@BlueComet400 posted:I had planned to give an update on this thread and thought I'd have to dig fairly deep to find it, but here it is, back on the surface.
After being referred to MTH by the selling dealer for one of the new Pacifics, I ended up dealing directly with Rich at MTH about this, and he asked me to send both of them back to him, which I did, about a month ago. They arrived back to me late last week, both with a diagnosis of a loose flywheel. With my limited knowledge of how DCS works, that still didn't make sense to me because unless I have this wrong, the puffing of smoke and chuffing are triggered by the stripes on the flywheel as they pass the flywheel sensor. The videos I posted here clearly show that the flywheel was not turning, so no stripes were going past the sensor.
Upon opening the boxes, the MEC tender sustained more damage in shipping (it had already been damaged after coming back from the selling dealer), the B&M Pacific didn't run at all in DCS mode, and barely ran in conventional. Instead of startup in neutral, it did a jackrabbit start in forward with no sounds and was unresponsive to any transformer controls other than the throttle. They are both now back at MTH, and I await my refund.
Since catching the command control bug, I have had several older locos (both MTH PS1 and Williams Crown Edition) converted to PS3 over the last 5 years, and they all run great; I have also purchased a few NOS PS-2 Pittman-equipped locos in the last few years, and they also run extremely well at all speeds, regardless of what they are pulling. If re-powering a brand-new loco (and thereby voiding its warranty) is what it takes to make it run as it should, count me out.
Well that just totally sucks, …..just out of curiosity, did you attempt to run the MEC, or was the damage too great to the tender to even bother?……I’m sorry you had a bad experience,…..
Pat
