My Lifelike 0-8-0 sat in storage for a year, and when I go to run it, the lights come on in the proper direction, but no movement. Taking it apart, I noticed one of the wires to the female plug came out, so I peeled off a little insulation and shoved it back in the unit. I plan to solder all the wire to the tender pins as soon as I figure out the engine trouble. After removing the shell, I found that the engine itself rotates freely, but it seems as though the wheels are stuck fast. I cannot rotate them by running my fingers over them. I think I need to test to see if the motor actually works, but not sure how. Here's a pict of the innards: Any suggestions as to the next step? Should I go ahead and solder the wires to the tender pins to eliminate that as a potential problem? Seems like the big problem is that the wheels are stuck. Any / all suggestions appreciated!
We need better pictures of the loco. Wheels being stuck has nothing to do with the wires. It is mechanical so we need to see the drivers from both sides to see if there is a visible problem. As far as soldering the wires direct to the tender, I wouldn't. It makes the loco that much harder to work on because now the tender is a permenant part of the loco. You are more likely to break wires with it that way than by installing and removing the plug.
You can't rotate wheels if there's a worm gear in there unless you pull the motor out. I'm not really sure you have a problem. Try hotwiring directly to the motor brushes or frame halves with a set up jumper wires. Unless the motor siezes up and can't turn the mechanism I wouldn't assume the worst yet.
"engine rotates freely but wheels are stuck fast" ?? I'm assuming that you mean that the motor armature rotates, but the wheels do not. Have you tried turning the motor armature using the flywheel at the back (do NOT force this - just see if it will move with a light touch). You will not be able to rotate the wheels with your fingers as long as the worm gear is in place on the motor, but there should be a little "play" in the wheels that would allow you to slightly "rock" the wheels back and forth. If you can't do this, I suspect that the worm gear is not meshing correctly with the wheel drive gears - although as Tony points out, more photos of the drive train showing the rods and valve gear would be helpful to rule out anything obvious. John C.
Pardon my lack of correct labeling: still learning all the parts! The fly wheel on the end turns. The armatures turn. There is a little back and forth moving the wheels. None of the driving rods block or get in the way of anything. Seems like juice is not getting to motor. How attach that little wire inside the female plug? Crimp, I guess. Here's some picts of the engine. Thanks again for all your help and patience.
OK, if the wheels rock back and forth slightly, that is proper gear slop and things are good. You should be able to turn the flywheel on the motor and see the wheels turn. Keep in mind it might take a few more than 1 rotation of the motor to see the drivers move. It sounds like the wire is your problem. The solution is to solder it back to the plug. Slide the heat shrink off of the broken contact and resolder your wire there. Keep in mind, this is a very small wire and contact so work quickly, don't let the parts heat soak too much or you will end up with melted plastic in place of your plug. I wouldn't even worry about replacing the heat shrink but if you have some, it's not a bad idea to use it.
Turning the flywheel does rotate the wheels. After dinner I'll try soldering the dang-that's-small! wire back into the plug, and then report back. Thanks for the help!
Soldered the stray wires back onto the plug. I say wireS because as I peeled back the insulation from the plug contact the neighbor popped off: The original problem wire is soldered and I put a thin piece of electrical tape to isolate it from it's neighbor, the outer-most wire. Soldered both in, then tested on the layout. Nothing. Not even a motor hum. Problem with decoder? (DZ125) The direction lights work. It worked a year ago. Still a problem with the wiring? All the soldering connections on the engine itself look good (can't see under the motor for one, though). That connection between engine and tender is very very flimsy, even in "normal" condition. Any thoughts on the next step? Swap the decoder out? Take decoder out and try on DC? Thanks again for all yr help!
The easy answer at this point is stick a dummy plug back in the socket and see what happens on DC. From there it will be tracing voltage to see where the power break is.
The most basic troubleshooting tool is a set of flexible test leads. I have a length of 3' flexible stranded wire with micro alligator clips soldered on both ends. Get track power with two leads off of a regular DC source, no DCC. Unplug it from the tender, test the locomotive isolated from the decoder entirely. Even a 9v battery is good as a power source for this. It 'looks like' you can reach the bottom motor brush head without dissassembly, although you may have to clip in a needle or a pin and use it like a test probe to get in there and poke the brass brush holder from the side. You need to get regular DC power to the motor brushes, bypassing all the other issues, to determine if the motor is actually OK or not. Touch one lead to the top motor brush holder and the other lead to the bottom brush holder at about 1/3 power. All you are trying to establish is that the motor spins and the mechanism spins. I suspect it will, but there's no sense concluding anything else until you prove the motor is actually OK. You start at the motor and work out. Same deal then, if you can determine which pins on the female socket are to the motor, then you can test from that point in, using needles as probes. Look on the original instructions or maybe somebody here can identify the socket positions for the motor leads in. If you don't know and can't trace it, don't expiriment because if you put track power over an LED line that's only supposed to see 1.5V you'll toast the LED. It's probably most likely that it is just the pins and connections, second most likely is the decoder, the actual motor is probably unlikely. Those insulated connections in the plug can conceal all manner of problems like broken solder joints.
You might try contacting Randy McPhail at Walthers (randym@walthers.com). He did an outstanding job on my 0-8-0 about a year ago. I was very impressed with the service I received. My 0-8-0 from the beginning would hesitate before going forward, and it finally got to the point where it wouldn't move forward even by jiggling the loco on the track.
Tested motor by touching wires to the brass motor brush holders (needed a pin to reach the bottom one). Motor turned, wheels turned. Yeay! Replaced the DZ125 (8 pin) decoder with the DC plug and ran it on my DC test track. Worked fabulous! Is there any way to test to see if the problem is in the decoder itself or in the 8-pin connection? Like I said before, the lights turn on corresponding to direction, just no motor (not even a hum). Otherwise, I have a new DZ125 decoder that I can solder onto the 8-pin and try that. Cheers!
Lights still on, still nobody home Alrighty: with the DC plug in, the loco mooves smooth around the layout. I put a new DZ125 decoder in today (with the 8-pin), programmed it on the track for standard config, and same deal as where I started: directional lights go on with advancing & reversing the throttle, but no movement. My Powercab throttle does read "cannot read" while programming, but it seems to do that with the other DZ125s I've used, and it still ends up running fine (as did this engine before a year of storage. Is there some wiring somewhere I should be checking? Something that would affect the decoder but not DC? I'm lost! (and no, for you Muppet fans, I have not tried Hari Krishna )
My only guess is that when you resoldered the two broken wires, you got them flipped. They are probably motor and frame connections for one side of the loco. If you flip them, you are getting track voltage into the motor lead of the decoder and probably hurting them. Yet the DC jumper plug is simply jumping these two wires for it to work on DC so it doesn't mater that they are backwards.
Thanks, Skipgear, for the idea. Just tripple-checked the wires, and they're right where they were originally. The 6-pin connector runs: 1: Motor (bottom) 2: Frame Right 3: Light (negative) 4: Light (positive) 5: Frame Left 6: Motor (top) Of course, while I was tracing the wires, another one popped off the connector. Didn't realize I breathed that hard! The Digitrax book says that the decoder automatically cuts out the motor if there's a surge. Is there someway to have a short in DCC and not DC? Thanks again for all the help!
The only short is if the motor leads contact the frame leads at some point. Take a volt meter, set it to ohms or continuity and check between motor leads and the frame with the loco unplugged. You should not get any connection between any motor lead and any frame lead.
When I got my 0-8-0 new, out of the box it ran fine on DC; however, I plugged an 8 pin decoder into the tender (without the tender shell) and it shorted my DCC system everytime. It came from the factory with a DCC-only short where a wire was shorting against the frame. A wire was being pinched by the locomotive shell.
Finally got around to this project. The harness was a mess from previous repair jobs, so I just hardwired everything to the tender plug. The motor ran fine on DCC when removed from the engine frame. Put the motor back in the cradle & no go. Turned out there was a loose / broken wire at the bottom motor contact. Soldered that, ran fine when removed from engine frame. Then, as I was lubing things with Labelle, a Popeye-Spinich-Can-squirt of oil shot into the motor. Hasn't turned since. I've tried to "dry" out the motor, touching it with paper to wick the oil. But now I'm not sure if the problem is the oil, or if I soldered the bottom motor contact wrong. Any solutions to either? Thanks for any / all help!
My guess it would be a combination of both. Oil can be solved by removing the motor and spraying with RC car motor cleaner or Electrical contact spray. The soldering may be another story. My question is how hot did the brush hood got. The brush springs can't hand hardly any heat at all and if the brush hood got too hot when soldering, it may have damaged the brush spring.
Hmmm... I'll try cleaning the motor, but I'm worried I damaged the brush springs. Any way to fix? Or is it off to Walthers for a new motor or parts?
