Hello, Santa brought me for Christmas a beautiful BLI Paragon2 Hudson J1e locomotive and I am trying to run it on with my Bachman DC power unit but the only thing I got out of it was a few sounds with the throttle at maximum output; the loco did'nt budge an inch and no lights were on the loco.
Serge
Hopefully all that is wrong is that your tether needs to be fully inserted into its receptacle under the cab of the locomotive. It is hopefully inserted the correct orientation left-to-right and all the way snuggly to the back.
I have had a similar experience with other steamers, and the fix has always been forcing the plug fully home into the receptacle.
A similar thing happened to me. Then after reinserting the plug the loco would occasionally stall and the headlight flickered. A bit of contact cleaner and pushing rather hard on the connector solved all of the problems.
Also be aware that these babies need a lot of DC to start moving. At least half throttle. Sounds will begin before movement.
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
Hello Selector & Larak, I would like to thank you both for your advice, I firmly re-inserted the plug into the receptacle and my loco is now running like a charm, sound, lights etc..
Issue resolved
Yippee....success!! Unfortunately, this little fix is sometimes not the first thing we guess or think of when we next have such intermittent performance problems. So, I hope you remember it. It is step one, after which it gets more complicated.
-Crandell
Hello Crandel, you can be sure I will remember this situation, I'm a newbie in model railroading and there are lots of issues that could be resolved easily but you really got to dig deep sometimes to find the infos, or you just have to post a topic on this forum and you're bound to get an answer from a fellow model railroader.
Thanks once again
Hi!
May I add........ two of my Paragons did not fully attach when the tether plugs were put into the receptacle. They LOOKED ok and held together, but they were not making full contact. I finally figured out that the holes in the female end were not totally clear - and it turned out they had bits of plastic (or whatever material the plug is made of) inside. I used a small hand turned drill bit (it might have been a # 72 - not sure) and CAREFULLY reamed out the holes. Make sure the drill bit is no bigger than the hole - smaller is better.
Anyway, after that they worked fine. One would think all this would have been tested by the manufacturer, but...........
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central