This is a older HO Powerhouse BLI USRA Heavy Mikado with a QSI decoder with sound. Problem is I have lost power pickup from the tender. Yes, the tender to engine is pluged in right and in fact I bought a new one from BLI and installed it. I have not had the tender wheels off.
Engine runs fine untill is hits a turnout then it goes dead? Any ideas?
Thank you for the coming answers.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
I would do a continuity check between each tender wheel and the loco wheels on the same side.
On the board in the tender, there are seperate connectors for the tender left and right pickups, and the feed from the loco. Perhaps the feed from the tender pickups has come loose. Or a wire is broken off.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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Wouldnt that indicate there is a problem in the turnout?
So you changed the connection but not the tender. I would start by cleaning the tender wheels and the power pickups on the wheels.
Simon
Geeeeezzz..I really wish BLI would engineer a better connection. I have found those tethers to be surprisingly robust, but I have little confidence in them. I keep thinking, as I pull one out or attempt to push one in, that I'm going to feel a parting wire.
Ken, you have good answers already. I would use a meter to test the turnout, both with light pressure and with heavier pressure of the probes along both routes. You may find that one of those two pressures reveals a bad connection at the joiners.
Also, meter the pins and wheels to check continuity using the ohm setting. If you get no reading, an open circuit, then you have a problem from inside the plug to along the tether wires inside the insulation to the decoder, at the decoder contact, or within the decoder, or from the inputs of the decoder down the wires to the pickups, and finally possibly dirty pickups. The tires you can see easily and will know if they are clean.
Yeah, I know, there goes another hour.
Thanks for the answers folks! I have yet found the time to crack open the tender. I am hoping for something simple.
Thanks again, Ken
If I understand the original post, you bought an older BLI 2-8-2 and replaced the tender with a new one, and now it stalls out on turnouts? If so, it may be the new BLI tender connections aren't the same as the old one (even though the plug and receptacle may look the same, the wiring could be different). Sounds like maybe it's not picking up power from the tender, or only from one side.