Electronics and DCC

 I purchased a 2-6-6-2 logger from Mantua.  Installed a MRC sound unit in the tender.  Called sounder

Sound.  Works very well with whistle, bell, steam release and several chugs.  Problem I have with this

engine is that it does not run very good.  I know it has to do with the pick ups.  There is pick ups on the

tender as well as the engine?  I have cleaned the drivers and the wheels and the TRACK to no avail.  The

engine moves about 12 inches and stops.  Give it a nudge and it goes another 12 inches or so and stops.

Anyone else having this problem.  Both of my shays perform flawlessly on the same track.  I'm about

ready to deep six the SOB!  Feedback would be appreciated on this subject.

 How did it run on DC?

Install pickups on all the tender wheels. I believe most tenders pickup on the front truck one one side and the rear truck, the opposite side.

I have modified some of my tenders that are like that with pickups on the other wheels so all eight wheels have pickups. I used Kadee #5 coupler springs.

Are the contact fingers clean where they contact the tender axles?

How many loco drivers have pickups?

Rich

 A friend purchased one of those and has the same problem on DC -- it's a really bad power pickup problem with these locos.

Forgot to mention, I installed new NS wheel sets in the tenders. I just consider something like this as a challenge.

Rich

I must not be thinking of the right engine.  I thought this was a saddle tanker, articulated, and it had no tender, except a rear-mounted one behind the cab, still on the locomotive's frame.

You may have to get Doc Wayne to talk you through some sliders.  Or fashion your own phosphor bronze wipers, maybe on the trucks.  Harold Minkwitz has an online tutorial recently alluded to in a thread where he uses Kadee copper centering springs, the kind that take up all the coupler box, to make wipers.

-Crandell

 Maybe the OP has the re-released Model Power version of the Mantua 2-6-6-2 logger, which does come either with or without a tender.  Either way, it seems that the electrical pickup scheme used in this is very poor and causes poor running.

selector:

I must not be thinking of the right engine.  I thought this was a saddle tanker, articulated, and it had no tender, except a rear-mounted one behind the cab, still on the locomotive's frame.

You may have to get Doc Wayne to talk you through some sliders.  Or fashion your own phosphor bronze wipers, maybe on the trucks.  Harold Minkwitz has an online tutorial recently alluded to in a thread where he uses Kadee copper centering springs, the kind that take up all the coupler box, to make wipers.

-Crandell

Harold made his site go away that had the pickup details for tender trucks. Someone was copying his ideas and posting them as their own. I have used Harold's idea and it works very well.

I did find a site with tender truck pickups that looked almost like Harold's idea but that site mysteriously disappeared some months  ago. Below is someone elses idea.

http://www.2guyzandsumtrains.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=5.html

selector:

I must not be thinking of the right engine.  I thought this was a saddle tanker, articulated, and it had no tender, except a rear-mounted one behind the cab, still on the locomotive's frame.

-Crandell

You're thinking of the right engine - before it was modified by the Sumpter Valley (and later sold to Guatemala.)

The side tank (Uintah RR) version picks up from the drivers in the usual DC manner - right side front engine, left side rear engine.  My two (one unmodified, one with heavily reworked superstructure) both run just fine - on analog DC - and take 350mm radius curves without complaint.

I wonder if the DCC mod is trying to pick up from the tender only.  If so, getting the drivers into the act might cure the hiccups.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

I have the same engine that I installed a Tsunami Heavy Steam and it does the same thing! It might run six feet at a crawl and then it goes haywire. The thing that gets me about it is that it actually runs good for a while but the sound keeps cutting in and out and it keeps resetting. Then sometimes it will stop and then go without you even touching it. I have checked the wiring and cleaned the wheels and axle contacts a hundred times and it still does the same thing. I have even swapped the decoder with another one and it does the same thing so I don't think it is the decoder or a loose wire. I think that it is possessed and I put it away out of sight until I get myself  calmed down. Sometimes it's best to walk away from these things and come back another day! I am going to try the contacts made from the Kadee springs and if that does not work then I will redo all the wiring from the headlight to the taillight.

I like the looks of this engine and I am determined to get this thing to run!

Jim

 Stay alive might help. Many with the Tsunami use that option. I use the stay alive with the Micro-Tsunami. Stay alive info below and has been discussed a lot on the Yahoo SoundTraxx DCC forum.

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm

Rich

 Improving tender pickups.

The below photo is of one of my Spectrum tenders. Not very good photo but you can see the trimmed Kadee pickup held in place by a 00-90 machine screw. I drilled and tapped for 00-90 screw. This gives me all wheel pickup. Some people use super glue but solder the wire to the Kadee spring first. This idea is from Harold's page that I downloaded before his site went away.

The below link shows you how to improve loco pickup. The strip with the holes is copper clad PC board.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn1/ExtraPickUps.htm

 Rich