Another Bachmann K4 bites the dust

[Rich_S]

Earlier in the thread, you indicated the passing siding went dead.  Was that solved? Does it bear on the problem with the loco, or coincidental?

Scott, Yes the siding has been repaired, I've been adding more feeders to the layout. At this point I'm not sure if the siding going dead was coincidental or because of the locomotive? All of the turnouts are standard Atlas code 80 turnouts. I've not had any problems with any of my other locomotives on this layout, so at this point I'm just wondering if I received a bad apple??

[Scottl]

I don't have any insights but I found it strange to have track power go around the same time.  It does sound like it was internal to the locomotive.   

[nscaleSPF2]

Rich, is it possible that the locomotive drivers "locked up" when the decoder and the siding feed failed, and the truck melted?  Maybe an over-current condition occurred that was below the level at which your DCC system would trip.  Perhaps this was caused by the motor stalling?  If so, I think I know what caused the drivers to stop turning.

[Rich_S]

Rich, is it possible that the locomotive drivers "locked up" when the decoder and the siding feed failed, and the truck melted?  Maybe an over-current condition occurred that was below the level at which your DCC system would trip.  Perhaps this was caused by the motor stalling?  If so, I think I know what caused the drivers to stop turning.

Jim, I don't think the issue was a driver problem, all of the side rods, linkage and so forth seem to move freely.

Group, I think the issue was a pickup problem. When I received the locomotive back from Bachmann, I only received track power when I put the rear tender truck on the rails. Taking the rear tender truck off the rails and the power went away. After carefully disassembling the locomotive, I found the light board in the front of the locomotive was slightly loose. The light board has four wires, it looks like the front two are used for the headlight and the rear two are used to collect power from the two frame halves. I also notices one of the wires in the white plug that is inserted into the front of the PC board was loose or not inserted properly. Using a jewelers screw driver, I pushed this wire further into the plug, tighten the headlight PC board and set the locomotive back on the rails. The engine is now picking up power with the tender sitting on the ties. I'm now wondering if this intermittent pickup issue on the locomotive caused the issue? I must say I'm very disappointed Bachmann did not even replace the tender, I received the same locomotive back with the melted front truck.

The DCC sound card appears to be working normal, it would have been a simple issue of placing my sound card into a new tender, that they do show as being in stock and sending me back a working locomotive. At this point I have to wonder, are the Bachmann technicians really technicians or do they just replace a broken locomotive with a new one? I wonder, do they send the broken locomotives back to the factory to investigate what went wrong? or do they just end up in a dumpster?   

[jdcolombo]

As far as I know, Bachmann "technicians" never fix anything.  They simply substitute a loco from stock.  I've sent three locos back to Bachmann; got a new one in return every time.   In fact, I suspect there are no "technicians" - just back office folks that log in the repair request, then ask the shipping department to get a new one sent out, and that's that.

It's probably a labor issue.  I'm certain it is much cheaper for Bachmann to simply pull a loco off its shelf and send it to you than for a human being to physically investigate the problem and fix it.  When there isn't a loco on the shelf (like your K4), then they offer to substitute a different loco.  From a cost perspective, it makes perfect sense; from a customer service perspective, not so much.

You might try asking Bachmann for a new tender to replace the old one and offer to send the old tender back.  I doubt it will work, because they probably don't have internal systems set up to simply send a customer a part for a repair, rather than doing the "send a new loco" thing.   But it's worth a try.  You might accidentally get a human being that actually knows something.   Just don't hold your breath.

John C.

[peteski]

I don't see how a lack of pickup would cause any heating, smoking or melting anywhere in the model.  At least that is what I recall the problem was (without re-reading the entire thread).  What you describe is an open while the "smoke events" are caused by shorts which allow high currents to pass through the model causing the electrical components to heat up enough to melt or burn (pretty much become an electric heater).  If some wheels (or parts of the model) did not pickup electricity, that would not cause excessive current to flow anywhere. If the loco was not picking up power then the tender would still get the power to the model (but that would not have caused an excessive current which would melt anything).  Only several amps of current (much more than the model will ever need) could cause heating and melting.

[djconway]

It sure sounds as if there was a short -- did the wheel short on a frog? -- were the wheels installed properly?  I always check the diagram vs reality -- I have found several used locos that "don't run" that swapping the wheels around brought them back to life.

[Rich_S]

I don't see how a lack of pickup would cause any heating, smoking or melting anywhere in the model.  At least that is what I recall the problem was (without re-reading the entire thread).  What you describe is an open while the "smoke events" are caused by shorts which allow high currents to pass through the model causing the electrical components to heat up enough to melt or burn (pretty much become an electric heater).  If some wheels (or parts of the model) did not pickup electricity, that would not cause excessive current to flow anywhere. If the loco was not picking up power then the tender would still get the power to the model (but that would not have caused an excessive current which would melt anything).  Only several amps of current (much more than the model will ever need) could cause heating and melting.

Pete, Yes a short has to consist of opposing polarities coming in contact with each other. The only problem is, the axle that melted was on a piece of Atlas Straight track and the other tender truck was on a Atlas plastic frog on a standard custom line turnout. The locomotive did not derail or pick the switch. The locomotive was entering the turnout from the frog side with the locomotive on a straight section of track. No other locomotive I have (and to date I have 20 locomotives), have had any issues with this section of track or turnout. I'm still not 100% sure what caused the short, but those two wheels got hot enough to melt the plastic axle that joins them, but the short stopped there as the decoder nor the PC board were affected. My report above is what I found after inspecting the locomotive once it was returned to me. Could an intermittent contact cause a feedback through something else in the circuit, I'm not going to say yes, but I've seen strange feed back issues in higher voltage equipment. I've also seen manufactures like GE capture spikes for useful purposes. One example is the GE starting circuit on their locomotive. They run 64 VDC through a coil then quickly open a contractor connected to the coil and capture the current spike in a large diode (approx. 700 amp diode). Is this what happened, I'm not going to say yes, but it's possible something strange happened. All I can tell you for sure is the locomotive operated without problems for approx. 2 weeks over this same section of track and turnouts and then one day the front axle on the tender melted. Did Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter align causing me woe's, I don't know?  All I can tell you is, this is the first time I had to send a locomotive back to a manufacture and I'm pretty disappointed with the entire experience. I'm not trying to hook anyone, things happen and that's why companies have warranties, but not to be able to fix the issue then offer me something other than what I had purchased is what upsets me more than anything. To me it's like buying your dream sports car, having the car break down and the dealer telling you, we can't fix your car but we can offer you this pickup truck in exchange.   

[Mike C]

 I'd contact the repair dept and ask to speak with the supervisor . I forget her name , but she was very helpful with one of my locos . I would think if you talked to her you could get them to send you the tender they have in the parts dept .

[peteski]

I'd contact the repair dept and ask to speak with the supervisor . I forget her name , but she was very helpful with one of my locos . I would think if you talked to her you could get them to send you the tender they have in the parts dept .

I think that lady's name is Cynthia.  I also worked with her in the past.

[SkipGear]

If you haven't gotten a solution to this yet, Bachmann is advertising on their website that a second batch of K4's has arrived in stock. They should have loco's and or parts now.

[eric220]

Dang, same loco numbers... Looks like if I want more, I'll have to be ready to break out the grinder to get those numbers off the cab.

[muktown128]

Dang, same loco numbers... Looks like if I want more, I'll have to be ready to break out the grinder to get those numbers off the cab.

Bummer.  It would have been nice to have different numbers. I would have bough another or more if they had different numbers.

Scott

[peteski]

Bummer.  It would have been nice to have different numbers. I would have bough another or more if they had different numbers.

Scott

Remember, Bachmann (unlike many other N scale model manufacturers) still makes toy trains. Numbers don't matter - nobody looks at them on toys.  While some of those are pretty decent looking, I think that the toy-train-mentality still persists.

[Dave V]

Bachmann has never concerned itself with offering a wide variety of road numbers on anything.

FWIW, Microscale PRR diesel decals have a yellow-ish buff tone that matches the Bachmann lettering well enough, and if you're lucky enough to have Alkem PRR number plates, you're good to go.