Proto 2000 Heritage 2-8-8-2 Fixed

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Gentlemen. Walthers Proto 2k Heritage 2-8-8-2 Fixed.

I think what follows will be valuable information.  As you know my engine would not motor, but seemed to have all other functions normal.  Using the Schematic you furnished I confirmed that the motor was not getting power by jumpering 6 VDC into the appropriate connector pins.  Yup!  No motor response.  That left me no choice but to dive into the loco body.

Removing the boiler was a bear.  The cab is a snap on snap off, once you unhitch the grab irons.  Next, the real challenge is the center dome, the steam dome, which must be removed to access a screw that holds the boiler onto the weight.  That dome is a press-in on the boiler and fits so tightly that it appears to be molded on.  It isn't.  The exploded view is correct.  I removed it by pulling the whistle out of it's press fit hole and levering the dome up with a very small screw driver. This single screw holds the boiler onto the weight.

Under the boiler is a printed circuit board.  There are two shrink wrapped electrical components, which appear to be diodes.  One of them had a lead cut too short, and a resulting cold solder joint.  It probably made contact from boiler shell pressure when new, and failed as the temperature changed or the plastic relaxed.  I was able to bridge some solder onto the component, remembering to heat the joint very briefly.  This is a single sided printed circuit board, so there is little risk of causing a short.

Replaced the boiler and cab by reverse procedure, and all is O.K.

One comment.  The motor does not have wire leads.  It has two contact nodes that are pressed against by two stout brass straps that are solder terminated to the PC board. If the PC board is partially or fully removed, you must be carefull to regain the pressure on the motor nodes by the straps, before tightening the PC board hold down screw.  Both the motor contact nodes and the brass straps appear to have no corrosion protection.  I'm willing to bet this pint contact joint will be a source of trouble in some engines.

Though I'm glad to have the engine running again.  (I had to fix it due to a warranty expiration.)  I am not happy with Walthers for such poor quality control regarding electrical components.  I must say that the engine is mechanically and visually superb.  It's just very aggravating when she don't run dude.  That's a lot of money for a mantle piece.

No dealer could possibly anticipate this problem, nor should any dealer refuse to carry the product based on this one failure.

Respectfully,

Brian C. Whiton
MMR #170

Tony/Staff:

I read with interest the link on your home page regarding Brian Whiton's issue with his 2-8-8-2. With interest, as I had the same exact flaw with my first-run (when it was still Life-Like) unit.

The unit ran fine on DC, but when I finally got to install the Tsunami I ordered from you (about 2 years ago), the problem of it not running started to occur. As I had not ordered the locomotive from you, and the propulsion system was the only thing not working, I took it back to my local shop where I had purchased the unit from. We swapped tenders/locos, and as he did not have the capability to run DCC at his shop at the time, everything seemed to work ok--except the combination of my unit as a whole.

Once I got home, I discovered the same flaw the Brian did, except I used resistance (a VOM) on the NMRA plug to determine there was an open somewhere in the motor circuitry. Once I pried the shell off of the loco, and saw the lack of resistance across the component  Brian describes, I fixed mine the same way. No problems since, and with the TSU-1000 and large oval speaker combo, it sounds great.

As I didn't run this beast too much prior to the conversion, it would be hard for me to say if this was a mechanical failure of the solder joint as Brian described, or mechanical failure due to the DCC and currents involved.

Regards,
John L.