. Oxidation or electrolysis that loosened the chips fit to to the frame is resulting in a poor power supply to the board. Unless someone posts a different solution in my recent post, im going to hard wire the decoder board to the frame as there is an intermittent connection in mine. This took me awhile to narrow down.
Ticked ne off as I work on cars for a living. Intermittent electrical issues find there way to me often and can usually be made visible by means of a simple voltage drop test. Harder to do this on objects that move.
 
Ken, you'll probably need to take the trucks apart and clean the part where the pickup shoe contacts the wheels. That area gets all the oil and crud.
 
This is a brand-new locomotive with all the original packing, right out of the box. Paragon4. Shouldn't be crud in there.
BLI (Broadway Limited) mounts their boards quite differently than Atlas does.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
This is a brand-new locomotive with all the original packing, right out of the box. Paragon4. Shouldn't be crud in there.
BLI (Broadway Limited) mounts their boards quite differently than Atlas does.
Click to expand...
I've had to clean the wheels/contacts with brand new BLI stuff, probably more than stuff that was used. They spent a lot of time on their sides in their boxes in shipping containers and sitting on shelves before we get them, and the oil that was on the gears makes its way across the axles and onto the wheels from gravity.
 
I had 2 BLI AC6000, got rid of them a few years ago, nothing but problems and they didn't want to speed match with anything. They have their own workings.
 
CambriaArea51 said:
I had 2 BLI AC6000, got rid of them a few years ago, nothing but problems and they didn't want to speed match with anything. They have their own workings.
Click to expand...
There are settings that BLI "says" allows them to be compatible with other brands. After a lot of trial and error, I just run BLI stuff together.
At least they are now offering their products without their proprietary sound system installed.
 
Yeah, there's a production oil applied to the wheels.
I did some weathering on the shell first before putting it on the track to tune up.
The first thing I do with a loco is clean the wheels off with mineral spirits. Run the loco on address 3 over a paper towel with the mineral spirits. Leaves a couple of black strips on the towel.
That's where I noticed the intermittent operation. I got is running again and tried to run it in on the layout on address 3. Stammering all the way. I applied DeoxIt 5 to the wheels and bearings with the sprayer. Still no change.
Tried changing the address to the cab number. That took ok but it still stammered and sometimes didn't do anything.
Perhaps the stealth version is an acknowledgement that their decoders are junk.
 
bnsf971 said:
There are settings that BLI "says" allows them to be compatible with other brands. After a lot of trial and error, I just run BLI stuff together.
At least they are now offering their products without their proprietary sound system installed.
Click to expand...
What do you mean compatible?
A DCC decoder will work on any DCC system. It's the individual brands of DCC systems that won't mix with other brands components. The signal from the hand held throttle to the command station is proprietary. From the command station to the rails is DCC standard.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
What do you mean compatible?
A DCC decoder will work on any DCC system. It's the individual brands of DCC systems that won't mix with other brands components. The signal from the hand held throttle to the command station is proprietary. From the command station to the rails is DCC standard.
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Yeah, keep thinking that.
As I type this, I'm fighting a Soundtraxx decoder, trying to force it to respond in the same manner as the ESU decoder I want to pair it to.
 
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I've let loco just run laps around the 6 1/2 scale miles of the empire. Seems to be doin OK now.
 
I think they tend to need a run-in period where they settle their gearing and wheel bearings, but also wear off the thin veneer of whatever-it-is that coats the new tires. Bachmann are like this in my experience. I have a heavy mountain class, a fine locomotive, metal, and heavy, but it needs a whopping 40 set on CV2 to get it underway. :oops: Once the drive is warmed up after a few minutes, I can set the value lower to less than 30, but it's still very high. Other locomotives get by with less than 10.

BTW, I have numerous BLI steamers, no diesels, and they have all run flawlessly for years. I have lost two QSI decoders and one EULoksound, but none of BLI's variants have given me a lick of trouble. Mind you, I have no P3's, which I hear are no end of trouble. Mine are all P, P2, and P4, and I get good service out of them.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
Are you referring to speed matching?
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No. I am talking about pushing F8, and having one locomotive start, and the other one go mute. Or push F3, and have a coupler clank from one engine, and the horn blow on the other one. I'm talking about pushing F9, and locking the drive controls on one, while a rotary beacon starts flashing on the other one. I am talking about it taking 45 seconds for one of them to decide to start up and begin moving, while the other one fires up and take off in a couple of seconds.
 
I owned a couple of BLI N-scale Paragon sound-equipped E6 diesels at one time. Intermittent stalling on the tracks, hard to speed match with other brands, and after a few minutes of running the sounds became annoying. After a year or two of very little usage, I got rid of them.

BLI locomotives are so technologically advanced, they hate themselves. I'll never own another one.
 
VTRailway said:
Im having the same problem with an atlas. Im not familiar with BLI.

Is the decoder a circuit board that is held in place by small notches in the frame that also doubles as the power pick up for the board? If so, this could be the same problem i have with my Atlas N scale. I think my problem is age related wear. It ran perfect 10 years ago. Oxidation or electrolysis that loosened the chips fit to to the frame is resulting in a poor power supply to the board. Unless someone posts a different solution in my recent post, im going to hard wire the decoder board to the frame as there is an intermittent connection in mine. This took me awhile to narrow down.
Ticked ne off as I work on cars for a living. Intermittent electrical issues find there way to me often and can usually be made visible by means of a simple voltage drop test. Harder to do this on objects that move.
Click to expand...
Not the same problem as the BLI units.

In your case, carefully tap the "notches" down to re-secure the tight fit of the frame notches to the decoder electrical tabs. This should cure your electrical pickup problem. And be a lot easier and faster than hard-wiring them to the frame half's.

Once again though, be careful doing this. Depending on which Atlas model you have, it's easy to bend, warp, or break these smaller die-cast zamac N-scale frames. And not just where the decoder fits. Even the motor area or truck areas can warp if not properly supported when tapping on the decoder notches. The RS-1 and RS-3 frames are exceptionally delicate.
 
bnsf971 said:
No. I am talking about pushing F8, and having one locomotive start, and the other one go mute. Or push F3, and have a coupler clank from one engine, and the horn blow on the other one. I'm talking about pushing F9, and locking the drive controls on one, while a rotary beacon starts flashing on the other one. I am talking about it taking 45 seconds for one of them to decide to start up and begin moving, while the other one fires up and take off in a couple of seconds.
Click to expand...
All that stuff is aligned with the mapping feature. Most models use F1 for bell, F2 for horn but after that, F3 could be a coupler clank or short horn toot. F8 is common for all as mute except MTH who just decided his would be different.
 
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