BLI Y6b broke

[propmeup1]

I have a second one coming from a different place. Hopefully that one works like a champ.   Now to sell off my three from Rowa, Rivorossi and Concor.

[spookshow]

Mine is on its way from Hogtrainz. I am oh so excited.

-Mark

[Jbub]

Mine is on its way from Hogtrainz. I am oh so excited.

-Mark

Another F in the works maybe???

[peteski]

Another F in the works maybe???

You guys are mean - give BLI some respect!   

[spookshow]

Another F in the works maybe???

Who knows? I have a lot of BLI locos that I very much like, but I certainly haven't had much luck with them lately. Also, I am growing less and less fond of the country that makes all this stuff and am starting to question whether I should be buying any of it at all...

-Mark

[propmeup1]

If they do test run them it's not very long at all. Since my last post I looked at the length mine ran. It was 11' till the noise started. 11' was all the distance, 1/3 scale mile.  I first thought it was the drivers binding or out of quarter but when I took a very close look when the noise started I could literlly see the front drivers skipping plus the forward two sets of wheels were up off the rails.      So I suspect mine was an islolated issue, I hope.

Lets see how my second one runs when it arrives.

[myersjb3]

Received mine, # 2200, yesterday.  It runs smooth.  No complaints so far.

[propmeup1]

Ok, Y6b #2 arrived today and so far it's doing alright. With my luck I'll probably go back to the train room and crank it up to a failure.  I hope not. But in all with this one running good I can't complain. I let her go around about 20 min without a load. Then I put 50 empty hoppers on and she pulls like there is no train behind her.   I must say I love the three versions of the hooter whistle that can be changed up.  If you watch "Pillars Of Smoke In The Sky" you'll get to hear all these whistles on the Y6 class and it's just an awesome video anyway. Each engineer had his own way of working the whistle.    I'll save the good stuff for Spookshow to do his thing when he gets his.   So with that I'll say if she continues to run good I'd say BLI hit a home run.

[spookshow]

Been running mine for about 12 hours now and just had my first patented BLI "slow-down / stop / resume journey" event. Or at least I'm assuming it was the first - I haven't actually been down here for the entire 12 hours.

-Mark

[CRR Chase]

I hate to hear you had this issue.
I have three diesels from BLI two switchers and a F unit.

They are EXCELLENT models and have great sound. they are just touchy with needing clean track which all sound units are i suppose.

I really like BLI's modeling and sound quality. I do wish they were somewhat better on electrical pickup.

[spookshow]

I didn't even clean the track before I started the test, so one glitch over the course of 12 hours isn't too bad. It's when it starts doing it every 10 minutes on spotless track that I start to get crabby.

-Mark

[propmeup1]

Crabby ! You should have heard me the other night when mine took a crap a minute after I got it on the track.  You know how it is. You wait more then a year for something special , you finally get it and its not good.     Almost as bad as getting a new toy as a kid and then you screw up before you get it home and your parents take it away for a week. 

[propmeup1]

Tonight I received my replacement for the broken BLI  n scale Y6b I got a week ago. Must hand it to Train World for their fast turn around on replacing it for me, thank you.    So now I'm running a doubleheader with aux water tenders. Sweet.  BTW, no need to doublehead them because just one can tug 100 loaded hoppers up my 1.34% but two looks more realistic and it does take the heat off a single engine.

[jdcolombo]

FWIW, I have six BLI light Mikes and all of them run perfectly.  Their sound decoders suck, but I solved that by stripping out the decoder and installing an ESU LokSound in all six.

Which is why I heartily agree with the "please just make the engine and let us pick the decoder" crowd.  I vaguely recall reading a thread here on TRW that talked about BLI sending out a survey asking "why does everyone hate our decoders?" or something to that effect.  Well, the answer is simple: they suck.  At least, the first three iterations of the Paragon did; I haven't tried the Paragon 4.

But the mechanisms have all been top-notch, and the Mikes are great in the tractive-effort department.  The Y6b, of course, is a much more complicated beast with its two driver sets and articulation.   But I can't impugn the quality of the BLI mechanisms I've dealt with.

John C.

[propmeup1]

I'd say that the first Y6b is the first time a BLI mechanically was unfit.  All the rest run fine when the decoders are not crapping out. My six M1 types are doing great and all have major amounts of scale miles and real miles for that matter. 45 times around is 5280' on my line. I been running them for years.    3 Mikes, 2 pacifics and 4 T1. Did I leave any out.    I tried to quill the whistle but it's not doing much quilling but a tad.