Troubleshooting RailSounds Chuffing

[Anonymous]

Greetings:

I'm troubleshooting some irregular chuffing in from the tender included in the k-line 1307 PRR Freight set. Here's the scenario:

-Chuffing is fine with engine and tender alone
-Chuffing is fine rolling the tender by hand
-Chuffing is fine with small line of freight cars
-Chuffing becomes extremely irregular pulling 4 "Fleet of Moderninsm" passenger cars

This is running on a small oval, powered by a CW-80. Whistle and bell work great. Battery in tender replaced with a known new battery. Same problem exists using another, albeit smaller transformer.

Based on my symptoms, I'd *guess* the sensor is OK and I have some sort of power (weight of cars and demands of car illumination) or physical (IE, the wieght of the cars is effecting the tender's truck/chuff pick-up dynamic)

Where do I start trying to run this down? Finishing the post has inspired me to try one trouble shooting step I have not, Run engine, engine plus one passenger car... adding cars succesively until the problem kicks in... Where do I go from there?

[spankybird]

Try puting the passagner cars on the track, but not connect to the engine. This would give you the power drain and not effect the pulling of the engine.

[thor]

Look, this is just a guess because I'm not familiar with the system but 'chuffing' mechanisms often use the wheels rotation, so if you're pulling a heavier consist, I wonder if its possible that the tension is causing the car to lift a little and the wheels are skipping. Try adding weight to the car I'd say. Or check the mechanism isnt binding in some way making the wheels more prone to skip.

[Jumijo]

I run my Railsounds tender without a battery. Try doing that. The length of the consist doesn't seem to affect my tender's operation. When I was using a CW-80, at higher voltage, the tender did act up some. The whistle would blow by itself. Most likely it was the CW-80, not the tender.

Jim

[jimhaleyscomet]

Ditto the constant whistle blowing for CW-80 and trainsounds car or MTH PS2 engine at higher power levels.

Jim H

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by spankybird

Try puting the passagner cars on the track, but not connect to the engine. This would give you the power drain and not effect the pulling of the engine.

<FC smacks self on forehead> DOH! Great idea, thanks!