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I hear a lot of praises for Broadway Limited. I own one of their junk locomotives. A C&O T1 which is one of their first attempts at quality locomotives. This is the most expensive power I own. This morning I attempted to run it again. As usual it was a lost cause. Am I the only one with BLI problems? And yes I have spoken with them and even returned it to them.
It refuses to run correctly. When I first got it I couldn't get it through a switch / turn out. It would start and stop continuously. I have cried about this before on various sites. I was told by BLI that I needed to go with DCC as it was actually made for DCC.I have been DCC now for several years. I have problems with some things but this beast still won't run right. No easy starts it is either stop or go. It will run for couple of feet then stop.It will then go when it decides to. I think it is a beautiful locomotive but I can't use it. I guess I just got frustrated again and needed to blow off some steam.
yep, thats what it sounds like. do your other locomotives run fine? if so (and that means there is clean power on clean rails) something wrong with electrical pickups on the loco itself
explain what makes you say it is the encoder . from what you said so far it does not sound as such (very similar happened to one of my engines and was resolved with cleaning). in any case, did you try different decoder then? try to approach this systematically and eliminate possible issues.
Some of the early BLI steam engines did have tracking problems. It sounds like you've already returned it to them for repairs, which I know they did a good bit of when they were first starting out. I agree with Anton though. Seems like we all have one dog locomotive, and have a bad attitude about it whenever we run it. Start with running it on a straight and level track. Does it run smoothly and track correctly? If so, you've got a problem with either the electrical pickup in the model or problems with your trackwork this engine finds. When you say it's either start or stop, do you mean it's doesn;t slow to a stop, just stops? If so, that sounds like either bad setting in the decoder or, less likely, a bad decoder. If you take it one step at a time, I think you can cure these problems. I've always had the feeling that certain locomotives know I hate them, and they run bad to spite me.
To be honest Jim you may have found the problem. I have had trouble from day one with this locomotive. I have tried so many things I can't remember what all I have tried. It was on straight level track today. H8 had just run there flawlessly 45 seconds earlier.I have cleaned wheels many times. I guess I need to just start taking it apart. It has been like this from the box so I doubt if it is dirt. I have repeatedly spoken with them and returned it once which took around six months turn around. I think it has become just a complete frustration point. So I will give it a hug & kiss then start taking it apart.
i would say go for the easy part first, try different decoder, better if pre-programmed and tested on different loco. they rarely go bad, but who knows. as far as dirt perhaps its not the wheels but wheel hubs (or whatever is used to pick the power from the wheels).
does the light flicker when it starts and stops? 99% that would be the dirt.
and if all fails you might want to look into "keep alive" capacitors. basically a capacitor soldered into decoder after the bridge rectifier at a times it can give couple milliseconds of power to keep the motor going and get the engine through the dirty section. the challenges there are :
1. find a place to fit nice electrolytic capacitor (it needs to be quite a larger one)
2. is to solder neatly into tiny decoder board and not melt stuff,
more here: http://members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm
but this is last resort scenario and only if your issue is power pickup
it will not move yes I've talked with BLI ...about the only thing this engine can do is sit there as scenery.....no no this and a set of F7's a/b your right up2csx they know ya don't like em........John
I've fixed many locomotives deemed dead by their previous owners (one of which is a BLI SD40-2. A few of the wires came loose. I wired in a new decoder and it runs fine.)
If you want, I can look at it and/or fix it for you (assuming that the problem is not the decoder).
Am I correct in assuming that BLI has the decoder in the A-unit but runs wires to the B-unit where the speaker is?
BLI uses 8-ohm speakers. If you wanted to put a tsunami into it (which sounds better by the way) it would be a very easy swap.
IT APPEARS TO BE FIXED. Crandell suggested checking the plug between tender & locomotive. He said using needle nose pliers and push it in with hard. I pushed that thing in with all I have. I even tried to wiggle it a little in the process. WOWwhat a difference. After years of hating a locomotive its running good. BLI didn't even suggest that. I think this is what these boards are good for. Now time will tell but as of now it is a cool locomotive.
They have their own forum on their website, and there are maybe 20 regular posters there. Matt Williamson or one of 'da boyz' haunting that forum ( moi included...) will almost always suggest that right away when a person posts about intermittent performance with a BLI/PCM steamer. Once you see how big a difference a fairly intense pressure on that plug makes, and getting it fully home in its receiver, you never forget that little practice.
I operated for a couple of hours this evening. My T1 was not running the whole time but when called on it performed flawlessly. Now to fix an old double slip switch that has been giving me trouble. I suspect it will have to be replaced as it is kinda butchered up at this point. $$$$ ouch!
the funny thing is i had similar problem with my motorcycle once. the negative cable was to short (known problem of that particular model) , snapped of with all vibrations at some point due to tension, and was just lying on top of negative terminal . of course intermittent contact was causing all kinds of funny things and sparks, drove me nuts as i was trying to figure out wtf is the matter with the electrical system.
When I went to BLI for a sale they had, I brought my PRR M-1 I was having trouble with. I watched the guy work on it and when he put the plug from the tender into the engine he used a really big tweezer to grab the plug and push it in. They probably didn't find the problem you did because they had pushed the plug in properly. Of course knowing the way to do it makes a big difference.
I wasn't having the a problem like yours, I was having a problem changing the address on the sound decoder, he wound up replacing the sound decoder, said it was acting funky... LOL Worked great after that.
) will almost always suggest that right away when a person posts about intermittent performance with a BLI/PCM steamer. Once you see how big a difference a fairly intense pressure on that plug makes, and getting it fully home in its receiver, you never forget that little practice.
. of course intermittent contact was causing all kinds of funny things and sparks, drove me nuts as i was trying to figure out wtf is the matter with the electrical system.
