Got his one cheap, supposedly ran before shipping, but as is. And the light comes on but no loco movement. Usual broken tender drawbar. Have any of you ran across this with one of these little beasties or had one apart? I fixed the drawbar on my MP Mikado, so that's not a problem. I have seen some running well on videos from folks here, so hopefully some help is available!
Not much for us to go on. Does it him and/or vibrate? If not, electricity is probably not getting through to the motor. If so, some part of the driveline is probably stuck or binding.
Thanks, no humming or vibrating. I have not opened it up yet, I wish I had the schematic to it. Anybody got one they could copy and send to me?
Well, I'm not familiar with them, so I went to Spookshow. http://www.spookshow.net/loco/mp260.html At the very least, the broken drawbar is part of the problem. I think it's the entire problem. Wires run through it, and on those designed to "drop in" a decoder in the tender, even the driver wipers would feed into the tender, rather than feeding the motor directly. Even if I'm not reading his review correctly, and I'm wrong about that, the older ones only have four drivers which conduct, and the odds of enough of them making proper contact with the track aren't exceptionally good. But I think I read it right. All electricity the locomotive itself collects is fed to the tender through the drawbar for DCC purposes, then runs back to the motor by the same route. He indicates this is the case even in the older ones, which don't allow for a "drop in" installation. So, a broken drawbar is beyond crippling.
I think you guys figured it out. The draw bar does carry half the current from the tender. Without it your looking at a Shelf Queen or Dust Collector.
If the loco got dropped, the motor may have a broken mount or contact. definitely a problem with the tender to loco wires. The tender picks up power on one rail and the loco on the other in the older non DCC units. There was a definite improvement with the second and later releases, however, they are delicate in the engine pickups. Follow Spookshows directions and take a lot of pics as you tear it down to help reassembly.
Get a Bachmann SPECTRUM USRA standard or switcher tender. They are all wheels live. You can fashion a new drawbar from styrene. You can use screws in both tender and locomotive. Run the wires from the locomotive into the tender and affix either to the bronze strips or the decoder plug, if you get a later version. You now have a locomotive that runs better than the original. Before you do this, touch some wires to the drivers. Make sure that they spin. If they do not, you have more problems.
Thank you all. Yeah, I had to repair the tender drawbar on my MP 2-8-2 as well. The physical part does not concern as much as the possible electric gremlins.
