Lemme guess, they feed the track with an 8 amp booster and have no power protection....
If it was stuck on a switch, about all that should ahppen is the front truck was on North rail, and the rear truck was on South rail - dead short throught he piece of wire connecting the two trucks. That's the ONLY wire that should have melted - maybe the one on the opposite side as well. The caps might have gotten melted a bit, otherwise you should be able to just pull them straight off with needle-nose pliers.
You can leave the caps for the headlights, in case they ever burn out (and they will). The way AThearn puts though light bulbs in makes it more difficult than others to swap them with LEDs, but that's the best long-term solution. That's usually the concern with getting rid of the caps and soldering the wires on.
In the hoarder model railroader mentality, I have a slot in one of my storage bins filled with those silly plastic caps, although most are from brands other than Athearn, and may or may not fit Athearn's circuit boards.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
running on the club track and is digitrax
That may have done it, jamie. The motor is probably fine. Hopefully your decoder didn't take a hit though.
What DCC system are you using?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
the only thing was a turnout was against me so it stopped but i was there in a couple seconds since standing right there
when switch was changed it simply would not move and figuring out why was when find melted wires
now after installing new upgraded truck wires all things work except it only moves at a slower than snails speed so think the motor could have taken a overload same time the other wires did
resetting decoder does not fix the running problem either
jamie,
Did your locomotive maybe short somewhere on your layout? It doesn't take all that long for something to heat up.
I had a DC Proto 2000 S1 switcher that shorted at a turnout on a friend's layout. Before I got to it, the front end of the shell started to warp. When I opened up the hood, the light board and contacts were pretty scorched in one spot.
the caps did not melt
the actual wires to the trucks did
i did not do any wiring changes to the engine before they melted - this was completely as athearn installed and they melted
I agree with what Randy said, there had to be something else that happened to melt the caps...
Cheers, good luck, hope you didn't fry the motor..
Frank
Slice through them with a hobby knife. They aren;t needed, just solder the wires in the holes. And check the wiring where it must have gotten stuck with a dead short running through the wires, they don't melt under normal operation or under any current draw the motor can stand without the motor itself cooking. Sounbds like maybe you crossed a block bondary with opposite polarities, resulting in double voltage through the wires from front to rear truck.
i know they are supposed to just pull off but tell that to my engine
just bought a new athearn genesis sd70ace and the truck wires melted from being under sized
nothing i do gets these wire locks off and i even tried pulling with pliers
any ideas how to actually get one off when it is simply stuck
i know how to change the wires just the lock being simply stuck stops this process